Introduction

We use a third-party product called i-tiva message to transmit notices by telephone. This is supplied by a company called Talkingtech. You can find out more about i-tiva message and about the company themselves at http://www.talkingtech.com/.

A FAQ might be appropriate here.

Q. I want to transmit notices via telephone. Do I have to use i-tiva message software?

A. Yes. You’ll need to buy the software from Talkingtech and install it.

An outline of how it works

The process is something like this.

Set up the notice parameters for telephone.
Set up Use telephone interface for notices in the borrower categories and/or specify in the borrower's registration details whether notices are to be delivered via telephone.
Specify whether notices are to be delivered via telephone in the borrower's registration details
Every night we run a Windows scheduled task to transmit the circulation notices. This will transmit notices by mail, e-mail, SMS or telephone as appropriate. How a particular notices is transmitted depends on the settings in the notice policy, borrower category and borrower registration details.
The notices to be transmitted via telephone are recorded in a file called letters.txt. This file is ftp’d to an Import Folder on the i-tiva message PC.
The i-tiva message software polls the Import Folder every 15 minutes or so. It imports the letters.txt file, makes an archive copy and then deletes letters.txt from the Import Folder. The library can arrange a suitable time for the import with Talkingtech. For example, you might ask for the file to be imported between 4am – 11am — i.e. sometime after the transmit task has finished.
At a set time, the i-tiva message software runs a “campaign”, i.e. it tries to call the borrowers in the letters.txt file.
Details of any calls that fail are saved in a file called rejected.txt. This file is saved to the Import Folder.
The next time we run the scheduled task to transmit the circulation notices, Spydus first checks the rejected.txt file and creates a mail notices for these borrowers. Then it deletes the rejected.txt file.
Then it’s back to step 4 and so it goes on.

Types of notice that can be transmitted via telephone

There are three types of notice that can be transmitted via telephone.

Loan recalled (LR).
Overdue loan (O).
Reservation available (V).

About the letters.txt file: spec A

Here’s a simple example to show the format of the letters.txt file is like this. In this example we’re using the “A” protocol.

"B060428","8676 4400","OVERDUE01","WAM","Don Benn","1"

"B060428","8676 4400","RESERVE01","JAN","Don Benn","2"

"B060420","1234 5678","OVERDUE01","WAM","Kate Jay","3"

"B060420","1234 5678","OVERDUE02","WAM","Kate Jay","1"

The first column is the borrower’s barcode number:

B060428

Then the borrower’s telephone number:

8676 4400

Then the type of notice and level. In the example below it’s a second level overdue notice.

OVERDUE02

Then the location code. For overdue and recall notices this is the borrower’s home location. For reservation notices this is the pickup location. For example:

WAM

Then the borrower’s name:

Don Benn

And finally the number of notices. In the example below there are three first level overdue notices.

"B060420","1234 5678","OVERDUE01","WAM","Kate Jay","3"

The i-tiva message software consolidates the calls for one borrower, so even though the borrower might appear more than once in the letters.txt file, he or she will only get one call.

About the letters.txt file: spec C

In this example we’re using the “C” protocol.

"V","","2","1","B1506","","Terence","Cholmondsley","8676 4400","","DEFAULT","BRI","BRIGHT LIBRARY","005531771","07/08/2015","The broker","3925262]4813364"

Field	Description	Comments
1	Media type	e.g. “V” for “voice over land line”.
2	Language
3	Notice type	e.g. “2” for hold availability.
4	Notification level	e.g. 1 for first, 2 for second and so on.
5	Borrower number	e.g. B1506
6	Borrower title
7	Borrower's first name	e.g. Terence
8	Borrower's surname	e.g. Cholmondsley
9	Telephone number	e.g. 8676 4400
10	Email address
11	Institution code	e.g. DEFAULT
12	Branch code	e.g. BRI
13	Branch name	e.g. BRIGHT LIBRARY
14	Item barcode	e.g. 005531771
15	Due date	e.g. 07/08/2015
16	Item title	e.g. The Broker
17	Transaction ID	e.g. 3925262]4813364

About the rejected.txt file

For spec A the format of the rejected.txt file is the same as for letters.txt (see above).

For spec C the format of the rejected.txt file is:

First column shows the borrower's IRN and the notice IRN, separated by "]".
Second column shows the status "FAIL".

For example:

"8110060]65119426","FAIL"

"8157056]65119534","FAIL"

"8157056]65119535","FAIL"

We keep an xml file of the previous run of telephone notices in a file called notice.csvprevious.run.xml. This is stored in the Temp data file folder you specified under Telephone in the notice parameters.

The next time we run the scheduled task to transmit the circulation notices, Spydus first checks the rejected.txt file to find the borrowers that couldn’t reach by phone. Then we get details of the borrowers and notices from notice.csvprevious.run.xml, and create pdf notices for those borrowers. You can then print these notices and mail them.

If you look in the report.txt file it’s easy to see the rejected notices from the previous run that we’ve retransmitted by mail. They’re at the start of the file.

In the example below you can see that there were three borrowers that couldn’t be reached by phone. These notices have been retransmitted as speedimailer notices. You can tell that because the print format is ‘S’.

"IRN", "BORROWER ID", "SUCCESS", "COMMENTS"

"114295","C123D","No","Talktech fail. Reposting as mail."

"114295","C123D","Yes", "Successfully generated notices for delivery method 'M' and print format 'S'."

"114340","B101","No","Talktech fail. Reposting as mail."

"114340","B101","Yes", "Successfully generated notices for delivery method 'M' and print format 'S'."

"114346","B183","No","Talktech fail. Reposting as mail."

"114346","B183","Yes", "Successfully generated notices for delivery method 'M' and print format 'S'."

"114049","B989","Yes", "Successfully generated notices for delivery method 'M' and print format 'N'."

"114067","C456D","Yes", "Successfully generated notices for delivery method 'TEL' and print format 'N'."

"114196","C101D","Yes", "Successfully generated notices for delivery method 'M' and print format 'N'."

When you're testing

Here’s a brief guide to how you might test.

Set up some borrowers with telephone numbers. You might try using different telephone numbers, e.g. for some borrowers use their home number and for others use their mobile number. Then you can check that the correct number appears in the letters.txt file.
Set up some borrower categories so that notices are sent via telephone. You might try setting Use telephone interface for notices to Y for some categories and A for others.
Create some notices for the three different types that we transmit by telephone: loan recalled, overdue loan and reservation available
Run the scheduled task to generate and transmit the notices. Actually, it might be better to simply generate the notices using the scheduled task, and then transmit the notices manually. That way you can choose to transmit a particular type of notice, or re-transmit notices again. This can come in handy when you’re testing.
Check that the letters.txt file is created and that it has the borrowers you expected to see.
You can check the reports.txt file too to see all looks well.
Use the letters.txt file to create a rejected.txt file. Then try generating and transmitting the notices again, and check that pdf notices are created for the borrowers in the rejected.txt file.
At this point you might get Talkingtech involved. Give them a call, tell them you’re testing your telephone notices, and get them to poll for the letters.txt file.

In the testing stage, Talkingtech won’t actually run a “campaign”, i.e. they won’t actually call the borrowers in the letters.txt file. Since we’re only testing, the important thing it to make sure that the letters.txt file is getting created, that Talkingtech can import this file, and that they can send back a rejected.txt file.