November News from PIAC (Polaris Innovative Advisory Committee)
IdeaLab Always Open graduated ideas/Challenge Winners
Several Idea Lab items are listed as “upcoming” in product board. PIAC asked whether these ideas are still under consideration for development. Sam Quell shared that all items in the product board are still planned for development. Transitioning acquisitions to Leap took longer than expected and pushed back some development priorities. Some timeline commitments have slipped. However, if an item is listed in product board, it will be folded into an upcoming release.
PIAC also asked about ideas marked as “future possibilities” in Idea Lab. Sam Quell shared that there are over 70 items in Idea Lab under future possibilities. Innovative and the Idea Lab team are considering an Idea Lab challenge to help prioritize these.
Supportal target response times
Jesse Jensen reviewed support’s target response times for each ticket urgency level. They are:
- System down: Response time within an hour to acknowledge receipt of ticket and confirm support is looking at it. The entire support team is alerted via email when a ticket is opened with system down urgency.
- Critical: Response time within 2 hours.
- High: Response time within 2 business days
- Medium/Low: response time within 4 business days
If you have an emergency, open a ticket marked as system down first. Call support (1-877-857-1978) after opening the ticket. Whoever answers will connect you to the staff member working on the system down ticket. This will allow you to provide additional information and for support to ask any follow-up questions.
If you don’t receive a response to a non-urgent ticket within the above time frames, add a reply to the ticket to send a nudge. If a nudge doesn’t work, send an email to supportescalation@iii.com. Those emails will go to Jesse, Bruce and other support managers listed here. Escalation is not a bad thing! It can serve as a gentle nudge or reminder that a ticket needs to be looked at. Don’t hesitate to use it for non-urgent tickets.
Web SA Availability for hosted customers
PIAC asked when Web SA will be available for hosted customers. Sam Quell shared that when they first got started with web SA, they received feedback that configuring access through ADFS was undesirable. They switched to using a direct connection to Azure AD. Innovative is currently working with one hosted early adopter to apply and test a patch. If all goes smoothly, any hosted library that has Azure AD can be set up with Web SA. If there are libraries that don’t have Azure AD and would like to use ADFS, let Samantha know. CloudOps does not want to install ADFS for every hosted customer, but can do so on a customer-by-customer basis.
MFA in Leap
PIAC asked what new development for MFA is coming in 7.4. Sam Quell said that there might not be any new development in Polaris 7.4, pending testing currently taking place with a hosted customer. Once a library connects an identity provider to Leap, MFA should work seamlessly.
PIAC asked if MFA will be possible for both hosted customers and for consortia using difference authentication methods. Sam said that there should not be a difference between hosted and non-hosted customers as long as Leap is connected to the customer’s IDP. When it comes to consortia, there is no support for multiple identity providers at this time. It is on the list for development.
LX Starter
PIAC asked for an update on when will Polaris customers will be able to get LX Starter.
Four development partners are currently testing LX Starter for Polaris 7.3. One of them is currently using LX Starter for all notices. The others are currently in different stages of testing. Innovative will be rolling out LX Starter to existing customers in stages. The current criteria for LX Starter is:
- On Polaris 7.3
- Single branding for all libraries/branches
- Sending notices in one language
Innovative has been reaching out to those libraries that meet the above criteria. You will receive an email from iii when you are ready to be onboarded. Reach out to your account manager to make sure they know you are interested in moving to LX Starter.
PIAC asked if a library needed to be using LX Starter to use other Vega modules like Promote and Program. Some of the setup for those modules might need to be done in LX Starter, but you do not need to send notices through LX Starter to use Promote or Program.
Hosted Email and Text Notices
Libraries that were caught up in the outage are continuing to see sporadic problems with message failures. PIAC asked what Innovative is doing to resolve these.
Cloudops is aware that are persisting issues with notice delivery. When the IP address of the mail servers changed, they need to establish a new reputation. CloudOps is working to send communication out regarding proper configuration of SPF records. Libraries will need to get those cleaned up in order the help improve the IP reputation and reduce the likelihood that notices will be blocked.
In the meantime, if you see a spike in delivery issues for text or email notices, open a ticket and mark it as high priority. It is helpful to include 2 or 3 examples of emails or numbers that received a bounce back message so CloudOps can track it through the logs.
Communications Regarding Hosted Outages
Jennifer is working with Cloud Ops to improve current processes with current tools. Cloud Ops is also looking at Ex Libris tools available. The end goal is a status page to communicate outages and maintenance, but they do not have an ETA for when that will be ready to implement.
In support of the post-first mentality discussed last month, Innovative has revised their supportal templates to allow staff to push out updates to customers faster. They’ve communicated the post-first mentality internally with support and cloud ops staff so that everyone is on the same page.
Staffing Update
Hilary Newman will be leaving Clarivate by the end of the year. Jed Gilmore, currently of Proquest, will be the new leader for support. He will join PIAC at their next meeting in January. PIAC thanks Hilary for her many years of support and involvement with PIAC!
If you have questions, concerns, frustrations, praise, suggestions, PIAC is here to represent you to Innovative. Please feel free to reach out to Debra (dwischmeyer@ccslib.org) or any PIAC member.
November 2022 News from PIAC.pdf (133.9 KB)