I'm a New Sierra ILS Administrator

[jcole (Julie Cole)]

Here are my notes with links from the New Sierra ILS Administrator Session on Feb 15 2024. I copied this from MS Word html, so I’m not sure how well it is going to work. Hope it will be ok!

Welcome

I think we all have different stories of how we came to be Admins. I worked in Corporate IT for many years. I was a manager when I was laid off in a reorg and decided I really didn’t want to continue being a manager, also didn’t want to upgrade my IT Admin skills and go back to being woken up in the middle of the night. I started out working in a press library which got me interested in computers and so I ended up deciding to go back to school and get my Library & Info Technology diploma and after that managed to get my position at the same College where I went to school when a long term employee retired.

Knew pretty much nothing about Libraries let alone Sierra. But I was left with a whole bunch of SQL queries from my predecessor (Beacon Award winner) and soon reached out to the community for help and they were so ready to answer all my questions.

Show of hands: How many people:

• Came from IT and had to learn about libraries
• How many are Sys Admins from another ILS
• How many people use Sierra in some other function and took on this role of Sys Admin or perhaps were even voluntold to do so

Whatever your journey you might feel a bit overwhelmed with info and you won’t learn it all today, but we can give you pointers of where to look and when you have questions we will talk about where to get some answers. I have found this community so helpful and I think you will too.

Innovative LibGuides

https://innovative.libguides.com/home

https://innovative.libguides.com/sierra/sysadmin

Sometimes info might be a bit dated, but still work (I occasionally see references to Millenium still (predecessor to Sierra)

Sierra documentation

https://documentation.iii.com/sierrahelp/Default.htm

3 different Admin programs – sierra documentation shows you which things are in which program under Sierra Administration

• Sierra Desktop Administration in SDA (Sierra Desktop Application) itself – examples
  • Print Templates (used for Print or Email)
  • Record Templates
  • Loan Rules
• Administration Application (web program)
  • Create Users or modify permissions
  • Check System Files
  • Scheduler setup
  • Create Sierra API Keys
• Admin Corner (terminal access)
  • You will need to download a Terminal program setup involved
    Note menu options are in a different place for everyone. So, you may need to look around a bit.

SQL Access

Read access only. So only issue you could create is a long running query – which you can cancel.

Even if you aren’t a big user of SQL many others have written queries that you can often copy and use as is or you may need to edit a bit to put in your own codes like location or item type or patron type

Getting Started

https://iii.rightanswers.com/portal/app/portlets/results/viewsolution.jsp?solutionid=151113256900466&page=1&position=17&q=SQL%20Access

Network Firewall Rules for Hosted Customers

https://iii.rightanswers.com/portal/app/portlets/results/viewsolution.jsp?solutionid=210621213208973&sl=&linw=

Create Lists

Own query language for getting information about records in your system (bibs, items, holdings,patrons, orders) You can query a subset of those that meet your criteria and export info to a csv file or use as an input for Global Update.

Global Update

Useful but no “undo” be sure of your change. Look at Preview Option. Once you find a setting you want to use all the time you can save to a local file for reloading and reuse. Can be saved on server or locally, but careful saving on server as it can easily be overwritten by not just you but others.

Data Exchange

Export and import MARC records, patron records. You may hear the term load profile. Innovative offers training on this as it is quite complicated and the editing of it is not fun. They are meant to be improving the editing of it to simplify. The concept is that you can load new records, and update existing records. In the load profile itself you control which fields get overwritten or added and which are protected.

Getting help

Discord

IUG Forums

The Accidental Sierra System Administrator

Program Title: Support Insights: The Accidental Sierra System Administrator Presentation Type: III Presentation Program Description: Organizational and staff changes result in inheriting temporarily or permanently the task of managing the ILS. This session will provide basic tools, tips, and best practices to the accidental Sierra system administrator. Presenter Information: Jason Boland - III Senior Customer Education Trainer IUG2023 JB Sierra Accidental Systems Librarian.pdf (1.1 MB)

Sierra Newbie Onboarding: Dos & Don'ts (Sierra)

Program Title: Sierra Newbie Onboarding: Dos & Don’ts Presentation Type: Birds of a Feather Track: System Administration ILS: Sierra Program Description: This session will provide an opportunity for new (and newish) Sierra administrators to discuss what worked and didn’t work for them when the were learning the Sierra administrative functions. The presenter hopes to share the ideas in a tip sheet that can be shared with future Sierra administrators as they are starting in their positions…

Under All categories

• Clearinghouse Repositories (Sierra)
• Conferences & Events
  • Past conferences 2022 & 2021 were Virtual, so there are some Videos in there rather than just having to follow along with a powerpoint presentation when you missed the conference – so a hint not to miss the conference!

