Staffing queues on-the-go from your favorite mobile device

Did you know that you can chat your LibraryH3lp (and My Customer Cloud) queues on-the-go? In fact, you can staff your queues from any mobile device that supports Jabber/XMPP IM client applications.

When staffing your queues on a mobile device, you'll definitely want to use a 3rd party Jabber/XMPP IM client rather than the webchat client. One drawback of the webchat client on iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) is that the sound notification will not work. But the primary reason to prefer IM clients over webchat on mobile devices is push notifications. Push notifications will ensure that you easily know when there is an incoming chat from a patron, even if your device is locked or you are using another app. For instance, if you are helping someone with research during a chat, you will probably need to switch to a web browser, and with push notifications, you'll get proactively notified when your patron sends you a new message.

There are tons of IM client options out there - IM+, BeeJive, and Process One to name a few. In this post, we'll focus on IM+. There are two primary reasons why we tend to recommend IM+. The first reason is that it has both free and paid versions. The free version has ads and times you out after 2 hours. The pro version has no ads and lets you stay logged in for up to 7 days. The nice thing about having free and paid versions is that you can try out the free version now and later upgrade to the pro if you want to. The second reason is that IM+ is available over a variety of mobile platforms.

Configuring IM+ to chat your LibraryH3lp (or My Customer Cloud) queues:

service = Jabber
login = your_username@libraryh3lp.com
password is your LibraryH3lp password
host = libraryh3lp.com
port = 5223
use old-style SSL = on

For My Customer Cloud users, you'll just replace libraryh3lp everywhere above with mycustomercloud.

As far as IM+ settings go, you'll want to make sure that you have push notifications turned on. That way you'll be notified of incoming chats from patrons. Play around a bit. IM+ has various settings you can customize for push notifications, including sounds, alerts, and badges.

If you have experience with another mobile IM client that you'd like to recommend, please add a comment to this post and share your thoughts with other LibraryH3lp users. :-)

Twilio SMS gateway update - Canadian numbers now available!

We've got fantastic news for Canadian libraries using LibraryH3lp or My Customer Cloud! Twilio just approved us for their Canada SMS Beta service. This means that we are now able to offer Canadian phone numbers as part of our Twilio SMS gateway.

Please be aware that this service through Twilio is still in beta testing. If you'd like to give it a try, please email us and let us know:

• the desired area code/city/province
• the queue on which to install the gateway
• your library's top-level admin name.
• (optional) a number to forward regular voice calls to (usually reference or circulation desk number)

We'll handle all of the setup for you. You do not need to do anything directly with Twilio.

We'll front you a $10 credit so that you can test out the Twilio SMS gateway. If you decide to adopt the Twilio SMS gateway for production use, pricing for Canadian numbers and usage is currently the same as our US phone number pricing. We'll let you know if Twilio determines during the beta that a slightly higher rate is needed to ensure stability for Canadian numbers.

Please do not pay Twilio directly! Use our payments page instead.

Our Twilio SMS gateways feature:

• A phone number for your patrons to text.
• Nearly instant message delivery. No polling interval.
• Automatic notification to the patron when the library is offline.
• Coming soon: Offline messages are delivered the next time your queue comes online.
• Not free, but very affordable. And of course, it integrates into LibraryH3lp like all our other gateways.
• Text messages can be transferred to other librarians, transcripts stored, statistics gathered, etc...