A major goal for SAILS this year is to migrate from using Directors Station and Workflows for statistical reports to using Blue Cloud Analytics. Our public libraries received ARIS stats this year from reports generated using this new portal. We are now moving our monthly compiled reports from Directors Station to Blue Cloud Analytics (commonly referred to as BCA)
For July statistics, you will receive your normal Workflows reports except for the monthly cataloging reports which will be emailed in Excel format on the 4th of the month. We will not sending out an Excel Workbook with compiled stats but will be delivering those reports using a Google Drive feature called Team Drive.
We will send out an email when the network July reports have been run and we will include instructions on how to access them. Those reports will be available a few days after the first. Our testing has shown that these results are as accurate if not more so than reports run in Workflows.
Our hope is that over time we can completely discontinue running monthly reports in Workflows and begin using the freed up computing capability to start running personalized welcome messages to new patrons and card expiration notices to patrons whose borrowing privileges are about to expire as well as other notices for our K-12 and academic members that are appropriate.
One comment we received a couple of times on our last survey was why the SAILS staff can’t come out to libraries and do onsite training, since staff can’t easily get to our offices. Well we love coming to libraries to train! There are many benefits doing training at the library. The main one is that everyone at the library hears the same information. Procedures are done because “we’ve
always done it that way” and you may not know there are other ways of doing what is being tried. Maybe there’s a more efficient way of doing it or sometimes we hear of a frustration point at the circ desk, for example, and it turns out something isn’t working properly because the properties at the workstation need to be changed. Being onsite often brings out these
issues, since being at the place it happens triggers the memory of what’s happening. We can also help you change your properties if we’re there and can also see examples of what’s happening and better troubleshoot.
If having us come out and train your staff sounds good, we have a form online at: https://sailsinc.org/training-request-form/
We will need the approval of the director to train onsite but the form is open to anyone and can possibly get a conversation going if you’re not quite ready to schedule the time. If you have any questions or concerns, please email support@sailsinc.org.
