Sunday, April 30, 2006

SirsiDynix Project Manager's Weekly Unicorn Project Status Report #10

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Unicorn Project Status Report

Status Report Date: 04/28/2006
Site Name: Memphis Public Library (24 libraries)
Client Contact: Steve Foster
Go-Live Date: 03/15/07
Software Release: GL 3.0

Project Manager: Amanda Little
Implementation Team: Damon Hunter, Jenny Hendrickson, Patty Suessen, Diane Cunningham
Sales Representative: Laurie Chase

Major Activities/ Meetings Completed
Library continues to work on policies.
Amanda is working with Diane and the library to schedule the demand management summit.
Continue using the training system for practice.

Activities/ Meetings Scheduled for Next Week
Weekly call: Tuesday at 2 p.m.
Policy call with Diane.
Begin developing a staff training plan.
Continue using the training system for practice.

Outstanding Issues

Project Status:

EventStatusCompletion DateNotes:
ScheduleCompleted01/24/06

Hardware Install

Completed04/18/06
SoftwareOn Schedule
Policies/ProfilingIn ProcessPolicies are due May 10
DataOn ScheduleTest load – 6/23/06 Production load 3/14/07
SirsiDynix TrainingOn ScheduleSecond week of training is August 28-31.
Go LiveOn Schedule

Rooms/EPS Project Manager's Weekly Project Status Report #6

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Project Status Report
Rooms/EPS and SingleSearch


Site Name: Memphis Public Library
Report Date: April 24th, 2006
Project Team:
• Unicorn Project Manager – Amanda Little
• Rooms/EPS Project Manager – Carol Stennett
• Client/Server Delivery Specialist – Craig Lawrence
• Product Specialist, SingleSearch – Adrianne Peters

Important Deadlines:
• March 15th, 2007 – Go Live on All Products

Tasks Completed
• Rooms/EPS Consulting Workshop scheduled for June 21st and 22nd
o Assigned Consultant – Charlotte Olson, Consulting Services
• Rooms Builder Training Scheduled for July 27th
o Assigned Trainer – Andrea Downing, Education Support

Upcoming/Outstanding Tasks for Week of April 24
• Address any new questions during conference call on Tuesday, April 25th

Friday, April 21, 2006

SirsiDynix Project Manager's Weekly Project Status Report #9

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Unicorn Project Status Report

Status Report Date: 04/21/2006
Site Name: Memphis Public Library (24 libraries)
Client Contact: Steve Foster
Go-Live Date: 03/15/07
Software Release: GL 3.0

Project Manager: Amanda Little
Implementation Team: Damon Hunter, Jenny Hendrickson, Patty Suessen, Diane Cunningham
Sales Representative: Laurie Chase

Major Activities/ Meetings Completed
Weekly call: Tuesday at 2p.m.. Carol joined the call to answer any Rooms/EPS questions. Diane also joined the call to discuss demand management.
Call with Paul on Thursday to discuss ways to shorten the circulation map.
Damon was on-site Monday and Tuesday to complete the hardware installation.
Information on returning the keyboard, monitor and mouse has been provided to Steve and Alan.

Activities/ Meetings Scheduled for Next Week
Weekly call: Tuesday at 2 p.m.
Continue working on policies.
Begin developing a staff training plan.
Continue using the training system for practice.

Outstanding Issues

Project Status:

EventStatusCompletion DateNotes:
ScheduleCompleted01/24/06

Hardware Install

Completed04/18/06
SoftwareOn Schedule
Policies/ProfilingIn ProcessPolicies are due May 10
DataOn ScheduleTest load – 6/23/06 Production load 3/14/07
SirsiDynix TrainingOn ScheduleSecond week of training is August 28-31.
Go LiveOn Schedule

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Holds update: MPLIC to use Demand Management

On April 18, the Unicorn Policy File Team and several other MPLIC staff members participated in a conference call with our SirsiDynix Unicorn Project Manager, Amanda Little, and a SirsiDynix SureStart Consultant, Diane Cunningham, to discuss Demand Management. Demand Management is a feature of Unicorn that permits libraries to more closely manage the placement and fulfillment of holds.

Based on a review of the decisions reached by this same staff group on February 27, Diane advised us to use Demand Management for our implementation of the Unicorn Holds function.

