Thanks to everyone that attended the preparing for Year-End in Sierra session.
There was some good sharing about what people typically do and how they do it. As a moderator I was happy to learn a lot too. I also appreciate those who come but don’t necessarily text in the chat or speak up. Everyone can get some pointers about where to look for things, but I also encourage you that when you do feel comfortable please do go ahead and speak up, either in the Zoom forums, IUG forums or the Discord. If you have a question then others may have it too and for those who know the answers it can feel good to give back. This community can be so helpful.
Now, I call this a Summary, but brevity is not my strong suit 
So what did we talk about?
A quick poll of those who weighed in revealed it was mainly ILS Admins on the call. And we focused more on some of the regular cleanup tasks that we do, rather than reporting or fiscal close tasks (including those that may happen more frequently than annually).
Sierra Training on Year End Tasks
I pointed out a few resources on the Innovative Training site:
[System Administration - Sierra - support.iii.com at Innovative Interfaces](https://Sierra Innovative SysAdmin Training)
On the SysAdmin Tab under Checklists is a video by Michael McClelland (System Administration/Technical Services Year End Checklist). Michael is an extremely knowledgeable detail-oriented individual, so there is a lot of good info there. It’s an hour long so you may want to note the time you finish at and go through it a little bit at a time.
Sierra Training on YTDCirc and LYRCIRC field updates
If you click on the Circulation Tab and scroll down to the Statistics and Item Records Management Box there is a document on Updating YTDCirc and LYRCIRC Fields FAQ. I didn’t even know this needed doing until I saw the fix as an idea as part of MEEP voting. Follow it on the product board here: https://portal.productboard.com/iii/6-innovative-product-status-board-new/tabs/22-sierra The fix will be in Sierra 6.4 which will be coming in Q2 2025, so depending on when your year-end is and your upgrade path to new versions you may still need to do this for a bit.
A note from one of our participants about this process
“Just a note on rolling over stats from one year to the next: if you get any kind of error when doing it, immediately stop and contact Innovative. We learned that one the hard way!”
That’s helpful!
Clearing Lost & Paid items
People do this at different intervals and gather data in different ways. One participant used SQL to query based on last updated date and put entries in the Notes field to track. Another suggested it was a lot easier to do queries based on the last_status_update now available in Sierra 6.1 (Keep in mind this field will only be updated AFTER you upgrade to 6.1 and won’t know about previous status updates prior to that date.)
Deleting order records
Someone asked for advice on deleting these. Some seemed to delete if 2 years old. Someone mentioned the recent ability to Batch Cancel order records released in Sierra 6.2 helped with this process
Circulation related cleanup
Someone mentioned they periodically Clear the Last Patron from item records for more privacy. Hadn’t thought of that!
Due to state regulations participants do patron and fine purges older than 6 or 7 years and recently started doing the fines paid table as well.
Other patron cleanup suggestions
For patron records, look for patrons missing name or barcode, child cards missing a guardian, email address fields with invalid characters
System Files in Sierra Admin
Discussion around how often to save and clear. (And a brief discussion on how it is important to look at these frequently. Examples, you want to make sure Autonotices are working and also Circulation Overrides can help you troubleshoot loan rule issues.
Thanks again everyone who participated!