To support the new Parental Acknowledgement requirement from NLS, 7.8.22 includes a number of important changes.
- When you update an individual Patron record - a value in the BirthDate field will now be mandatory.
- When you update a Juvenile patron's Main tab, KLAS will ask for the Acknowledgement status and date received/signed.
- The Acknowledgement is stored and updatable on the Preferences tab.
- Juvenile patrons also need a Parent or Guardian Alternate Contact.
- KLAS will be able to block Juvenile patrons without a positive Acknowledgement and a Parent/Guardian contact.
- When Acknowledgement and Contact information have been entered or updated, that information will be sent to PIMMS.
Barring any last-minute problems, this update will be applied to all early release and auto-update customers for installation Wednesday, 10/02/2024. All other LBPD / Talking Books libraries are encouraged to schedule the update as soon as possible.
Read on for the full details on each of the above items.
1. Birth Date is now mandatory
To ensure that both KLAS and PIMMS can correctly identify juvenile patrons, the full date of birth is now mandatory for individual patrons. This will be in effect for new patron records, and for records being updated.
If a patron refuses to give their birth date, a value of 01/01/1900 should be used.
2. Prompt for Parental Acknowledgement
On the patron Main tab, when any updates are saved to a relevant patron record, you will now be prompted to provide the Parental Acknowledgement.
Relevant patron records are:
- Patron Type: Any Individual patron type (PA, PJ, etc)
- Birth Date: Less than 18 years ago today
- Acknowledgement status: not already set to Yes
This prompt will have the options: Yes, No, or Not Received, and a field to enter the date that acknowledgement was received.
3. ParentalAck property
Once the prompt has been answered for a patron, the data will be saved for viewing or updates on the patron's Preferences tab (Alt-4) as the new property type "ParentalAck."
The property will have fields Ack Answer (Yes, No, Not Received, or Not Applicable) and Answer Date.
If a No or Not Received later becomes a Yes, if a Yes is later rescinded, or the answer otherwise needs to be edited, that can be done here, along with providing the updated Answer Date.
4. Parent/Guardian contact preference
NLS needs to know the responsible party that provided the Acknowledgement. This person's name and email address should be saved as an Alternate Contact with a subtype of "Parent" or "Guardian" as appropriate.
If more than one such Alt Contact is on the patron's Contacts tab (Alt-2), the one responsible for answering the Acknowledgement must be designated as the "ParentalAck" contact preference (using the 'Add Contact Preference' gold star icon in the bottom right toolbar, or Functions menu - Add Contact Preference).
If only one Alt Contact is on the record, the contact preference is optional.
5. Block relevant patrons without the Acknowledgement
Once you are on 7.8.22 and indicate that you are ready to start blocking relevant patrons without the Parental Acknowledgement (or on the January 1 cutover date), we will apply the configuration to automatically apply the block.
Patrons that will be blocked are:
- Patron Type: Any Individual patron type (PA, PJ, etc)
- Birth Date: Less than 18 years ago today
- Acknowledgement status: not set to Yes
- AltContact: no Parent or Guardian AltContact on file
If there are multiple Parents and/or Guardians on file but none are designated as the ParentalAck contact using the Contact Preference, the patron will not be blocked, but will be included on the PIMMS resubmit report for correction.
6. PIMMS Sync
The information in the ParentalAck property, the ParentalAck contact preference (or sole Parent/Guardian AltContact if no preference is set), and the full birth dates for all patrons will be now communicated to PIMMS.
If you have further questions or concerns, please get in touch! As always, we'll be here making sure the transition goes as smoothly as possible.