IUG Conference

https://www.innovativeusers.org/iug_2024.php

https://iug2024.sched.com/

Sierra listserve

Request from iii in a ticket

[jcole (Julie Cole)]

And here is the saved chat session from the Forum. More useful links from everyone in there. Thanks!

15:02:42 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
I left my job as a librarian at a public library to become an ILS admin at a consortium
15:03:06 From Ann to Everyone:
I’ve both volunteered and been voluntold.
15:03:40 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
I was strongly encouraged to apply when Eeva S retired. She’s very persuasive!
15:04:43 From Jeff Campbell (he, him) to Everyone:
I started as a reference librarian but was immediately thrust into doing IT work but 26 years of my career has been in IT.
15:05:15 From cprescott to Everyone:
Overview & where to even start sounds great to me!
15:06:03 From Julie Cole to Everyone:
Discord
15:07:16 From Ann to Everyone:
Resources and training you use to solve problems, as well as learn — especially FREE as consultation with iii can get very expensive. I’ve worked for former employers who had no budget for us for training so I had to cobble together learning opportunities (not only in systems).
15:07:37 From Julie Cole to Everyone:
https://forum.innovativeusers.org/
15:09:36 From Julie Cole to Everyone:
IUG 2024 - Innovative Users Group
15:10:08 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
System Administration - Sierra - support.iii.com at Innovative Interfaces
15:10:45 From Ann to Everyone:
Those have been so useful. I wish they had been available earlier.
15:10:57 From Julie Cole to Everyone:
Support Home - Home - support.iii.com at Innovative Interfaces
15:11:15 From Julie Cole to Everyone:
System Administration - Sierra - support.iii.com at Innovative Interfaces
15:11:28 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
If you’re working with print templates on jaspersoft, the Print Template 101 and 102 libguides from UCCS is very helpful : Customizing Templates - Print Templates 101 - LibGuides at University of Colorado Colorado Springs
15:14:21 From Allison Kamm to Everyone:
just learned about loan rules today from my supervisor!
15:16:04 From Julie Cole to Everyone:
Sierra
15:17:21 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
We use SQL to create custom tableau reports and it’s great
15:17:56 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
I reference Jeremy’s GitHub often: GitHub - jmgold/SQL-Queries: Collection of SQL queries for use with Sierra ILS. Created and maintained by Jeremy Goldstein for test purposes only. Use at your own risk. Not supported by the Minuteman Library Network.
15:18:14 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
Introduction to SierraDNA
15:19:55 From Anthony Weitz to Everyone:
what was the program you use for SQL queries?
15:20:01 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
HeidiSQL
15:20:05 From Anthony Weitz to Everyone:
TY
15:20:06 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
or pgadmin 4
15:20:20 From Anthony Weitz to Everyone:
i have used pgadmin just wanted to try HeidiSQL
15:21:21 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
I mostly like Heidi because it makes browsing data in tables a bit easier than pgadmin. Just click on a table and view instead of having to preview the first x rows
15:21:43 From Anthony Weitz to Everyone:
cant wait to try it
15:21:53 From Jeff Campbell (he, him) to Everyone:
Yes, you still need the training.
15:22:27 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
They also just uploaded the full course to their training site: Load Profile Training - Load Profile Sierra and Millennium - support.iii.com at Innovative Interfaces
15:23:19 From Ann to Everyone:
Has anyone been able to use JasperSoft successfully to modify, on a consistent basis, printer receipts, etc.?
15:23:41 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
yes we use jaspersoft for hold slips and due slips
15:23:48 From Allison Kamm to Everyone:
They are also offering in-person training before the IUG conference
15:24:02 From Ann to Everyone:
And you can just…get it to work consistently?
15:24:07 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
I have a bunch of sample templates shared here GitHub - Minuteman-Library-Network/SIerra-Print-Templates: Collection of misc. print templates created in Jaspersoft Studio for use with Sierra ILS. Repo primarily contains Due slip, hold slip and paging list templates, Spine label templates can be found in a separate repo. Templates are in active use and my be updated frequently.
15:25:37 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
so there are tricks with jaspersoft. It won’t really tell you if a template will have a problem with Sierra, you kind of have to import it and try it out to see
15:25:46 From Ann to Everyone:
Sometimes there are procedures that need to be done and there really isn’t a need to have training necessarily, just good documentation, and some important things might be missing in the official documentation – as Julie just said.
