How Do I Send a Customized Letter to Users With Active Loans?
Answer
This FAQ details how to send a customized email to users with active loans in Alma. It is based on the following presentation from Yoel Kortick at Ex Libris.
How to send a customized letter to all users that have an item on loan
There are six steps needed to send a custom email to users who have active loans.
- Configure a User Notification Type
- Edit the User Notifications Letter labels
- Edit the User Notifications Letter template
- Create Analytics report of users to receive customized email
- Create an Itemized Set of Users
- Run the Update/Notify Users job
To do this work, you will need the following roles:
- User Administrator (step 1, 5, & 6)
- Letter Administrator (steps 2 & 3)
- Design Analytics (step 4)
Note: An earlier version of this FAQ stated that you need to change the name of the "Primary ID" column to "USERNSAME" when you're creating the Analytics report. This is no longer necessary per a May 2021 email from Yoel Kortick at Ex Libris.
Configure a User Notification Type
1. Go to Configuration | User Management | General | User Notification Types
2. Click Add Row, enter "ACTIVE_LOAN_EMAIL" into the Code field, enter "Active Loan Email" into the Description field, change the Default Value field to No, click the Add Row button, and then click the Customize button.
Note: You do not have to use Code and Description listed above. You can configure any values you wish.
Edit the User Notifications Letter Labels
1. Go to Configuration | General | Letters | Letters Configuration
2. Make sure the User Notifications Letter is enabled, click the ellipsis next to that letter, and then click Edit.
3. Click the Labels button.
4. Add the text you would like to appear in the email to the empty Line_3, Line_4, Line_5, etc. labels by clicking on the ellipsis next to each label, clicking Customize, and then editing that label's description. Each label can accommodate several lines of text, and you can customize as many labels as you wish. Once you have finished customizing those labels, click Save.
Edit the User Notifications Letter Template
Note: If you have already edited the User Notification Letter's template, we recommend you copy that template and save it in a text file before making any additional changes. If you end up needing to revert to the default template for any reason, you will lose your previous changes if you do not save them.
1. Go to Configuration | General | Letters | Letters Configuration, click the ellipsis next to the User Notification Letter (letter #128), and then click Edit.
2. Expand the XSL section of the main letter editing page by clicking the Full Screen icon.
3. Scroll down to the body of the letter (i.e. the code immediately after <div class="messageBody">), copy the code highlighted in the image below, and paste that copied code immediately after the </table> tag.
4. In the code you copied and pasted, change "NOTIFY_PASSWORD_CHANGE" to "ACTIVE_LOAN_EMAIL" (or whatever Code value you chose when you configured the User Notification Type), and delete "<xsl:value-of select="notification_data/temp_password" />".
5. In the code you copied and pasted, change Line_1 and Line_2 to Line_3 and Line_4. If you configured the Line_5 label, copy the code within the <td> tags, paste it below the Line_4 code, and change Line_4 to Line_5. Repeat that step as many times as necessary. If you only configured a label for Line_3, you can delete the unneeded code for Line_2.
6. Once you have finished editing the letter template, click the Save button.
Create an Analytics Report of Users to Receive Customized Email
1. Go to Analytics | Design Analytics. A new window will open.
2. Click Create, and then click Analysis. The Select Subject Area menu will appear.
3. Click Fulfillment.
4. Click on the Loan Details folder in the menu on the left, and then double click on the "Loan Status" column (you may need to scroll down to see it). If you wish to limit the report to only users with active resource sharing loans, also double click the "Is Resource Sharing Borrowing Request Loan" column. These columns will appear in the Selected Columns area once you double click them.
5. To limit the report to active loans, click the gear icon next to the Loan Status column and then click Filter. The New Filter window will open.
6. Click on the down area next to the Value field, check the box for "Active", and then click the OK button. If you wish to limit the report to resource sharing loans, you can use this same procedure to limit the Is Resource Sharing Borrowing Loan column to "Yes".
7. If you wish to limit the report by due date, click on the Due Date folder in the menu on the left, and then double click on the "Due Date" column. If you do not wish to limit the report by due date, skip ahead to step 11.
8. Click the gear icon next to the Due Date column and then click Filter. The New Filter window will open.
9. Change the Operator value to "is less than or equal to". This will allow you to limit the report to items due before a specific date. You can select "is between" if you wish to specify a due date range.
10. Enter the due date you wish to filter by to the Value column (make sure it's formatted mm/dd/yyyy) and then click OK.
11. Click on the Borrower Details folder in the menu on the left, and then double click on the "Primary Identifier" column (you may need to scroll down to see it).
12. Click the gear button for the User Primary Identifier column and then click the Column Properties link.
13. Click the Column Format tab, check the Custom Headings box, change the Column Heading value to "USERNAME", and then click the OK button.
14. Move the "Primary Identifier" column to the beginning of the report by clicking on that column, dragging it all the way to the left, and then releasing it.
15. Click the Save button, give the report a name (ex. Users with Active Loans), select /Shared Folders/YOUR INSTITUTION/Reports in the Folder menu on the left, and then click OK.
Create an Itemized Set of Users
Note: Itemized sets are not updated as the results of the Analytics reports they're based on change. You will need to create a new itemized set of users every time you wish to send a custom email to users.
1. Go to Admin | Manage Jobs and Sets | Manage Sets.
2. Click Add Set and then click Itemized. The Set Details page will open.
3. In the General Information section, enter a name for the set into the Set Name field (ex. Users with Active Loans), select "User" from the Set Content Type dropdown, change the Private setting to "No", make sure the Status value is "Active", and make sure the Content Origin value is "Institution Only".
4. In the Add Contents from File to Set section, click the From Analytics button, select "YOUR INSTITUTION/Reports" from the Analytics Report dropdown, select the report you previously created from the Name field, and then click Save. A job will run to create the set.
Run the Update/Notify Users Job
1. Go to Admin | Manage Jobs and Sets | Run Job. The Run a Job - Select Job to Run page will open.
2. Select "User" from the Content Type dropdown, click the button next to the Update/Notify Users job, and then click Next.
3. Click the button next to the set you previously created and then click Next.
4. Check the box next to Send Notification to User. DO NOT CHECK ANY OTHER BOXES. Select the User Notification Type you previously configured from the Send Notification to User dropdown and then click Next.
5. Click the Submit button. Once the confirmation window appears, click Confirm. The Update/Notify Users job will run, and the User Notification Letter will be sent to each user in the set.
