The Ares client is designed to keep all the information you may need to access at your fingertips and easily accessible. This is accomplished through the use of multiple tabs and features on the Main page, designed to summarize and simplify the Course Reserves workflow process.
Features of the Ares Home Page
- The Ares Icon holds print and saves commands as well as other options.
- The Quick Access Toolbar houses the Refresh and Change Form icons.
- The Ribbon Tab contains tabs that house the Home, Process, and System ribbons.
- The Ribbon contains buttons and dropdown menus specific to the Home, Process, and System tabs.
- The Feedback and Help Icons provide links to Atlas documentation and feedback forms.
- The Open Forms Tab Bar displays the Home tab and tabs for all forms that are open and active.
- The Requests Group contains a complete list of all reserve requests.
- The System Group lists information about new users, emails, copyright, and invalid links.
- The Daily Process Group contains status indicators and links to reports on the daily processes
- The Status Bar displays the logged-in username and site.
You can hover over most of the icons and tabs on any of the forms and pages in the Ares client to see a popup explanation of the icon or tab.
Ares Icon
The Ares icon holds the Print Configuration, Print Sessions, Save Layouts, Change Password and Exit commands, the Quick User Switching and Change Processing Site features and an Options form.
- Print Configuration allows you to choose your default printer and print settings.
- Print Sessions compiles a list of all printing sessions and allows you to reprint sessions.
- Save Layouts allows you to save the customizations you make to the layout of your forms.
- Change Password enables the currently logged in user to change their password.
- Change Processing Site allows you to quickly switch between processing sites on the same workstation.
- Exit closes the client.
- Options hold the Customize and Resources forms. Use Customize to specify different font colors for Users and Items. The Resources form holds important information about your database connection and helpful links to Ares documentation as well as Support contact information.
- Login As... allows staff to quickly switch between users on the same workstation.
Quick Access Toolbar
The Quick Access Toolbar houses the Refresh and Change Form icons.
- Refresh allows you to instantly update data on the form. For example, clicking Refresh after clearing a new user updates the number of "Users to Clear" left in the queue.
- The Windows icon allows you to switch between forms or close all forms except the Main form. The selected form is visible on the main page, its tab is highlighted, and the title shows as the header at the top of the page.
Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar
The quick access toolbar is a handy feature that allows you to place commonly used buttons in one easy to access place so that you don't have to search through different tabs to find the commands or fields you use the most. Generally, any commands or fields, including text fields and checkboxes, that exist on the ribbon can be added to the quick access toolbar. This is done by simply right-clicking the command or field and selecting the Add to Quick Access Toolbar option.
To remove commands from the quick access toolbar, simply right-click the command or field and select Remove from Quick Access Toolbar. By default, the quick access toolbar displays along the top of the window right next to the Ares icon. It can be moved to display underneath the ribbon by clicking the little arrow to the right of the quick access toolbar, or by right-clicking on any command or field on the ribbon or on the quick access toolbar, and selecting the Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon. To reverse this, click the arrow again and select Show Quick Access Toolbar Above the Ribbon.
Ribbon Tab Bar
The Ribbon Tab Bar displays the titles of the tabs available on the menu. It also indicates which tab is currently selected by highlighting the active tab and displaying it as connected to the currently viewed ribbon.
Clicking on a tab opens the ribbon to display that tab. In addition, double-clicking any of the tabs will cause the ribbon bar to be minimized (if not already minimized) or maximized (if currently minimized).
The Ribbon
The Ribbons hold icons for all of the main processing functions so that you can reach them quickly and easily from the Main page. The Home tab houses the Search Ribbon.
Feedback and Help Icons
The Feedback icon allows you to open the Feedback form from any page in the Ares client. Ares collects data about the issue from several tabs on the form. When you save the form, the data is transferred to a .zip file that you can easily email to support.
In addition to the Feedback icon, there is a Help icon on all forms in the Ares client. Clicking this icon will link you to the current Ares documentation on the Atlas Documentation website.
Open Forms Tab Bar
The Open Forms Tab Bar displays the Home tab and tabs for all forms that are open and active. Specifically, these tabs denote open processing queues in the Requests Group and result from searches performed on the Home ribbon. The Home tab houses all active queues in the Requests group. The Home tab is always visible and cannot be closed.
You can switch between open forms in the tab bar by using the Alt+<Num> shortcut (example, Alt+1 takes you to the first open tab).
Requests Group
The Requests group shows a complete list of all reserve requests. Ares displays all request statuses that contain at least one request in the queue. The number of requests in each queue is displayed to the right of the queue. Queues include both regular and virtual statuses- regular queues display a business card icon and virtual queues display a flag icon.
Clicking on a queue opens the queue so you can view each transaction. This will change the name at the top of the page from the main page to the name of the queue that is opened, and it will change the ribbon components. Canceled requests and inactive requests do not display in the Requests group. The Requests group form cannot be closed.
Hiding Queues
To hide a queue, right click on the queue and select Hide this Queue. Return hidden queues to the queues list by right-clicking inside the queues list and selecting Reset to Default View. Requests in hidden queues are not counted in the total requests field visible on the status bar.
Reordering Queues
To reorder a queue, simply click on the queue and drag it to the appropriate location. The default order is alphabetical, but staff can reorder the list to a configuration that matches your process or move queues that aren't relevant to the bottom of the list.
Adding and Reordering Categories
In addition to reordering queues, you can also right-click on a queue and add it to a new category on the grid. For example, if you have certain queues that are a priority, right-click on a queue and create a "High Priority" category. You can now drag any other queues you want into that category. Reorder categories by clicking and dragging them either directly above or below any other category.
System Group
The System Group tracks the following system information:
- Users to Clear
- Pending Emails
- Failed Emails
- Awaiting Copyright Processing
- Invalid Links
Double-clicking on a category opens the appropriate form allowing you to take action on those items. The number of items associated with the category is displayed next to it. Note that the icon for the Failed Emails category will be a blue information icon when there are no failed emails to process, and a red stop sign when failed emails need processing.
Daily Process Group
The Daily Process Group provides a summary of daily processes at a glance on the Client dashboard. The following process creates a Daily Process report:
- Course and User loads
- Item Cleanup
- CCC Status Update
- Orphan File Cleanup
- Item Activation
Additional information is available on the Daily Process Reports page.