Greetings, Polaris Community! Apologies, this November edition is coming to you a bit late. Below are the key updates and discussions from the PIAC meeting on November 24, 2025.
Idea Exchange Ideas & Comments Flagged as SPAM
The committee asked whether there is a process for checking SPAM in Idea Exchange, after multiple users reported that ideas & comments sometimes fail to post or disappear.
Clarivate confirmed that there is a process where the Product Management team regularly checks when ideas have been marked as SPAM, but that doesn’t seem to work as reliably for finding comments marked as SPAM.
Clarivate is actively investigating with the Idea Exchange provider (UserVoice) why legitimate ideas & comments are being flagged. Libraries who believe their content is being incorrectly filtered are encouraged to contact a Product Manager with specific examples so the team can validate and release comments more quickly. You can find the list of Product Managers at the bottom of https://ideas.iii.com/
PIAC recommends refreshing your browser after submitting any ideas or comments to make sure they “stick” as sometimes a post will initially go through but then upon refresh be flagged and hidden from the system.
Auditing / Change-Tracking in Polaris
PIAC revisited longstanding interest in adding auditing features within Polaris. Libraries want a way to track changes to patron accounts, bibliographic records, and item records—including when records with Personally Identifiable Information (PII) are viewed. Members emphasized that audit trails could help staff training and accountability, and are also important for local compliance and PII-related concerns.
Clarivate shared that there is nothing specific on the current roadmap for a full auditing system. Some limited tracking may become possible as parity work continues between the desktop staff client and PolarisAdmin tools, but a granular, system-wide audit log would be a major development effort.
Discussion highlighted several nuances:
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Libraries are particularly concerned about PII access and edits (e.g., who viewed/exported patron data, who changed a fee, or who modified a patron code).
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PIAC acknowledged that implementing robust auditing could be a large project and may compete with other roadmap priorities.
Polaris customers are encouraged to keep voting, commenting and submitting new ideas on Idea Exchange. Here is sample of some of the ideas you could consider contributing to:
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Prevent Modification Date Setting on New Bib Records – Innovate with us
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Report for staff user or workstation transactions – Innovate with us
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Comprehensive Audit Trail for System Administration Changes – Innovate with us
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More granularity in record set access, modification, and deletion – Innovate with us
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Add last patron modification date and modifier name to Patron Reporting – Innovate with us
Leap Read-Only Access Workflow
The committee re-raised concerns about read-only record access in Leap. In the desktop client, users with read-only permissions could open records directly in view mode. In Leap, however, those users first get an override prompt, must confusingly cancel it, and only then can view the record. Leap currently assumes that opening a record implies intent to edit, which isn’t always true.
PIAC members worried this extra step may slow workflows and could discourage some libraries from fully moving to Leap. Clarivate and PIAC discussed possible remedies, including:
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Adjusting button labels or adding clearer on-screen messaging.
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Exploring whether a configurable admin setting could control the behavior of providing any Overrides.
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Considering the complexity introduced by overrides, especially in SSO environments where 3rd party Identity Providers may also limit the override capability, potentially removing support for certain overrides altogether in Leap, which would mean the records would open directly either in view-only or edit mode.
Clarivate indicated a small UI/label change might be feasible sooner (such as wording or label updates), while deeper permission/override logic would need more analysis due to its interaction with authentication and security models. Libraries should add feedback to: Allow staff to view read-only records without needing to cancel the override pop-up – Innovate with us
That wraps up the November discussion items. It’s always a good idea to give thanks and this month we’re thankful to Polaris IUG Community for your engagement.
As always, PIAC appreciates your feedback and encourages libraries to keep sharing examples and use cases through the IUG Forum, Polaris Roadmap, and Idea Exchange.