Troubleshooting Notices in LX Starter

The LX Starter patron lookup tool enables staff to enter a patron barcode to view all notices associated with that account. This includes details such as the date and time each notice was sent, received, opened, and any links clicked. The first half of this will go through looking up a patron with the lookup tool. The second half will go through troubleshooting what happened if a notice is bounced, or marked as spam. 

Using the Patron Lookup Tool

1. Once on a particular library branch: there is a 'People' box with a search box underneath. In that search box you can type in a patrons barcode, name, or email address and then press enter. This will search only notices for that particular branch. 

2. To search all locations for notices, click on 'expand filters' and choose 'all locations'. 

3. Search results will appear on the bottom half of the screen and click on the patron you would like to open. 

4. Choosing a patron will open the below page. You will see activity on the left hand side which includes information about time and date sent, time and date received, and time and date opened. Please note that similar to Polaris, the notice information in a patron account is purged on a regular basis. This means you will only see the most recent notice activity. The right hand side of the screen gives an overview of the patron information in Polaris. 

5. When you hover over a particular activity line, a box that says 'more details' appears.

6. If you click on the box it will open up a new dialog box with additional details. This information includes type of notice, time for sent/delivered/opened, any links that were clicked, item overview, ISBN, and item due date. 

7. If you want to edit the patron information, for example updating an incorrect email address, click on 'edit' in the overview section on the right hand side. Please remember that any information changed in LX Starter will also update information in Polaris. 

Trouble Shooting Notices. 

Most commonly staff will need to investigate email bounces, and emails marked as spam. There are two types of bounces: soft bounces and hard bounces. 

Soft bounces are when a notice cannot be sent at that time, but the system can still try to send it out at a later date. One example of this is an 'out of office' reply for an email. LX Starter will try again the next day to deliver that notice until it has been delivered. 

Hard bounces are when a notice cannot be sent at that time, and the system cannot try to send it again. This most commonly happens when an email does not exist (for example the email is typed bsmit@pinnaclelibraries.org instead of bsmith@pinnaclelibraries.org). Editing the email address with the correct email address will fix the problem.  

Marked as spam is when a patron marks an email as spam. When this happens we cannot simply re-add the patron. 

Some bounces/marked as spam will be obvious when looking at activity on a patron account. But, as previously noted, notice information in patron activity is purged on a regular basis. You will only see the most recent notice activity- similar to Polaris. All bounces/marked as spam can be found under each notice. Use the following steps to investigate a bounce/marked as spam in a particular notice.

Bounces

1. Once on a library branch, click 'sequences'. That will open a page that lists each notice. On the right hand side of each notice is a dashboard of statistics, which includes bounces. A number will appear under 'bounces' if any soft or hard bounces have occurred.

2. Click on the notice you want to look at. A new page opens that gives the bounce rate in a percentage. Below that percentage is the number of bounces in blue and you can click on that for more details.

3. A notice activity log page will open. Below are two examples: one with a soft bounce and one with a hard bounce. You can click on the individual line to get more information about that particular notice and bounce. Please note this takes you to the patron activity. There is a chance the information has been purged from the patron activity due to the age of the notice. The screen below will still give you enough information to know what to do to fix the issue. 

4. If it is labeled as a 'hard bounce', the notice was undeliverable. Most of the time this is due to an error in the email address. Check the email address for the patron and edit to the appropriate email address. 

Marked as Spam

1. Once on a library branch, click 'sequences'. That will open a page that lists each notice. On the right hand side of each notice is a dashboard of statistics, which includes bounces. A number will appear under 'bounces' if any soft or hard bounces have occurred.

2. Click on the notice you want to look at. A new page opens that gives the spam rate in a percentage. Below that percentage is the number of marked as spam in blue and you can click on that for more details. 

3. A notice activity log page will open. You will see each notice that was marked as spam. You can click on the individual line to get more information about that particular notice. Please note this takes you to the patron activity. There is a chance the information has been purged from the patron activity due to the age of the notice. The screen below will still give you enough information to know what to do to fix the issue. 

4. If a patron has marked a notice as spam, we cannot simply re-add the email. The patron can decide to use another email or you can use a +1 to the email address. This will act like 'a different email' but still send to the same mailbox. For example: if bsmith@pinnaclelibraries.org, you can use bsmith+1@pinnaclelibraries.org.

Seeing all Notices Issues at Once

4. When in this 'notice activity log' page, you can choose to use the filter to search multiple notices at the same time. Click 'filter' next to the search box and the options will appear. The example bellow shows all notices, all notice issues (failure to send, marked as spam, hard bounced and soft bounces) and a one month period. 

5. This gives you results of all notices with any issues to send. The below photo is an example of all of the notice issues on one results page. 

If you have any further issues with notices, please put in a ticket to Pinnacle staff to investigate.