We’re pleased to announce that the next release of Soprano is now available for preview.
This release includes:

• Improved display of charges with no Work
• View all charges for a borrower
• View payments and waivers made against a charge
• Explanation of a fine for overdue loan
• Reservation indicated on Return Item
• Charge alert removed as soon as charge is cleared
• Streamlined Issue Item workflow
• Barcode validation improvements
• Make Payment dialogue fixes
• Improvements in observing Operator permissions
• Display fixes for Works uploaded via Resource Management

Improved display of charges with no Work
A work is associated with a charge when the charge type is Fine, Hire fee or Reservation; then, a cover image or placeholder image is displayed, together with summary Work information. The other types of charge, ILL Request, Postage and Miscellaneous, are not associated with a Work. In this release, in the Description column of the borrower charges list there is a generic image denoting a charge (showing the currency symbol), and the text of the note on the charge, if there is one, otherwise the long form of name of the charge type.

In order for the names of those three types of charge, ILL Request, Postage and Miscellaneous, to be displayed distinctly, it is necessary for your Local Data Services (LDS) version to be 1.9 or higher, otherwise they all display as Miscellaneous.

Additionally we’ve fixed a problem where charge details are not displayed in certain circumstances. This has the same dependency on LDS 1.9.

View all charges for a borrower
A new tab under Borrower gives a list of All Charges, showing the most recent first. This is in addition to the Current Charges, giving a complete view of all paid and unpaid charges on the borrower’s account.

In order to view the list of All Charges it is necessary to upgrade your LDS to version 1.9 or higher.

View payments and waivers made against a charge
When one or more payments or waivers have been made against a charge then a dropdown symbol appears beside the  amount in the Paid/Waived column. This opens a tabular view of each of the payments and waivers, showing for each one the date, amount and resolution. This is given in both the Current Charges tab and the new All Charges tab.

In order to view the payments and waivers against a charge it is necessary to upgrade your LDS to version 1.9 or higher.

Explanation of a fine for overdue loan
In the current charges list, where there is a charge for a fine for an overdue loan, the number of days overdue is now shown beneath the charge type, and the the type of event that triggered the charge is shown beneath the accrual date.

In order to view the explanation of an overdue fine it is necessary to upgrade your LDS to version 1.9 or higher.

Reservation indicated on Return Item
On the Return Items page, when the returned item is reserved a button ‘Process Reservation’ is given, which takes you to the Reservation Processing page which allows you to perform the appropriate action (Transit or Satisfy) for any of the reservations on the item.  

Charge alert removed as soon as charge is cleared
This fixes a problem where the charge alert symbol on a borrower continued to display immediately after all outstanding charges were paid or waived.

Streamlined Issue Item workflow
On the Issue Item page, when you scan the borrower or item barcode or type it and press <Enter> with the other field already populated, the issue transaction request is submitted. This eliminates an extra click/tap on the Issue Item button or <Enter> key press. It should streamline the issuing of multiple items to the same borrower.

Barcode validation improvements
There are several improvements to the handling of barcodes in this release, which should reduce the incidence of not finding the borrower or item by barcode. If you continue to have such problems, please raise a Support case.

Make Payment dialogue fixes
In the Make Payment dialogue an appropriate error message is now displayed when the Amount Paid box has an invalid character, and the Amount Paid box always gives the correct outstanding amount by default.

Improvements in observing Operator permissions
Some features are now correctly disabled when the relevant permissions are not enabled, such as the Renew All button when the operator is not permitted to renew. This is of particular interest where there is a requirement to set up read-only operators.

Display fixes for Works uploaded via Resource Management
This release fixes issues with the display of Works where the MARC record was uploaded to Prism via Resource Management in the Admin Console. This includes the display of cover images and the publication date, and the removal of links and tabs that are not relevant to these Works such as Improve, Reserve, Add Item, Reservations and Holdings.

To preview this release
You can preview this release by inserting ‘-demo’ into your tenancy URL after the word ‘soprano’:  https://soprano-demo.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/{your tenancy name}. Please remember that it accesses you live data.

Release to the live service
This version of Soprano will be released to the live service on Monday 13th April 2015.

Comments and contact
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please get in touch. You can comment here on the blog, in the Soprano Forum, or contact your Account Manager. To suggest and discuss additional features there is the Soprano Ideas Forum.