A one-day Demand Management Summit will be added to the Implementation Timeline following a review of the schedule by both MPLIC and SirsiDynix.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Rooms/EPS Project Manager's Weekly Project Status Report #5

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Project Status Report
Rooms/EPS and SingleSearch


Site Name: Memphis Public Library
Report Date: April 17th, 2006
Project Team:
• Unicorn Project Manager – Amanda Little
• Rooms/EPS Project Manager – Carol Stennett
• Client/Server Delivery Specialist – Craig Lawrence
• Product Specialist, SingleSearch – Adrianne Peters

Important Deadlines:
• May 15th, 2007 – Go Live on All Products

Tasks Completed
• Rooms/EPS Consulting Workshop scheduled for June 21st and 22nd
o Assigned Consultant – Charlotte Olson, Consulting Services
• Rooms Builder Training Scheduled for July 27th
o Assigned Trainer – Andrea Downing, Education Support

Upcoming/Outstanding Tasks for Week of April 17
• Address any new questions during conference call on Tuesday, April 18th

Friday, April 14, 2006

SirsiDynix Project Manager's Weekly Status Report #8

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Unicorn Project Status Report

Status Report Date: 04/14/2006
Site Name: Memphis Public Library (24 libraries)
Client Contact: Steve Foster
Go-Live Date: 03/15/07
Software Release: GL 3.0

Project Manager: Amanda Little
Implementation Team: Damon Hunter, Jenny Hendrickson, Patty Suessen
Sales Representative: Laurie Chase

Major Activities/ Meetings Completed
No Weekly Call
Paul sent a draft set of policies for review.
First week of on-site training

Activities/ Meetings Scheduled for Next Week
Weekly call: Tuesday at 2 p.m. Topic for discussion is demand management.
Damon on site Monday to complete the hardware installation.
Test system will be installed on the test server by Damon next week.

Outstanding Issues

Project Status:

EventStatusCompletion DateNotes:
ScheduleCompleted01/24/06
Hardware InstallOn ScheduleDamon will be going to the library the week of April 17th to complete the hardware installation.
SoftwareOn Schedule
Policies/ProfilingIn ProcessPolicies are due May 10
DataOn ScheduleTest load – 6/23/06 Production load 3/14/07
SirsiDynix TrainingOn ScheduleSecond week of training is August 28-31.
Go LiveOn Schedule

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Guide to the Enterprise Portal Solution, Part 3 (or, What are Rooms?)

Genealogy & Family History Room screen shot
Many references to the Enterprise Portal Solution, on this blog as well as in SirsiDynix's documentation, refer to "Rooms/EPS," or sometimes "EPS/Rooms." While EPS and Rooms are not the exact same thing, they are closely integrated, and the EPS interface is dependent on the Rooms technology platform.

The Rooms concept adopts the idea of physical spaces in libraries which house specific collections or services (think the Memphis Room, or the Popular Library at Central) and extends this as a metaphor for virtual spaces on the Library's web site. This is in fact very similar to what our web site already offers with subject-specific areas like the Virtual Health Information Center; however, Sirsi's Rooms offer a degree of integration between web sites, databases, and the library catalog which we have not had before.

The basic Rooms/EPS installation comes with a Reading Room, which offers users a virtual location to learn about book clubs as well as offering other readers' advisory information, and an Audiences Room, with special areas for Businesses, Kids, and Adult Learners/ESL. MPLIC has also purchased the Rooms Starter Pack, which includes an additional 10 Rooms: Careers & Employment, Parenting, Genealogy, Entertainment, Reference, Personal Finance & Investing, Travel & Tourism, Home Improvement, Family Health & Fitness, and Food & Drink. Each of these Rooms features content selected and organized by library and content professionals at SirsiDynix.

Even more significantly for MPLIC, however, we are acquiring the Rooms Builder, a Web-based tool that will allow our library staff to edit the "starter" Rooms, adding and subtracting sites and other content, as well as to create new Rooms, all without requiring knowledge of HTML. MPLIC web content providers will be able to pick and choose from the Sirsi Rooms content to supplement our current content, most of which will be migrated over from our current site to the Rooms environment. We also anticipate that staff will be able to update their content themselves without the intervention of the Computer Resources Librarian or Electronic Services Coordinator. (And, incidentally, we are not required to use the term "Rooms" on our site if we choose not to do so.)

