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Saturday, July 11, 2009

Show patron's IP and Referring URL

Besides the new version of the webchat client, we also pushed out two entirely new features today. Both of these features relate to patrons using the LibraryH3lp widget:
  • Show patron's referring URL. This will be handy to give your librarians context when answering chats. Now, in addition to the queue name, librarians can see the exact page the patron is visiting from. This works for embedded widgets and pop-up widgets now. It will work for the follow-me widget soon.
  • Show patron's IP. Again, this will give librarians better context for answering questions. In particular, it may help librarians identify on-campus versus off-campus patrons when dealing with e-access problems. One of our users also pointed out that they wanted this feature to help deal with the occasional prank chat coming in from library-owned computers.
So, how do you see this stuff? It depends on the client you're using. If you're using the webchat client, it will be plainly visible in the patron's conversation window. Like this:



If you're using an external Jabber client, it will show up wherever your client displays vcard information.

In Pidgin, it will show up in the Get Info area. There are two ways to get there. You can either pick Get Info from the Conversation menu in the patron's chat window:




Or you can right-click on the relevant guest buddy in your buddy list (be sure to get the right one).




A related feature, avatars for queues, is in the works...

3 comments:

Josh said...

Libraryh3lp rocks!

Michael Peper said...

Is this information visible in the admin interface as well? Is it logged somehow? Can reports be run based on this information? We're starting up a new service where this information could be really helpful for assessment.

Pam Sessoms said...

Michael,

I'm afraid that showing them in reports/monitor activity is not yet implemented.

However, they *are* being stored, so once that feature is added, you should be able to go back in time to use the data...