Offline Circulate allows you to record issues and returns when your device has no internet connection and then send these saved transactions to your library system once your devices internet connection is restored.

 

 

How do I know which mode I am in?

 

You can tell if Circulate is in offline mode by the colour of the title bar. If it is in red, Circulate is in offline mode.

 

 

 

How does it work?

 

The first time Circulate is accessed in Online mode the app downloads a copy of essential data and stores this on the device in a location referred to as the Data Store. This is a very basic list of all your resources, borrowers and barcode masks used in your library system. By using this stored information on your device, it allows the app to verify if the barcode you scanned exists and also provide the user some basic feedback on the resource or borrower.

 

 

What are the drawbacks using Circulate Offline?

 

The data in the data store is very limited and one area which is not saved on the device are the resource and borrower restrictions. This means that it is your responsibility to ensure a resource is allowed to a borrower prior to issue as no checks are made with the main library system at the point of issue.

 

Also, if you have not accessed Circulate while being online for a long time, this data stored on the device may be out of date, meaning you may not have the latest resources / borrowers stored on your device.

 

All offline transactions are stored in the Transaction Table. When this table has un-synced transactions (i.e. when your device is offline), the app will show a small icon on the right hand side of the screen.

 

 

 

If you tap this icon, it will pop out and tell you how many transactions are waiting to be synced. When the colour of the icon is red, there is no network connection and it can’t sync the transactions, however when you get an internet connection again, it will turn to grey, rotate and will try and sync the transactions. As it is sending the transactions to your hosted library system, the number of un-synced transactions will decrease and when there are no more transactions to process the notification area will disappear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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