This excerpt is used multiple times on Patron Imports Best Practices.

Do your patron policies match your patron grade levels? If not, you need to update each patron record so their policy matches their new grade. Run the Change Patron Policy utility for each grade.

  1. Go to Operations > Utilities.
  2. Select the Patrons > General category on the left.
  3. Choose the Change Patron Policy utility on the right.
  4. In the Selections tab, enter the criteria needed to select the patrons you intend to update. 
    1. Patrons with a Status of: Limit the operation to one particular status, like Active, or choose Any to include them all.
    2. Patrons in Grade: Enter the user-defined value for the grade that needs to change (e.g. 8th), as defined in Grade Table preferences.
  5. In the Options tab, choose the policy that will be assigned to the selected patrons.
  6. Run the utility.
  7. Repeat steps 4-6 for each grade, as needed.

You can also assign your Graduated policy to your recently graduated patrons with the Change Patron Policy utility. If you don't have a Graduated policy, create one first.

Import patrons

This macro has been removed. See the information under Manual Import > Quick Patron Import on Patron Imports Best Practices.

This excerpt is used multiple times on Patron Imports Best Practices.


If your tab-delimited import file includes patron homerooms, change the homeroom for all of your currently-enrolled students to the same value. This example will replace the homeroom for all of your currently enrolled students to “Gone”.

  1. Go to Operations > Utilities.
  2. Select the Patrons > General category.
  3. Choose the Change Patron Location utility on the right.
  4. In the Selections tab, choose the options needed to select a group of student patron records. For example, you may want to select a student-only policy and/or security group — you don't want to accidentally update operators and/or staff records.
    1. Patrons with a Status of: Active
    2. Patrons in Security Group: Patron
    3. Patrons with a Policy of: (Student)
    4. Patrons from: Homeroom
      1. Leave the From and Through fields blank if you want to update them all.
  5. In the Options tab, type “Gone” in the Change Location to field.
  6. Run the utility.

The Homeroom field for all of the patrons matching your selections will be changed to "Gone". Next, import your new student records from your SIS. 

If you changed the term "Location" to "Homeroom" in Localization Preferences, the utility will show up as Change Patron Homeroom. If not, it will show up as Change Patron Location.

This excerpt is used multiple times on Patron Imports Best Practices.


Before you remove any patrons, first make sure that you won't accidentally remove anyone who isn't supposed to be removed.

  1. Go to Operations > Reports.
  2. Select the Patrons > Information category.
  3. Choose the Patron Information report on the right.
  4. On the Selections tab, choose the criteria for the patrons you want to remove.
    1. Patrons from Homeroom: Gone (if you used a manual import, FTP, or SIF)
    2. Patrons with a Status of: Transferred (if you use GG4L or Clever)
  5. Click Run.
  6. Download the report PDF from  Operations.
  7. Check for any patrons who shouldn't be removed (staff, teachers, etc). If you find any, you'll need to modify their homeroom either manually or by using the Change Patron Location utility (with the Patrons with Barcodes selection).
  8. After making any necessary modifications, run this report again and get an updated list.
  9. Once your list is acceptable, move on to removing patrons.

This excerpt is used multiple times on Patron Imports Best Practices.


Now that your student records have been updated, run the Remove Patrons utility to remove those patrons who aren't returning.

  1. Go to Operations > Utilities.
  2. Select the Patrons > General category on the left.
  3. Choose the Remove Patrons utility on the right.
  4. In the Selections tab, choose the criteria for the patrons whose records should be removed. Make sure Patrons from Homeroom is set to "Gone".
    1. Patrons from Homeroom: Gone (if you used a manual import, FTP, or SIF)
    2. Patrons with a Status of: Transferred (if you use GG4L or Clever)
  5. In the Options tab, choose if you want to remove patrons matching your criteria who still have items checked out or outstanding financial items. (Optional)
  6. Run the utility.

And that's it! You may need to run this utility a few times, depending on your selection criteria.



This excerpt is used multiple times on Patron Imports Best Practices.

Run a Patron Information report and select by Patrons in Grade Graduated (or whatever your Last Grade is). Review the PDF to make sure you want to remove everyone who shows up on that list. 

Then, run the Remove Patrons utility to remove graduated students from the database. You may need to run it multiple times with different selections, depending on your needs.

  1. Go to Operations > Utilities.
  2. Select the Patrons > General category.
  3. Choose the Remove Patrons utility on the right.
  4. On the Selections tab, enter the criteria needed to select the individual patrons or groups of patrons you intend to remove. Make sure the correct status is selected (like Active or Transferred, or choose Any to include them all). Then depending on your method for tracking graduated patrons, you can use two different selections:
    1. If you keep track of graduation dates in patron records, enter the appropriate date range or relative date in the Graduation Date field.
       
    2. If you use Last Grade in the Grade Table Preferences, enter the user-defined value for Last Grade in the Patrons in Grade field (most commonly "Graduated").
  5. On the Options tab, choose if you want patrons to be removed even if they have items checked out or outstanding charges.
  6. Click Run.