Voyager Upgrade: Using Voyager’s Offline Backup Circ [OBC]

When to use it

Use OBC when your circ desk is open, but Voyager is down or you cannot connect to it.
Only for charges or renewals
Only for YOUR items
Onsite reciprocal charges—UB Charges work fine. Remember: YOUR items/YOUR circ desk.

When NOT to use it

Can’t use it to discharge
Can’t do certain UB transactions:
Can’t charge other libraries’ items. E.g., items on your Hold Shelf for your patrons that came from a remote library.
Don’t use it for Short Loan/Reserves
Don’t use it when patron’s library ID is an SSN or in a similar 9-digit format

As long as it’s YOUR item at YOUR Circ Desk, using OBC to check out works fine. You can check out your items to other I-Share library patrons, providing they present a valid ID card. The OBC files will upload successfully and create stub records for these transactions.
Keep items that belong to other libraries on your Hold Shelf; don’t check them out to your patrons. Before prolonged downtimes, extend the “Hold Shelf Life” parameter in SysAdmin to cover the period that the system will be down. Note: the upgrade to 6.5.3 will happen overnight. This precaution will not be necessary.
You can’t do anything that would require a discharge transaction.

OBC option displays when the connection to Voyager is not available.
Capture files are not version specific. Files from one version of the software are interoperable with other versions of the software.
Error checking of patron or item barcodes is not available in OBC. Offline Charge Mode will accept any barcode that is scanned or typed in.
Details on using OBC in Voyager 6.1 Circulation User’s Guide, pg. 6-27 to 6-30 or pg. 6-27 to 6-35 in the Voyager 6.5 Circulation User’s Guide.
REMEMBER: Copy any OBC files you have created from: c:\voyager\circulation\offline to a folder that will not be overwritten by a new client installation! This is particularly important if you use the update checker to download new clients.

After upgrade, move the captured offline files into the 6.5.3…Circulation\Offline folder.
At first login to 6.5.3 Circulation, the system will tell you that you have charge transactions from previous offline sessions.
Before you do anything else in Circ, follow the instructions to upload the OBC files.
For each capture file you created, a report will be generated. Check for errors.