It's probably easier to understand Rooms through experience rather than by explanation. I encourage you to take a test drive of the EPS/Rooms interface, either through the links above or through either of these links to the home pages for two Sirsi demonstration sites (which are almost but not quite identical):

(Please note that these sites are for staff use only.)

Next: What is SingleSearch?

Image courtesy SirsiDynix

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Rooms/EPS Project Manager's Weekly Project Status Report #4

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Project Status Report
Rooms/EPS and SingleSearch


Site Name: Memphis Public Library
Report Date: April 10th, 2006
Project Team:
• Unicorn Project Manager – Amanda Little
• Rooms/EPS Project Manager – Carol Stennett
• Client/Server Delivery Specialist – Craig Lawrence
• Product Specialist, SingleSearch – Adrianne Peters

Important Deadlines:
• May 15th, 2007 – Go Live on All Products

Tasks Completed
• Rooms/EPS Consulting Workshop scheduled for June 21st and 22nd
o Assigned Consultant – Charlotte Olson, Consulting Services

Upcoming/Outstanding Tasks for Week
• Confirm Rooms server has been configured with OS by end of week - Memphis
• Check on port opening progress – any questions? – Memphis
• Schedule Rooms/EPS Builder Training

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

"Opening Day" for Sirsi Training

Workflows screen shot
On Monday, April 10, a number of MPLIC staff got their first hands-on experience with the Unicorn staff client, Workflows (a screenshot of which is shown here), and the public catalog interface, the Enterprise Portal Solution.

38 staff members will be attending this week's classes at Central, which include Essential Skills for Workflows and EPS, Circulation, and Cataloging. These sessions (along with additional onsite training scheduled for August, October, and December) will form the foundation for our systemwide training as well as providing members of the Sirsi implementation teams with background information that will help us make decisions about customizing Unicorn to meet our needs.

I would like to encourage staff members who have questions, concerns, or observations to share after having been through Sirsi training to use the Comments feature of this blog to share them with me and the other members of the Implementation Management Team.

For more information about Sirsi training, read this post from February 22.

Image courtesy SirsiDynix

Friday, April 07, 2006

SirsiDynix Project Manager's Weekly Project Status Report #7

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Unicorn Project Status Report

Status Report Date: 04/07/2006
Site Name: Memphis Public Library (24 libraries)
Client Contact: Steve Foster
Go-Live Date: 03/15/07
Software Release: GL 3.0

Project Manager: Amanda Little
Implementation Team: Damon Hunter, Jenny Hendrickson, Patty Suessen
Sales Representative: Laurie Chase

Major Activities/ Meetings Completed
Weekly Call: Tuesday 2 p.m.
Library continues to work on policies
Adam worked with Sam and Steve to complete a training area test.

Activities/ Meetings Scheduled for Next Week
First week of on site training
No Weekly call

Outstanding Issues
Monitor, keyboard and mouse should be received at the library on Friday or Monday.

Project Status:

EventStatusCompletion DateNotes:
ScheduleCompleted01/24/06
Hardware InstallOn ScheduleDamon will be going to the library the week of April 17th to complete the hardware installation.
SoftwareOn Schedule
Policies/ProfilingIn Process
DataOn ScheduleTest load – 3/12/06 Production load 3/14/07
SirsiDynix TrainingOn ScheduleFirst week of training is April 10-14
Go LiveOn Schedule

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Rooms/EPS Project Manager's Weekly Project Status Report #3

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Project Status Report
Rooms/EPS and SingleSearch


Site Name: Memphis Public Library
Report Date: April 3rd, 2006
Project Team:
• Unicorn Project Manager – Amanda Little
• Rooms/EPS Project Manager – Carol Stennett
• Client/Server Delivery Specialist – Craig Lawrence
• Product Specialist, SingleSearch – Adrianne Peters

Important Deadlines:
• May 15th, 2007 – Go Live on All Products

Tasks Completed
• Rooms workshop and builder training dates sent out
• First draft of schedule reviewed
• Second draft sent on March 16th

Upcoming/Outstanding Tasks for Week
• Confirm Rooms server has been configured with OS by end of week - Memphis
• Check on port opening progress – any questions? – Memphis
• Schedule training dates
• Questions to answer:
o Workshop and Training Room Details – The individual on the Rooms team that can answer this is out of the office and will be back on Wednesday. I’ll send the answers along ASAP no later than Wednesday end of the day.