The header and footer for staff pages

The RefTracker header and footer are provided on every screen so that there is always easy access to help and searching no matter what other function you might be performing.

The RefTracker header always provides the following:

Application image: The Application image (the RefTracker logo in this screen capture) can be modified to be your library’s service name logo by your System Administrator (parameter 3.29).
Current screen name: The name of the screen currently in use always displays on the left of the header.
Help icon: Clicking on the help icon provides access to the help system. Help always opens in a separate window. Help can also be accessed from the “Help and training link” on the main staff menu page. The next few sections will examine the help system in more detail.
Log on/off icon: Click to log off.

This line also provides access to functions that operate system wide such as Search including Open questions, New, Reporting and DeskStats. The functions that appear here, and in the menu lists below them, are determined by each user’s permissions.

Tooltips displaying the full function name when you place your cursor on any of these header bar icons. The tooltips disappear as soon as you move your cursor.

Your System administrator may choose to add a custom corporate header above this standard header using the headerstaff.htm file (See Customising the staff interface for details).

The RefTracker footer provides the following:

Signed on user level indicator: An image is provided as a quick indicator of the level of the signed on user (e.g. General, Regular, Administrator).
Signed on user name: The name of the user currently signed on. Clicking on this name provides an easy way to get to your My preferences!
Signed on user location: The Staff location of the user currently signed on. This will effect the default Receipt location used by the New and DeskStats functions, and can be amended by using My preferences in the Home page (also accessible by clicking on the user name here), if the staff member is assigned to (or temporarily doing work for) another Staff location.
Signed on user Availability status: An image is provided as a quick indicator of the signed on user’s current Availability status (usually green indicates “Available” and red indicates “Unavailable”). As Availability is used by other staff when considering who to allocate questions to, reference staff and above should keep their Availability status up to date (it can be amended by just clicking this image to toggle between Available and Unavailable, or by clicking on the user name shown here to be taken to the My preferences function where it can be changed).

The staff member’s chosen Locale also shows here. The Locale is set in the staff member’s My preferences>Contact details tab and controls the number, money, and date formats (dd/mm/yyyy, mm/dd/yyyy. etc.) that this user will see in their RefTracker signon.

Click the user name shown here to easily change these attributes as you will be taken to the My preferences function.
Language selector: If your RefTracker system supports more than one language, the names of each supported language will appear here. Click the language that you want to use and your RefTracker screens will redisplay in that language, until you select another language. If the selected language has multiple Locales, and more than one has been selected for support by this system, the user will be presented with the Language using their Locale and any other supported Locales for the selected language will display on this line. A user’s locale is detected for staff operators, according to the Locale selected in their My preferences, and for end users, the locale will be detected from their browser’s Locale, if that locale is supported by this system.
System administrators should contact their RefTracker support representative if they want to support other Languages or Locales.
Font size selector: No longer provided – use your Browser Zoom function instead.
[Top]: click to be taken to the top of this screen.
RefTracker software release number: The RefTracker software release number currently in use is shown, together with the RefTracker product name and a link to the Altarama corporate web site.

Your System administrator may choose to edit the layout of this footer using the footerstaff.htm file (See Customising the staff interface for details).

Exercise:

In the header, click on the Help icon to see the help for the screen that you are currently on.

In the footer, try the font size selector so that your favourite font size is saved.

Header bars: Main functions and Question action bars

The header bars appear at the top of EVERY RefTracker main window page, and provide access to all of the commonly used functions of RefTracker.

As indicated here, the header bars are:

Main functions header bar (providing access to system wide actions). For more information about the functions go to New, Search, Open requests, System (see the Administration manual), Reporting, DeskStats, Help, Home, and Logout.
Actions header bar (providing access to actions that can be undertaken in relation to a specific question). The actions that can be undertaken using this bar act on the specific question number appearing in the Question # box to the left of this bar. You can enter (or select) a specific question number in this box to change the question you are working on, or you can use the Search functions to find the appropriate question. The number of the last question that you worked on always appears in this box so that you can easily move to other Actions for that question. For more information about what each Action does, go to this help page.

To use a function on either of these bars, simply click on its name in the header bar. When you place your cursor over the header bar function some actions will display a drop down menu list of related functions. You can click on any one of the items in the drop down menu list and that will bring up the specific function that you selected.

Header bars: Intelligent menu lists

The RefTracker menu bars intelligently provide direct access to all of the functions that are applicable to the signed on user and the question they are working on, without having to display the intermediate menu screens.

When you cursor over a Main functions header bar or a Question actions header bar entry that has subsidiary screens, the subsidiary screens will appear as a drop down menu list and you can go directly to any of those functions by clicking on it in the menu list that appears. The subsidiary items may be different for different questions, according to the status of that question. For example, when a question is closed, the only menu list item that shows under Answer is Reopen, as none of the other Answer functions can be used on a closed question.

When a drop down menu list is provided, clicking on that header bar function will display the default action for that menu list (usually the top item).

When you click on New in the Main Header bar you will be shown the New question entry screen with your default form showing (as defined in your My preferences). You can then choose the form you want from that screen – or – using the intelligent menu lists, if you cursor over New, all the available request forms will show and you can directly click on the form that you want to display. All entries in the menu list structure can be clicked to view, even entries with further subsidiary menu list items (in this case you will be shown a menu of functions available at that point.

When a menu entry is followed by this icon, clicking on that menu entry will always open that function in a separate window (indicating that it is safe to use it while you are still using another RefTracker screen).

When a menu entry is followed by this icon, clicking on the form or function name in the menu list will open that form or function in the main RefTracker window, but clicking on just this “Optionally open in sub window” icon will open that form or function in a separate sub window allowing it to be used while still in another RefTracker screen.

If a menu list item has more functions underneath it, an arrow appears at the end of that line to encourage looking at the lower level items.

The functionality provided by each of the entries in these header bars will be investigated in detail in the later sections of this manual.