Billing Service Levels let you and your patrons differentiate between and choose levels of service, which may have different fees associated with them. These Service Levels work in tandem with the Billing Defaults to produce the final fee for obtaining/providing a specific item via ILL. By default, every transaction has a service level of "regular", but if you add other Service Levels, such as "Economy", "Rush", "Super Rush", "Drop Everything Else and Do THIS", and so forth, you can easily set up several different Service Levels, with different pricing for each. In the process, it allows your Lending customers, on a per-item basis (either in a notes field on the request or on the Lending default web pages), and Borrowing customers (on a per-item basis on the Borrowing default web pages), to specify the level of service they want based on what they might be willing to pay.
Adding Service Levels to the Billing Tables
Service Levels may be added in the Customization Manager under System Billing - Setup.
For each Service Level to be added, specify the following information:
| Process | This should be the process type to which the Service Level should apply. Possible values for this are Borrowing, Doc Del, and Lending only. |
|---|---|
| ServiceLevel | This should be the name of the Service Level you wish to add. Possible values for this include Rush, Super Rush, etc. You can name a Service Level whatever you wish. |
| Amount | This should be the amount you which to bill for this particular Service Level. This is a set fee that will be combined with any other applicable billing table values to determine the actual charge to be billed for an item. Values for this should be numeric. Examples include 1, 5, 10. |
Once the values are entered, click the Add Record button to add the new Service Level to the database.
Since Service Levels are assigned to specific Process Types, (Borrowing, Doc Del, or Lending), any Service Levels options for Borrowing will be different from any added to Lending.
Web Page Changes for Service Levels
Once Service Levels are added to the database, you will need to edit any applicable request pages to include the Service Level as a choice for the customer.
Using a SQL Query to Set Up Billing Categories
If you have a large list of items to update when setting up ILLiad or a large list of items to change because a billing category has changed, you can use a SQL Query and the Microsoft SQL Server Query Analyzer to make the change in the ILLiad database. Remember that any billing categories that you add this way must exist in the BillingDefaults table as well.
Example 1
If you wanted to set all libraries in the database to be exempt:
use ILLData
go
update LenderAddresses set BillingCategory = 'Exempt'Be careful with this type of query - this will change ALL BillingCategories, regardless of what they are set to now.
Example 2
If you wanted to set all Virginia libraries in the database to be "VirginiaBilling."
use ILLData
go
update LenderAddresses set BillingCategory = 'VirginiaBilling'
where ((Address1 like '%VA%') or (Address2 like '%VA%') or
(Address3 like '%VA%')) This query uses the "like" operator and the wildcard operator "%". This will select any address that has the letters VA anywhere in Address1, Address2 or Address3 and change the BillingCategory to 'VirginiaBilling.'
Example 3
If you wanted to set libraries with these symbols (ABC, BCD, CDE, DEF, EFG) in the database to be "SpecialLibraries":
use ILLData
go
update LenderAddresses set BillingCategory = 'SpecialLibraries'
where LenderString = 'ABC' or
LenderString = 'BCD' or
LenderString = 'CDE' or
LenderString = 'DEF' or
LenderString = 'EFG'Using this method, you could take a long list of symbols, and insert the "Lenderstring = '" part and the "' or " part programmatically in order to change a large number of symbols at the same time, without having to edit each one by hand in the client.