Delivering Notices by Text

Polaris can send text (SMS) message notices to patrons’ mobile phones as part of normal notice processing. You can send notices by text message alone, or in addition to another method. For example, you can send a request notice by text message only, or by email with an additional text message. As with other notification methods, you can set text messaging as the patron’s preferred notification method in the patron record workform.

Native Polaris text messages are sent by the Polaris Email Manager as part of conventional email notice processing. They are included in the summary report as a separate notification category. For more information about email notice setup and processing, see Delivering Notices By Email. Polaris can send SMS text messages using exported notices. For more information about SMS text message setup and processing, see Exporting Notices to a Third-Party Notification Service.

Note:
A separate SQL job, Hold Notice Processing, processes email and text message first and second hold notices separately. Designed to run multiple times per day, the job runs every four hours from 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM by default. See Hold Notice Processing for Email and Text Message Notices.

The system posts successful text message notices and updates the appropriate patron and item records. Failed text message notices that have text message specified as the notification method are converted to print. Failed additional text messages are not converted.

Patron Record Settings for Text Message Notices

To enable patrons to receive notifications by text message, you must select the Additional TXT Notice checkbox in the Patron Registration workform > Notification Settings. For more information about setting notification options, see Notification Settings. Polaris sends an additional text message when both of the following are true:

  • You select the Additional TXT Notice checkbox for the patron

  • The patron record workform has a valid value in Notification Settings > Text Message Phone and Wireless Carrier

If a patron registers or updates account information online through Polaris PowerPAC and supplies a phone number and carrier, the Additional TXT Notice checkbox is automatically checked on the patron record workform.

Note:
Additional text message notices do not appear in the patron’s notification history.

If your library set up email reminder notices for the library organization, and the following is true, the system sends email reminder notices to the patron as text messages:

  • The patron record does not contain an email address

  • The patron record does contain a phone number and carrier for text messaging

  • The patron has not opted out of notifications

For more information on Notification settings in the patron
record workform, see Register a New Patron.

Email-to-Text Message Content (Native to Polaris)

An email-to-text message is a notice that was originally an email, but it meets one of the three requirements above, so Polaris sends it as a text instead. You can edit the content of email-to-text messages in the Polaris Web Admin Tool (Language Editor). If you edit these messages, be aware of these rules:

  • Character limit — Individual messages are limited to 160 characters including the subject line, if specified, and the sender’s address if the carrier includes it. Longer messages might be split and sent as multiple messages.
  • URLs — You can include a URL in the message, but note that the URL takes up message space and the link might not be active, depending on the patron’s carrier.
  • Languages — Text messaging does not support Unicode, so text message notices in languages with diacritics are not rendered accurately.

Note:
Exported SMS text messages are managed by a third party and cannot be modified in Polaris.

For more information about editing notices and a list of default text message notices, see the Polaris Web Admin Tool (Language Editor) Guide for your current version on the Polaris documentation site.

Text Message Notice Delivery Failure Report

You can access the TXT Delivery Failure Report from your Polaris report server. Your report server is available at the following address:

https://polaris.library.com/reports

Replace polaris.library.com with the fully qualified domain name that matches your Polaris server address.

The report lists all failed text notices for a specified time period for selected or all organizations. The organizations are the sending branches (the branches responsible for sending the notices). Polaris can detect text notice failures for empty email body content or SMTP server failure. A message that can't be delivered because the address has changed or the remote server doesn't respond (a delivery failure) is not included in this report.

For each failure, the report lists the following:

  • Patron’s barcode

  • Patron’s branch

  • Patron’s name

  • Phone carrier

  • Failure reason and failure date

The report might list a patron multiple times if Polaris generated multiple failed notices to the same patron during the specified time period.