autocirc

Automated circulation notices for ExLibris' Voyager ILS.

License

Please see the LICENSE file for details on the license of use.

Purpose

This program is used for automating the circulation notices from ExLibris' Voyager.

Voyager normally requires a client-server program, Reporter, to be run manually, to generate and email patron circulation notices, and to print notices for those without email addresses. This program replaces this process, with a python program, that can be set to run in cron automatically. This means notices can go out when your library is closed, no need to tie up staff time, etc.

The program generates these notices from the notices file generated automatically by the circjobs cronjob. Thus, this program should run after circjobs is run.

Requirements

Ex Libris Voyager:

It was tested on Voyager 9.1, but should be compatible with most other versions, although the dictionary parsing may need to trim off a few fields for earlier versions.

Python:

Tested on 2.7, but should work on earlier versions, and should be able to run on 3+ with only minor modifications.

Python Libraries:

• csv
• time
• email
• smtplib
• re
• os
• cx_Oracle

Configuration

Almost all configuration options that would need to be changed are in the modules within the cfg_ac directory. Be sure to look into and configure each of these files.

ac_doctempl:

This is used for templates for RTF documents generated when patrons lack email addresses, but have notices. For these notices, postal address information is retrieved from the notices file.

ac_emails:

This is used for deciding who gets which alerts, such as a summary of the run, a csv list of the run, a csv list of just ILL related items, RTF files that are to be printed for patrons that are missing email addresses, etc.

NOTE: the overideEmail address is special. If set to any value, it overrides all email addresses configured in this file, as well as all patron email addresses read from the notices file. It is recommended you set this for your first runs to your own email address to allow for testing before use in full production. Also, this variable being set also overrides the normal renaming of the notices file.

ac_emailtmpl:

Templates used to format the emails sent to patrons.

ac_files:

File locations. You'll want to edit at least the notices file location. To mimic the function of the Reporter client, after a run, the notices file is renamed to append the current day and time. Also note, if the overideEmail variable is set in ac_emails, this renaming function is not performed.

ac_misc:

Remaining variables, such as a read-only database user/password.

Author:

Bruce A. Orcutt (@cherveny)
Senior Systems Analyst
University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries
[email protected]

Can't guarantee an immediate response to questions, but will do my best to respond to configuration questions, etc.