We’re pleased to announce that a release of Soprano with offline capability is now available for preview.

In offline mode you can issue items to borrowers, return items and add new borrowers. It is automatically activated in your browser simply by logging in to Soprano (whilst online). In the footer below the copyright notice a message informs you about the update status of the offline copy e.g. ‘Offline copy up to date’.

When there is no connectivity you are now able log in and when you lose connectivity whilst in Soprano it will automatically switch to offline mode. You can issue items to borrowers, return items, and add new borrowers. Links to these offline features are given on the Borrower tab page, which you can get to from anywhere with one click or tap.

To issue an item, you scan or type the barcodes of the borrower and item.

To return an item you scan or type the item barcode.

There is an indicator in the right hand end of the black bar at the top of every page, which informs you whether you are online or offline. When online, a green tick is displayed. When there is no connectivity the indicator is a red cross. This indicator will change, within a few seconds, when connectivity is lost or restored.

When using Soprano in offline mode, each transaction is queued and a count of queued transactions is shown next to the offline indicator. You can click/tap on ‘queued’ to see the list of transactions in the queue.

When connectivity is restored, Soprano automatically attempts to process any queued transactions to update the LMS database. A count of any problem transactions remaining in the queue will be shown. You can click/tap to view the problem transactions, each with a message about the problem and options to Retry or Delete. ‘Delete’ deletes the transaction from your queue, ‘Retry’ instructs Soprano to give the transaction another go immediately. You can close the box and keep the problem transaction for later if necessary.

Transactions are stored on the device (e.g. laptop, tablet or smartphone) until they have either been processed or deleted.

This is an opportunity to see how the new features fit your local context and to check existing functionality. Please remember that it is using your live data.

To preview this release

To preview the offline feature you may need an upgrade to your Local Data Services (LDS) – if this is required, we will be in contact with you over the next few days to schedule your upgrade. Meanwhile, the online functionality will continue to work with your current version of LDS.

Please insert ‘-demo’ into your tenancy URL after the word ‘soprano’:  https://soprano-demo.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/{your tenancy name}.

To enable customers to keep up to date with the development of Soprano, we are starting a regular Soprano Development Update Webinar. This free webinar is open to all customers.

The first Soprano Development Update Webinar is scheduled for Monday 24^th February 2014.

In this webinar we’ll discuss the latest Soprano developments and review the Roadmap, as well as giving you an opportunity to raise any specific questions that you may have.

Please click here to register for the webinar.

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

In the meantime keep up with the latest Soprano news and information here on the Soprano blog and on the Soprano  Forum.