Loading Borrower Records Into Alice from SAS

 

0.                 BACKUP ALICE and make sure the backup was successful.

 

 

1.                 Before you start…

Ensure that all existing student borrowers have a Student Code that matches their Student ID in SAS (see Circulation, File, Borrower). This will be the case if borrowers have been loaded previously from SAS.

If existing Alice Borrowers DO NOT have SAS Student IDs entered, either enter them by hand or perform Step 3 below to automatically update SAS student IDs into Alice.

 

Delete All students in the highest Scholastic Year as they have now left the school.

Circulation, Global Change, Delete:

 

 

If there are any students who still have outstanding loans, they will NOT be deleted from Alice and you can print out a list of these borrowers and their loans before closing the window.

 

2.       Export Student data from SAS
           

            Maintenance, Export, Student Alice.


           
            Barcodes Option:
                        - Blank if you want Alice to allocate borrower barcodes in the format B00001 9999
                        - Student Code if you want the borrower barcode to be the same as the SAS Student Code e.g. 873456
            Click Export

           

 
                Note: Do NOT untick any fields as this will cause any following fields to be loaded into the wrong place in Alice.
            Click Export.

            Save the file to a USB thumb drive or a network drive with the name Student.txt
                Note: Leave the file export format as CSV. Do NOT change it to Text.

 

            The data in the file should look like this:
       "02026",,"Hood","Martin","M","6","6D","",,,19960426,"9","Simpson Place","Simpson","NSW","","2999","99999999","02026","Mr & Mrs Hood",,"","",""

 

3.                 Automatically update SAS Student IDs into Alice

 

If you are sure that every student has their SAS Student ID already stored in Alice, you can skip this step.

 

If SAS Student IDs have NOT been entered into Alice borrower records, you MUST PERFORM this step. If you don’t, then all existing borrowers will have a second borrower record created in Alice.

 

Follow this link for details: Check Alice Borrowers

 

 

4.       Import Student Data into Alice

System, Data Loading, Borrower.

 

·        Select the file exported from SAS, Student.txt by clicking on the yellow folder icon.

·        Select other options as shown above.

·        Click the Green Tick to pre-load the borrower data.

·        Do an AfW Shutdown to actually load the borrower records and archive the changes.

·        Review the newly added borrower records using Circulation, File, Borrower.

·        Establish Loan Limits for the new borrowers using Circulation, Global Change, Limits or by editing each borrower record individually.

·        If necessary, change Borrower Loan Category using Circulation, Global Change, Loan Category.

Issues:

  1. Borrower data is not actually loaded into Afw until an Afw Shutdown is performed.
  2. The Shutdown will force a data archive which may take quite some time for a large library
  3. Borrower records will be duplicated if borrowers have been entered directly into AfW with no Student Code or an incorrect Student Code. AfW uses the Student code to match student records and will create a new borrower record if an Alice  borrower with a matching Student Code is not found.
  4. The green tick will not display unless either a specific starting barcode is entered at ‘Next Borrower’ OR the first letter used for Borrower barcodes is entered at ‘Barcode Prefix’. Even if the import file contains SAS student codes as barcodes, you still have to enter a ‘Next Borrower’ barcode, even though it will not be used.

 

5.       Troubleshooting
          Refer to this page if you experience any problems.

 

Last Updated: 4 February 2010