Over the last few weeks the Communico Team has been working hard to develop, implement and support tools that help our library's through these uncharted waters. Initially these were utility tools to manage room reservations and events. Information regarding these tools is available here or by reaching out to customersuccess@communico.us.
I am pleased to report we are shifting focus to develop enhancements that allow you to continue to connect and engage with patrons from a (social) distance.
The first update is our remote library card sign up feature which is available for all Communico customers using Polaris, Sierra, Millennium, Symphony or Horizon ILS systems.
This feature is available for free to all customers. The functionality will be added as a widget to Create, our CMS, so customers whose websites are built on a third-party CMS may easily insert it into their existing webpages.
How does it work?
New patrons may register on your website using a form that will request their name, address, email, phone, pin and date-of-birth. By default, we will only allow registrations from US or Canadian based IP addresses. The form will use an API to communicate with your ILS and immediately create a patron record, allowing them to start consuming your digital content right away. The patron will also receive a confirmation email with a copy of their digital library card and a welcome message. If you have Engage, our patron app, the email will also contain links to the app store(s) so they may download it.
Once we have created this web page it will have a static URL of your choosing and can then be used in your marketing and email campaigns. You will also be able to update your email templates in Communico so that your notification emails for events and room bookings include this link. The metadata of this page will also be indexable by the major search engines to make it easy for people to find.
For libraries who have purchased Engage, our patron app, the functionality will be the same just completed intuitively on the mobile device from within your library's app.
Brilliant – How do we implement?
The Communico Team will implement this feature on your behalf, however there is information we will require from your account administrator in order to get this completed.
Please contact your Customer Success Manager or support@communico.us to obtain an Implementation Form that requests all of the information we need.
In the meantime, please begin to compile the following information/answers we will need. You will then enter this on the form which we will provide to you.
Your Customer Success Manager will be able to give you an Implementation Form with all of the required fields on and instructions on how to complete.