Overview of generating reports and notices via Reporter
- Article Type: General
- Product: Voyager
Question
High-level overview of process for producing reports and notices in Reporter?
Answer
The Reporter client works with the Voyager server to generate the Circulation notices (Overdue, Item Available, Fines/Fees, Courtesy notices, etc.), some pre-packaged Circulation reports (such as the Hold-Shelf Expired, Item Related Exception, and Patron Related Exception reports), as well as some pre-packaged Cataloging and Acquisitions reports and documents (Purchase Orders, Cancellation Notices, etc.) and Media Scheduling reports and notices (if this client is in use).
Reporter Set-Up
- Every library staff member who has a login/username for any Voyager module (Circulation, Cataloging, Acquisitions, System Administration, etc...) can log into the Reporter client.
- Library staff members can run the Reporter client from any computer that has the Voyager Reporter client installed, a printer attached, and Microsoft Access Installed.
- Voyager Reporter must have access to a printer to run. This can be either an actual printer, or a virtual printer.
- Before you run Reporter the first time, double-check that the E-Mail stanza of the voyager.INI file on your PC is correctly configured.
- The first time you log into the Reporter client on a computer, a screen will prompt you to select the location of Microsoft Access that is locally installed on your computer (see Chapter 3 of "Installation and Upgrade Requirements" for information about what versions of Microsoft Access are supported).
- The first time you log into Voyager Reporter go to the File Menu> Preferences> Global Tab> Processing Location and double-check that the correct Processing Location is selected (Circulation location for Circulation notices/reports, Cataloging location for Cataloging notices/reports, or Acquisitions location for Acquisitions notices/reports).
- The "Print Locations" set up in the Voyager System Administration client are used as the "Processing Locations" in Voyager Reporter. Voyager Reporter will remember the default Print Location (aka Processing Location) preference on the computer, but you can switch between Print Locations (if you need to) by going to the File Menu> Preferences> Global Tab> and change the Processing Location in the dropdown.
- When you log into the Reporter client, click on the Reports/Notices Tab for your preferred Voyager client (Circulation, Cataloging, Acquisitions, or Media Scheduling).
- Notice how the “Process [Client Name] Reports/Notices” checkbox is checked for all clients by default.
- If this checkbox is checked, Voyager Reporter will check for notices or reports for that Voyager client that stored for your selected “Processing Location”.
- Look beneath the “Process [Client Name] Notices/Reports” checkbox for two separate checkboxes for “Process Reports” and “Process Notices”. These checkboxes determine which data will be pulled from the server.
- Even if the “Process Reports/Notices” checkbox is checked for all four clients, when you click the "Build Notices/Reports" button at the bottom of the screen, Reporter will likely ONLY print notices/reports which make sense for the print location you’ve chosen (Circulation print location- Circulation notices/reports; Cataloging print location/ Cataloging reports/notices).
- Voyager Reporter contains functionality which allows you to archive the notices/reports that were processed on your computer, ostensibly so that you could re-run a batch of successfully processed notices/reports in the future if needed.
Daily Reporter Workflow
- Run batch jobs on the server.
Examples:- add Pcircjob -j12 to crontab for user voyager
- cd /m1/voyager/xxxdb/sbin ./Pacqjob -j2
- WebAdmin > {client} Jobs > {Select job and fill in parameters}
- When batch job is complete, an input file (*.inp) will be available for processing. File is written to /m1/voyager/xxxdb/rpt
- Open Reporter and log in.
- File > Preferences > Processing Locations - select a processing location that matches the print location code for the *.inp file to be processed.
Example:- Print Location code: CIRC
- Print Location name: Circulation Processing Location
- File produced in /m1/voyager/xxxdb/rpt: crcnotes.CIRC.inp
- In Reporter, make sure Circulation Processing Location is selected to process crcnotes.CIRC.inp
- Navigate the tabs and check the boxes for the type of notices/reports to be processed.
- Click Build Notices/Reports. This prepares selected notices and reports for printing and/or emailing.
- Click Run Reports/Notices. This prints and/or emails the prepared notices and reports.
Additional Information
Support recommends you run your batch jobs daily and build/process reports and notices each day the Library is open.
If you receive errors or messages at any of the steps above, try searching this Knowledge Center for the exact message you receive to see if a solution has already been published.
Some common issues:
- Clicking "Build" produces "No reports to process" or "No notices to process."
- No notices to process when there are circulation notices in the inp file; file is archived
- REP: Notices are not processed when patron last name is longer than 30 characters
- How to reprocess Reporter notices
- How to update email server information for sending notices?
- How to change the path to MS Access used by Reporter
Open a Case with Support if you do not find a solution to the issue.
- Article last edited: 20-Jul-2020