Request forms – client and staff interface

This part of this manual is about designing your Request forms, so that you have a range of forms that cover all of the Request types that need to be submitted via the client interface and as New/Quick/KB new questions by staff, so that each form provides an appropriate reference interview for its type of request, and so that the questions submitted using them are appropriately processed on arrival.

A small range of Request forms are provided in each new RefTracker system, but by reviewing the forms available in the RefTracker Playground (accessible through the RefTracker support site), you will see some other form layouts that can be achieved (only limited by your imagination – or nearly so anyway! Learn about what is achievable over the upcoming sections.)

Some forms are set up for both staff and clients to use, and will be identical for each audience (except that the Attach files field does not show for staff and the Request type field will not show for staff if the form has been set to “Classify on request”.

However, libraries often provide simple forms with few fields to fill out for clients to use, so that clients are not frightened by overly complex forms. However for staff, more comprehensive versions of the same forms are often provided.  The staff version of the form will provide all fields that a staff member might need to use for that particular Request type, on the understanding that staff will be happy to ignore fields not applicable to any particular question they might be entering. The more information that is entered, the better the statistics that can be generated and the better the communication between staff!