Hi Colin,
At Warwick, we purchased patron services API with a view to using
it for fines payment and patron update.
The development work for fines API seems to have been quite speedy,
and the people in our IT Services who are writing our end of it tell
me the interface is quite helpful in prompts and labels etc so you can
tell what you are doing without needing to know too much about how
the fields are held within Millennium. We go live (in a test mode)
early next term, so may be able to say more then.
Patron update is slower in terms of how long it takes to develop it
(i.e. it's less self-explanatory and you need to know more about how
Millennium holds the fields), and we also think it's very slow, so that
if you're trying to update, say, 70,000 patron records at the beginning
of an academic year, it could take days to process them, which in turn
could introduce performance problems for other real-time users. But
we're
in the very early stages of development for this one, and gather that
someone in the States has improved response time by multi-threading
and the use of keep-alives, so again I think we'll have to let you know
how we get on later next term..
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for current and potential users of the Innopac system
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Colin Rennie
Sent: 08 April 2009 14:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Patron Web Services
Dear all,
Has anyone purchased iii's 'Patron Web Services', which allows data
exchange
between Millennium and external systems?
If so are you pleased with the product?
Has anyone tried to enable data exchange without purchasing the product,
eg
by creating a program?
Many thanks
Colin Rennie
Systems Librarian
School of Oriental and African Studies
Thornhaugh Street
London
WC1H 0XG
020 7898 4191
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