Locations

This page provides system supervisors and administrators with the tools to manage the Locations used in RefTracker.

Locations can be Staff locations or Client locations (or Combined staff and client locations). Staff locations are also known as Receipt locations as they are the locations into which questions can be accepted (receipted). Client locations have a Service location associated with them, which is Staff location that looks after clients at this Client location. Questions arriving from that Client location will be receipted into the Staff location that you choose as its Service location.

Locations are used to gather statistics about where questions are coming from (Client locations) and where questions are arriving (Staff locations). They are also used to associate time zones with the people using those locations so that correspondence of dates and times can be done in the local time of the client or staff member receiving the information.

Staff locations also have opening hours associated with them so that target response times for questions arriving in a location are never set outside the working hours of the staff at that location.

Supervisors can see how the Locations have been set up, but cannot change them – only System administrator, can make changes using this screen.

Initially, all Locations (staff and client), are shown on this page, however the parameters used to obtain the currently displayed information show at the top of the screen. You can change any of these parameters to see different views.

Location type: change this to see Staff location, Client locations or all locations.
Record status: change this to see enabled, disabled, or all locations.
Enabled locations are in active use in the system.
Enabled (locked) locations are intended to be active but need some aspect of their definition corrected.
Disabled locations are not active in the system now. They can be reinstated at a later time (e.g. after completion of a building program allows staff to return) or may simply be retained so that work that was done at these locations can still be found by that location.

A default Client and Staff location must be specified in this screen – you can change it by simply clicking on another radio button in the appropriate column (Staff default or Client default), however RefTracker can usually determine an appropriate Staff and client location. Staff members specify a default location in the My preferences. In the client interface, locations can be specified using URL string parameters, or by the client location selection screen displaying (when parameter 6.1 is set to Yes). However, if no URL string parameters are provided and parameter 6.1 is set to No, the default client location will be used – until overridden by a client location selection in a Request form.

If you wish to amend the details of a location already established in this table, click the radio button next to the location you wish to amend, and then click appropriate function button. The available functions are:

New: click this button to create a new location from scratch.
Edit: click this button, or click on the location’s name, to edit the details of an existing location.
Copy: click this button to create a new location by copying the settings for an existing location.
Admin mode: click this button to make any fundamental changes to a location. All changes applicable to the selected location will display – so not all of the following options may display for every location:
– Change location type – allows the type (Staff or Client or Combined) of the location to be changed. Types determine whether staff can be associated with the location (Staff) and for client locations, what staff location looks after the people at this client location.
– Change enable/disable status – allows locations to be disabled (retained in the system but made inactive – for example disabled locations no longer appear in the list of Receipt locations in the New screen) or enabled after being disabled. You might disable a location when staff move out of it for renovations, and re-enable it when the renovations are complete and the staff return.
– Delete/merge location – allows all trace of the location to be removed by changing all references to this location to another location that you choose – this is the equivalent of merging the two locations. Note that you may prefer to disable the location rather than delete it.

INFORMATION ABOUT EACH OF THE FIELDS USED TO DEFINE LOCATIONS

Code: If entering a new location, enter a unique identifier of up to 4 alphanumeric characters for this location – this is the “Short identifier” for this location that is used in places like the Pool views screen.

Time zone: Select the time zone in which this location resides. The values available here are provided by your server’s operating system and will contain every time zone currently in use in the world, including information about whether daylight saving is in use. This information is used to report dates and time to users at this location, in their local time.

Location type: Select the type of this location – Staff if library staff work at this location. Client if only clients of the library reside at this location. Combined if the location has both library staff and clients. You must have at least one Staff and one Client location (it can be one Combined location).

Work hours start and stop: If this is a Staff location, select the time at which staff at this location start working on Questions, and the time at which they stop working on questions. These times are used to ensure that target response times for question answers are not set at time when staff will be unavailable.

Service location: If this is a Client location, select the Staff location that is responsible for providing service to clients at this location. Questions submitted form this Client location will be directed to staff at the Staff location that you choose here. If you have no direct relationship between clients at this location and staff, you could set up a staff location called something like “online service” into which all client questions are received.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE LABELS IN THIS SCREEN

The labels for the fields used in this screen are controlled by the Locations table in System/Data dictionary menu/0)System group.