SCLS Technology News

Coming soon - new Guest Pass portal for MyPC

Our vendor for MyPC has developed a web-based staff Guest Pass portal to take the place of the Guest Pass application. We must move to the new portal because the old Guest Pass application is not compatible with future versions of MyPC. We have completed some pilot testing (thanks to LDI and REE for help with this!), and we are ready to roll out the new Guest Pass portal to all MyPC libraries.

Here are the details:

• Beginning on Monday, April 23rd, all libraries will switch over to using the new Guest Pass Portal
  You will be able to log into the new portal and look around before then, but printing Guest Passes will not work until the 23rd. You may also use the documentation to create a desktop shortcut before we go live with the portal.
• URL: http://mypc.scls.info/tbsportal/
• Documentation: http://www.scls.info/sites/www.scls.info/files/GuestPassPortal.pdf
• Use your MyPC staff credentials to log into the portal
• The new Guest Pass portal will replace the old Guest Pass application, and the old Guess Pass application will be unavailable starting on 4/23

Plans for MyPC in 2018

Survey results

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the recent MyPC/Papercut survey! The responses to the open-ended questions were especially helpful. We've compiled some rough results and shared them in this Google doc for anyone who's interested.

Plans for MyPC in 2018

We haven't made many changes since going live with MyPC, applying only a few quiet, behind-the-scenes upgrades to address bugs. In 2018, MyPC will be undergoing some bigger changes, outlined below. We are just beginning the preliminary planning and will share details and timelines with the list as we have them. Please invite folks at your library to sign up for the scls-timeandprint email list to stay in the loop.

New staff admin site for Guest Passes
TBS, our vendor for MyPC, has developed a staff admin portal to take the place of the Guest Pass application. Our first change in 2018 will be to install, configure, and document this new portal and then transition libraries from the standalone Guest Pass application to the staff portal. We must move to the new portal because the old Guest Pass application is not compatible with future versions of MyPC.

MyPC server upgrade
Once we're settled in to the staff admin portal, the next step will be to upgrade MyPC on our servers. This will result in some feature enhancements and bug fixes which we hope will address some of the issues mentioned in the survey feedback.

MyPC client upgrade
Once the servers are upgraded, the last step will be to upgrade the MyPC client application on library PCs.

Original photo by Charles Deluvio 🇵🇭🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Update on MyPC and Papercut

Our last site migrated to MyPC and Papercut on April 20th, so the transition is complete!

We surveyed libraries in April to find out how things went, and the responses were pretty positive. Library staff love being able to extend in-use bookings and appreciate the live connection to Koha for authentication. There are still some outstanding questions and confusion about certain topics, so Kerri and Brian are sharing short training topics with the scls-timeandprint email list during May and into June. We will continue to run the old Library Online servers for a while still so libraries that moved from Library Online print management can clear out outstanding print balances.

Questions and issues with MyPC and Papercut can be directed to the Help Desk (via phone or ticket).

SCLS tech staff would like to send a big thanks to all of the MyPC and Papercut libraries. This was a huge project and we appreciate your patience and feedback!

MyPC and Papercut progress

At the time of our last update in mid-November, 5 sites had completed the move from Library Online to MyPC (and to Papercut for the print management sites).

Is that a light I see?

2 months later, we are happy to report that by the end of January 41 libraries will have migrated and only 7 print management libraries will be left to migrate. Not too shabby... especially considering all those holidays in there!

Thanks to everyone who served as contacts for the migrations, submitted questions, and gave us feedback! This was a HUGE project with a ton of fussy details, and we are grateful for everyone's patience and help.

Reminder: If your library's website has a link to "Reserve a PC" and you've already made the move to MyPC, please don't forget to update the link to point to http://mypc.scls.info.

Moving from Library Online to MyPC

As you probably already know, SCLS is moving from Library Online to MyPC (time management) and Papercut (print management). We are happy to report that we have 4 sites up and running on both MyPC and Papercut and 1 site up and running MyPC only. Many thanks to Oregon Public Library and Madison Public Library's Meadowridge, Goodman South Madison, Hawthorne, and Central locations for taking the initial plunge with us! We've received great questions and feedback which will help make the rest of our rollouts go more smoothly. 

If your library uses Library Online, here's how you can prepare for the upcoming rollout:

• ​Read over the MyPC documentation and FAQ
• Watch the archived "MyPC Basics" webinar if you haven't already done so

For libraries that will be going live with MyPC only (no Papercut)--- last week we sent an email to each library's contact asking them to sign up for their library's "Go Live" date. In the next couple of weeks, we will be getting in touch with each library's contact person again to talk more about desired MyPC settings.