15:26:16 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
also Sierra doesn’t technically support any version past 6.0, so when making templates you have to make sure to go into the preferences and put it into compatibility mode for an older version
15:26:39 From Jeff Campbell (he, him) to Everyone:
What are some of the sysadmin tasks that should be done monthly or annually that new users should be aware of?
15:26:46 From Ann to Everyone:
I just found out the HARD way that if when doing YTD rollover, if there is any error message, NOT to re-run it. There was nothing in the iii documentation to say this, nor in our internal notes. I asked iii if they could please update their information.
15:27:20 From Ann to Everyone:
Reacted to “I have a bunch of sa…” with
15:30:09 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
https://ideas.iii.com/
15:33:30 From Ann to Everyone:
Some monthly things we do, from our internal notes: “Clear the system files in the Sierra Admin app monthly to prevent the files from overwhelming the system. This this includes the System Messages, Circulation Overrides, Autonotices Log, and Link Maintenance Report.”
15:39:16 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
It had been a while since I’d looked at our system messages and when I did earlier this month, I discovered intermittent notice errors in the logs. I’ll be looking at those daily from now on…
15:41:18 From Ann to Everyone:
These might cross departments, but bibs without items attached that are older than X; old billed, lost/paid, missing, withdrawn, working on authorities. Monthly: running the Link Maintenance process over the whole database to catch any records that might have been skipped/missed in the daily process. Scoping authority records.
15:43:16 From Jeff Campbell (he, him) to Everyone:
Thanks, Ann, the link maintenance process is also a great thing to do.
15:44:01 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
I was asked this week for a list of titles where we have 15+ available copies. Is there an easy way to do this? I found a simple SQL query that I used to get a big list, which I then imported to create lists to limit down by mat’l type, audience etc. Is there an easier way?
15:44:51 From Ann to Everyone:
Judith, I found this presentation to be helpful: "Shrink your Sierra System" by Leigh Ann Duncan
15:45:20 From Ann to Everyone:
If your org has $, there is a good training from Innovative on cleaning up the system.
15:46:12 From Judith to Everyone:
Thank you
15:47:37 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
@Sarah Kasprzak SQL is probably the best method for that particular sort of search. For another query example I have this one that’s focused on that but limited to titles in a particular subject (to find things for bookclubs) SQL-Queries/Custom reports site/titles in a subject with x copies.sql at master · Minuteman-Library-Network/SQL-Queries · GitHub
15:47:59 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
Thank you
15:51:17 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
SQL for Librarians: Introduction SQL for librarians “course”
15:51:31 From Bethany Baker - Marmot to Everyone:
Free pdf with exercises
15:52:43 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
Thanks for the suggestions!
15:53:37 From Jeff Campbell (he, him) to Everyone:
I’ve dealt with 3 iterations of III products and the worst feature ever that I’ve hated the most is print templates.
15:53:45 From Ann to Everyone:
Reacted to “I’ve dealt with 3 it…” with
15:53:49 From Ann to Everyone:
Would people also like to share any books they’ve found useful?
15:53:53 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
Reacted to “Would people also li…” with
15:54:00 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
Removed a reaction from “Would people also li…”
15:54:04 From Jeremy Goldstein to Everyone:
Reacted to “I’ve dealt with 3 it…” with
15:54:23 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
Yes, I attended Jeremy’s session last conference and reviewed the slides when I finally got SQl set up a couple of weeks ago!
15:54:32 From Ann to Everyone:
I’ve read The Myth and Magic of Library Systems and as a MLIS-holder, it made me a bit salty, but the author wasn’t wrong
15:55:06 From Julie Cole to Everyone:
The Accidental Sierra System Administrator
15:56:18 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
ChatGPT is my new best friend for excel functions!
15:57:04 From Ann to Everyone:
In general for systems: Kyle Banerjee’s books are helpful - Migrating Library Data, etc, Also Data Clean-Up and Management: a practical guide for librarians; Library technology buying strategies by Marshall Breeding.
16:04:28 From Jeff Campbell (he, him) to Julie Cole(Direct Message):
Time!
16:05:10 From Sarah Kasprzak to Everyone:
Thanks for leading the discussion
16:05:16 From Anthony Weitz to Everyone:
Yes Thank you
16:05:37 From cprescott to Everyone:
Thank you
16:05:52 From Dana to Everyone:
Thanks! Good tips.
16:05:57 From Anthony Weitz to Everyone:
I will be going for my first time