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Hi Richard,

Good questions. Answers below...


On 4 Jun 2010, at 15:48, Cross, Richard wrote:

Hi Chris
 
Pleased to see the news of the Blackwell bookstore functionality going live. A few quick questions about this:
 
Is it the case that the option to activate this in a customer Tenancy goes live, and that sites for which Blackwell was a relevant provider need to contact you with branch information to request that this is activated; or has then been preconfigured by Talis for the relevant customers?
 

The option to have this activated is what will go live on Monday. Customers should contact Talis Support with branch information if they'd like to take up this option. We are aware of some customers who are currently implementing (or have recently gone live) who want to use this - if you're one of those there's no need to contact us again. 

Can the branch locator variable in the look-up contain multiple values (we have two Blackwell stores on different campuses and it would be great to be able to display availability from both stores)?

I need to double check with the dev team, but at present I think only one can be configured. I'll get back to you if they tell me multiples are possible.

 
Is a vendor availability look-up itself seen as a single option within a Tenancy - if a site wanted to include Amazon and Blackwell availlability look-ups, is that possible?
 

At present it's a single option - although that's not through our choice. Amazon have recently changed their terms and conditions which means that as a consumer of their bookjacket and pricing information, they have to be the only book vendor represented on that page. 

Bear in mind that book jackets are also tied into the pricing lookup - if your prices are Amazon prices, you get Amazon book jackets (I believe their end supplier is Syndetics). If you take Blackwell, you get their book jacket content.

We're also considering an option of sourcing copyright and condition-free jackets from OpenLibrary for customers who don't want any commercial pricing on their Aspire installations - we've already investigated using LibraryThing book jackets but unfortunately the coverage is poor for the kind of content that usually appears in Aspire.

 
Providing advance notice of release features through this list will be most welcome - and, of course, the more advance notice the better (once things are confirmed). Can you just clarify if, in the way that you manage the agile roll-out of new features, you retain the notion of bundling up a 'new version' that is 'fixed' so many days ahead of release, or are things more fluid than that? What I'm getting at is whether its 'knowable', say, on any given Monday what will be included in any given Thursday's release; or might something be cleared on Wednesday lunchtime for Thursday release?

For big stories, we have some idea in advance that we're going to release them - the test cycles are longer, so we can estimate better when they will drop, and we can give more advanced notice. 

Also we are starting to take a different approach for some of the very largest stories - we'll actually release them in small pieces over a period of weeks (unbeknown to users), but only activate them in your tenancy (through the introduction of new permissions etc.) once they are (a) complete and (b) you tell us that you're ready for them. We're planning to take this approach with the Acquisitions Review story that is currently in test - we won't activate it for any customer until we know they're ready to take it, but it will be in the product for some time before it's available to use. Flickr use a similar (but not the same) approach:

http://code.flickr.com/blog/2009/12/02/flipping-out/

However, some smaller stories, such as minor defect fixes or detail changes, might clear Wed evening for a release Thursday morning, so there are occasions where you might get "bonus" content in a release, but these are never significant enough to cause major differences to the user experience. 

 
Regards

Richard Cross
Resource Discovery and Innovation Manager 
032 Dryden Centre
Libraries and Learning Resources
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham NG1 4BU
t: +44(0)115 848 4878
m: 07789 983916
e: [log in to unmask]

From: Talis Aspire Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chris Clarke
Sent: 04 June 2010 12:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LIS-TALIS-ASPIRE] Advanced release note: Monday 7th June 2010

Hi all,

We're planning on posting advanced notice of Talis Aspire releases on this mailing list from now on. We'll still be blogging them as they happen at http://blogs.talis.com/aspire/category/release-notices/ but we'll give advanced warning to customers from this mailing list.

On Monday, 7th of June we're intending to release 2 new stories to live:

New Feature - "Blackwell Bookstore integration" - this will allow customers with an on-campus Blackwell bookstore to get live stock availability from within Talis Aspire for their on-campus branch
Bug Fix - "In certain circumstances, empty author name causes exception in My Bookmarks"

You can keep tabs on the development team's progress by visiting http://www.talis.com/aspire/inprogress, which is updated weekly.

Thanks and have a good weekend,

Chris

Head of Product
Talis Education

Talis Group Limited
Knights Court, 
Solihull Parkway,
Birmingham Business Park,
United Kingdom
B37 7YB

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Head of Product
Talis Education

Talis Group Limited
Knights Court, 
Solihull Parkway,
Birmingham Business Park,
United Kingdom
B37 7YB

Direct Number: +44 (0)870 400 5423
Mobile Number: +44 (0)7595 022154
Office Number: +44 (0)870 400 5000


Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Find out more about Talis at http://www.talis.com/
shared innovation™

Any views or personal opinions expressed within this email may not be those of Talis Information Ltd or its employees. The content of this email message and any files that may be attached are confidential, and for the usage of the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient, then please return this message to the sender and delete it. Any use of this e-mail by an unauthorised recipient is prohibited.

Talis Information Ltd is a member of the Talis Group of companies and is registered in England No 3638278 with its registered office at Knights Court, Solihull Parkway, Birmingham Business Park, B37 7YB.

To unsubscribe from the LIS-TALIS-ASPIRE list, click the following link:
http://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=LIS-TALIS-ASPIRE&A=1