For libraries that will be going live with MyPC and Papercut---- we're already in touch with some of you to talk about plans, and the rest of you should be hearing from us soon.

November 2014 Projects report

Technology Report for 11/12/14 Technology Committee Meeting

Library Fiber Project -
• 35 libraries have had bandwidth upgrades
• 5 libraries are in a ‘holding pattern’ because DOA and AT&T are having some ‘bureaucratic issues’.
• 3 libraries as scheduled to be completed before the end of the year
• 1 library will be completed in 2015 after their new building is built

Library-MUFN – UW network engineers have completed network design plans for HAW. The design requires attaching to some City of Madison fiber so this will need to be presented to city staff for consideration.

E-commerce – On November 4, we completed final testing. Everything looks good to go. Go live is not anticipated until January, 2015 since it will take as at least 6 weeks from final testing is complete to do the final implementation. Libraries will be receiving the plan shortly.

Office 365 – All of the libraries with @scls.lib.wi.us addresses that are migrating to Office 365 through SCLS have migrated.

The last portion of this project is the migration of SCLS-hosted email lists from the SCLS email server to WiscNet. The Office 365 Team will share more information about this move as they iron out the details and timelines.

Library Online Upgrade – The Tech Team is planning for an upgrade of the Library Online servers from version 4.4 to 4.9. This will then enable us to upgrade the Library Online clients to version 4.9 which will fix a pesty bug which caused PCs to log off due to inactivity when they were actively being used. The upgrade is scheduled for November 19th after hours.

2015 SCLS Technology Plan - The technology team has been developing the technology plan for 2015. The first draft of the plan is here. 

Five Year Technology Plan for DPI - This year DPI changed the five year system technology plan to an online format and asked every library to submit a new plan. SCLS is working hard to make this a plan that we can live with four five years. We anticipate that it will be a living document which will guide the structure of our annual technology plan. The annual plans will be structured to the goals in the five year plan forward. The five year plan will be reviewed by the Technology Committee, the ILS Committee, the Administrative Council and the SCLS Board. It will also be shared at the All Director’s meeting on November 20. The draft of the five year plan is located here.

Cindy Weber moving to ILS position-- Cindy Weber will be moving into the position left open by Joanna Jordan and will be working with Heidi to support circulation. Cindy has a long history of working with the ILS staff. She currently supports Talking Tech, notices and offline circulation. Cindy also has experience with documentation and training, and of course many years of technology help desk support experience. Finally, Cindy is still the go to person for Koha reports. With all of this, it seemed like a natural fit to have Cindy work full time on the ILS. The ILS staff are excited to work with her in this new role. Of course, this means that Technology Support is losing an employee. There will be an evaluation of this vacancy, but that is another story. Cindy will slowly transition to the ILS and will be ready to work on ILS full time as of January 1, 2015.

Drupal - 22 of 41 member library websites have been migrated to Drupal. On October 15, a Drupal security vulnerability was announced which allowed unauthorized access to SCLS-hosted Drupal sites before we were able to apply a recommended update. We rolled back all sites and reapplied the update to secure all sites and eliminate the possibility of further unauthorized access. We are making plans to virtualize the server hosting Drupal sites to improve our ability to cope with this type of issue in the future. We have also added server RAM and made site and server configuration changes to mitigate sporadic issues with slow page loads.

Changes to Library Online Support--SCLS Technology Services Staff Re-organization, Phases 2 & 3

Library Online time management and print management basic support will now be handled by the Help Desk.  Cindy Weber will be taking on primary responsibility for Library Online management.  Brian Hahn will be providing routine support when you call the Help Desk. 

This change in Library Online support represents completion of half of phase 3 of the Technology Services reorganization (see blog post on phase 1).  Kerri Hilbelink is transitioning her Library Online and database authentication project responsibilities to Cindy.  Cindy and Brian will provide the basic support for both of these projects.  The Library Online transition is nearly complete; the transfer of database authentication support is still in progress, so Kerri is still your contact for that.

Kerri will be taking on project management for large deployments of PCs and will be working occasionally with the PC techs out in the field.  She will also coordinate Technology Services communication and will assist with troubleshooting more complex support issues.  Once Kerri transfers the authentication project to Brian and Cindy, she will be able to take on these new roles in full force.  This will complete phase 3 of the transition.

So, what is phase 2 you may ask?  Phase 2 was the transition of responsibility for reports from Cindy to the ILS Support team.  This has been done and Heidi has written a blog post about that change.

There will be one more phase.  This will be a movement to one help desk for all technology and ILS support (Koha).  Watch for this to happen in early spring.

If you have any questions about these changes, please contact Vicki.