Catalog Placing Holds - Guide users to changing their default settings

[Josh Stompro]

When placing a request in the catalog, it would be beneficial to have some language and some links on the hold request page to guide users to setting/changing their default settings for email, default_phone, default_sms_notify and default_sms_carrier.

When I look at fulfilled, user placed, holds in our system, I see 748 holds in the past 3 months where users have chosen SMS notification, but don't have a default_sms_notify setting set. That means that for each of those 748 holds, the user has entered the phone number manually, or their browser has autofilled it. Each time they manually enter the phone number there is a chance they will get it wrong.

I feel like many customers have no idea that they can set default preferences, so they don't need to keep typing them in each time, or re-selecting which options they want.

So one easy option would be to add some links and text that guides them to the various spots to set preferences like that. A left floating text box with something like "Tired of entering or changing these options? Are these options incorrect? Change your email address, and your holds preferences."

I'm not sure what the best way to handle those links are though. Do you just open them in a new tab, leaving the hold request sitting it it's own tab? But then once the preferences have been updated, the customer would need to refresh the hold request tab in order to see the changes they just made. If you open the preferences page in the current tab, do you try and send the hold state along, so that after the preferences are updated, they are sent back to the hold request? Maybe it isn't as easy as it sounds..

I also see 25 situations where the holds are staff placed where they have entered a sms_notify number manually, but that is limited to only 2 users, so staff are most likely updating preferences when needed. So I would only show the text box to catalog users.

Another option might be to ask the customer if they would like to set a value as their default whenever they enter the phone notification number or the sms_number/carrier and they don't already have a default set.

Josh

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

What if, during the hold placement process, the system checks to see if different notification options were used for this hold than are set in their default - if so, it asks it then adds a message to the hold confirmation screen with a link to the hold notification preferences page?

(It could also provide the option to update the preferences immediately without taking the user to the notification preferences page, but I'm not sure if that would play well with the development project that MassLNC has identified to provide the option to update the settings on existing holds when defaults are changed.)

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

This should be resolved as part of the work being done for https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1570072

[Josh Stompro (u-launchpad-stompro-org)]

EG 3.3
I just spotted a super simple way to address part of this from looking at the credit card payment page. The part where we make it easier to set preferences/defaults for notification preferences from the place hold screen.

The credit card payment page has a link named "Update" next to the email address field that is a link to
"[% ctx.opac_root %]/myopac/update_email?return_to_referer=1"

I tried adding that to the place_hold.tt2 page, next to the email field, and it seems to work just fine. I placed a hold, clicked the Update link to change my email, was taken to the change email address page, changed my email address, then was taken back to complete placing my hold with the new email address.

I'll take a look at if this still makes sense to do along with #1570072.
Josh

[Josh Stompro (u-launchpad-stompro-org)]

Working branch that adds links to streamline setting/changing email address from place hold form.
user/stompro/lp1748227_hold_simple_change_email
https://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/stompro/lp1748227_hold_simple_change_email

Josh