Service Desk Procedures & Guidelines

To Open the Offline Circulation Software

Locate the installation folder (typically, C:\Alma Offline Circulation). Then navigate to the OffCirc\Bin folder (C:\Alma Offline Circulation\OffCirc\Bin), and open the Offcirc.exe file.

The program should run and look like this:

Under Choose transaction, select the type of transaction - Loan or Return.

To Perform a Loan:

1. Scan the borrower’s library card to populate the Borrower field.
2. Scan the item barcode to populate the Item barcode field.
3. To the right of the Item barcode field, select the Loan button. The item is added to the list in the lower half of the screen.

To Perform a Return:

1. Scan the item barcode to populate the Item barcode field.
2. Select the Return button. The item is added to the list in the lower half of the screen.

To Finalize

When all the transactions are completed, select Save to File to add the transactions to the data file of offline transactions that have not yet been uploaded to Alma's database. The data file is called OffCirc.dat and is stored in the C:\Alma Offline Circulation\OffCirc\files folder.

When your internet connection is restored, the data file can be uploaded to Alma from the Offline Circulation List page (Fulfillment > Advanced Tools - Loans > Offline Circulation), as explained below. 

After the data file has been uploaded to Alma, be sure to delete it, so that the transactions it contains are not uploaded again the next time you use the utility.

To Upload the Offline File

In the Offline Circulation List page (Fulfillment > Advanced Tools - Loans > Offline Circulation), in the File name field, select the folder icon. A file selector opens.

Select the .dat file containing the list of loans and returns performed during connection downtime. The default name and path of the file (configured during the Offline Circulation utility installation) is: <Local Drive>\Alma Offline Circulation\OffCirc\files\OffCirc.dat. The file name appears in the File name field.

Select Upload and Validate File Content. The file is uploaded and validated. When this process is complete, the job runs automatically and the information contained in the file is entered into Alma's database. The job appears in the table at the bottom of the page.

Initially, the job's status is Pending. It then progresses to Running, and finally, to Completed Successfully. If the status is not updated for a while, select Refresh to update

When the job is completed, the number of transactions that were successfully incorporated into Alma's database appears under Entities Finished, and the number of transactions that could not be implemented appears under Entities Failed. (That is, the sum of the two values is equal to the number of transaction records in the file.)

Returns

When an item is returned, it is assigned Hold Shelf Processing status, regardless of the specific desk configuration. An additional scan-in is required to place the item on the hold shelf and send a notification to the patron.

Fails

To see information about which items failed and why they did so, select the ... button, and then select View Report. The Job Report page opens and displays a list of the transaction records that failed (identified by their line numbers in the data file), and the errors that caused the failures.


To Finalize

When the offline-circulation job is completed, delete the data file. Otherwise, the next time the Offline Circulation utility is used, it will add the new transaction records to the old ones. As a result, the next time an offline-circulation job is run, it will include the transactions that were already recorded.