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.

We’re pleased to announce that more new Soprano features have been released to the live service. The features are described in the Soprano Release Preview notices for 15th November.

We are pleased to announce the next release of Soprano is now available for preview.

This release contains the functionality required to make use of the new “Two Factor Authentication” security feature.

Two-Factor Authentication

This optional feature increases the security features available to you for controlling access to Soprano by adding a verification step to the login process, much like some banks use on their web sites.

Two-Factor Authentication is an implementation of the OATH-TOTP standard, which is supported by many hardware tokens, and also a number of software solutions, such as the free Google Authenticator application available on all mobile platforms.

When Two-Factor Authentication is required for an operator, the logon process changes to prompt them for a one time numerical code after they have provided their username and password. This verification code is generated by your choice of OATH-TOTP token generator, and changes every 30 seconds. This ensures that anyone not in possession of the correct token generator will not be able to access Soprano.

In order to activate this feature, your administrator should use the Admin Console released earlier this week to configure the individual OATH-TOTP tokens for each operator. Please ensure that you perform a reset of the Soprano cache in the demo environment in order to allow Soprano to pick up your Two-Factor Authentication changes. In order to perform a reset of the cache, simply add “resetcache” to the end of your Soprano URL, such as https://soprano-demo.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/{your tenancy name}/resetcache.

To preview this release
To preview this release, please insert ‘-demo’ into your tenancy URL after ‘soprano’, so that the URL is like this:  https://soprano-demo.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/{your tenancy name}.

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

Release to the live service
This version of Soprano will be released to the live service on Monday 25^th November 2013.

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

We’re pleased to announce that more new Soprano features have been released to the live service. The features are described in the Soprano Release Preview notices for 13th September and 3rd October.

We’re pleased to announce that a new release of Soprano is available for you to preview. This release delivers improvements in the Item Holdings display and automatically generates barcode check digits.

Shelfmarks in Item Holdings

Shelfmarks are now displayed in Item Holdings. We have also separated Site and Status into separate columns. This provides important information supporting the work of roaming librarians. 

Auto-generate barcode check digits

Following the same rules as in Alto, Soprano can now add the correct check digit to a scanned or typed barcode.

To preview this release
To preview this release, please insert ‘-demo’ into your tenancy URL after ‘soprano’, so that the URL is like this:  https://soprano-demo.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/{your tenancy name}.

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

Release to the live service
This version of Soprano will be released to the live service on Monday 7th October 2013.

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

We’re pleased to announce that a new release of Soprano is available for you to preview. This release delivers two new features: observe operator enablements to limit access to features, and display borrower institution ID.

Observe operator enablements to limit access to features
Soprano will now behave in accordance with the relevant Enablement Profile as configured in Alto SetConfig: Parameter Management > Permissions > Rules. The Operator ID and Current site that are used to log in to Soprano will determine which Enablement Profile applies, via the mappings to operator and site profiles in SetConfig: Parameter Management > Names and then the Permissions > Enablements Link.

Where functions are disabled, the relevant objects in Soprano, for example the Create Borrower button, or the Issue Item button, are not displayed.

This feature requires an upgrade to your Local Data Services (LDS). To schedule your LDS upgrade please open a Support case; for customers participating in the Alto 5.5 beta, this is not necessary as you already have the correct version.

Display borrower institution ID
This allows the borrower’s Institution ID Number to be displayed below their Library Number. It is an optional feature that is switched ‘off’ by default. If you would like to make use of this feature please open a Support case.

To preview this release
To preview this release, please insert ‘-demo’ into your tenancy URL after ‘soprano’, so that the URL is like this:  https://soprano-demo.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/{your tenancy name}.

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

Release to the live service
This version of Soprano will be released to the live service on Thursday 19th September 2013.

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