Processing: Rapid Borrowing Requests

Borrowing requests can be sent to Rapid through a mediated (with staff assistance) or unmediated (fully automated) process. The unmediated process requires setting routing rules to move the request to the specific queues monitored by the ILLiad Rapid Manager service, such as the Awaiting RAPID Request Sending queue.

In order to process a request through RAPID, the request must have a valid ISSN or OCLC number in the form. The Rapid Manager looks for the Awaiting RAPID Request Sending queue every 10 minutes and attempts to send requests to Rapid using the ISSN or OCLC number provided. 

1. Process the request through copyright clearance as you would any other article request.
2. If you have set up RAPID routing rules, requests will be automatically routed to Awaiting RAPID Request Sending.
   • For information on setting up routing rules, please see Routing Rules for RAPID Requests.
3. If you have not set up routing rules, manually route the request from Awaiting Request Processing to Awaiting RAPID Request Sending.
4. The request is retrieved by Rapid, automatically matched with possible lenders, and moved to the Request Sent queue.
5. When the Lender processes the request and fills it, the request status changes to notify you of request completion. For example, a request scanned and being sent by Odyssey moves to Awaiting Odyssey Processing.
6. If the request is cancelled by the Lender, it will automatically route to the Awaiting Unfilled Processing queue. There will be a note stating the cancellation reason as either "Bad Citation" or "Unavailable."

Incorrect Parameters

If all parameters for a Rapid request are correct, the Rapid Manager moves the ILLiad transaction to Request Sent. If the parameters needed by Rapid to manage the request are not correct the request will be rejected by Rapid and an error message sent explaining the rejection.

Routing of the request at this point depends upon the specific incorrect parameters. Requests with the incorrect parameters (i.e., missing ISSN or OCLC number) route back to Awaiting Request Processing. Rapid displays an error message explaining why it cannot fill the request, and the Lending String and System ID values are filled as "RAPID."

Status Updates

As of ILLiad v9.1, the RAPID Borrowing Request now have a more efficient way of updating requests when they have changed statuses in RAPID. To take advantage of this feature enhancement, both the borrowing institution and the lending institution need to be utilizing v9.1 for the History/Tracking to be updated properly.  If either the borrower or lender is using an older version of ILLiad, the statuses will not be shared. 

The ILLiad client will display live RAPID status updates on the Request Form similar to how ILLiad handles OCLC statuses. The full sequence of RAPID statuses for loan requests will display on the request form as they are updated. This includes the following statuses: Shipped, Received, Renewal Requested, Renewal Granted/Denied, Returned, Finished.

Through the use of the RAPID API functionality, ILLiad will check for changes in the borrowing shipped requests instead of looking at all Rapid requests that are at the status of "Request Sent" when attempting to determine if the lender has shipped the loan.

Renewal Requests

Rapid renewal requests can be initiated by the borrower to extend the due date of the loan. These requests are initiated and processed like any other renewal request. 

As of ILLiad v9.1, there are three new states for Rapid borrowing renewals:

• Renewal Requested – the borrower has requested a renewal for a Received request and is pending lender approval.

  • If the lender doesn’t use the new RapidR workflow added in v9.1, the renewal will be denied.

• Renewed – the lender accepts the renewal request and specifies the new due date.
• Not Renewed – the lender declines the renewal request.