Before you can generate a reminder, memo or statement, you need to create it.
There are 4 types of reminders:
- Individual reminders will normally contain a body of text to tell the borrower (or guardian, depending on who you send it to) that their resources are overdue and need to be returned to the library.
- Group Reminders are sent to the tutor of a tutor group and they contain all borrowers in that group with resources on loan all on one page, allowing the tutor to remind the borrowers in question during form time.
- A Memo is used to send messages to specific borrowers (or everyone) without affecting their individual reminder number. This can be a reminder to return resources or even a notification of upcoming events or news articles.
- A Statement is used to inform borrowers that they have a negative monetary amount on their account and they need to pay the library.
Editing the Template
From the reminders selection box, click the desired reminder type for editing.
Select a reminder from the list and click 'Edit'.
The reminder editing screen will appear, the 3 tabs each offer different functions.
The 'Reminder' tab is where you can edit the text and images (such as the school logo) which appears in the reminder. There are basic text editing functions available such as being able to change the font type & colour, altering the background colour, adding images to the reminder and the merge fields.
The 'Description' box allows you to provide each reminder with its own unique identifier.
Use the control bar to modify the font style, page layout, insert a picture and use the other formatting options.
Use the text window to enter in any information you wish to relay to the borrower.
Note that pressing enter at the end of a line will give a paragraph sized line break, if you wish to have some lines grouped more closely, such as when writing an address, hold shift before pressing enter and the line spacing will be less.
The 'Preview...' button can be used at anytime to show how the reminder will look with any changes made.
The 'Grid' tab controls the fields that appear in the table of a reminder when it is generated.
The 'Options' tab contains the settings for the reminder orientation & margins and allows control over whether the reminder is sent to the student or Guardian and by which method.
When the changes have been made, click 'OK' to save them