AFO 279 – Subscription renewal

279.1 Introduction[//]

Subscription orders for serials can be renewed individually by Acquisitions staff or automatically by a processing job.

The system can calculate the new renewal price based on a supplied inflation rate change.

The processing jobs involved are :

· Subscription review report

· Subscription renewal

Activities should be carried out in the following sequence:

1. execute the Subscription Review Job to see which orders are due for renewal and which budgets they are to be encumbered from

2. Acquisitions staff could update orders to change their budget allocation, copy locations, supplier, and so on

3. execute the Subscription Review Job again to verify any budget allocation changes made, and to see the total amounts that will be encumbered from each budget

4. Acquisitions staff should ensure that these budgets contain enough money for the renewals

5. Acquisitions staff can manually RENEW any orders that they do not want handled automatically by the Subscription Renewal Job

6. OR, execute the Subscription Renewal Job to automatically renew the orders based on current or predicted unit cost

7. to check the results, Acquisitions staff can produce the Renewal Report

The system selects subscriptions to review or renew based on the following criteria:

· The subscription has a valid link to a purchase order at detail level.

· The subscription is active.

· The subscription has the “Generate renewal” flag on.

· The subscription Review date is between the start and end dates defined under Setup.

After selecting this AFO a menu will be displayed:

The options are explained in the next sections.

279.2 Setup[//]

The setup of the jobs determines which orders are selected for review or renewal, sets bounds on the length of the renewal period and provides cost adjustment.

The renewal job selects orders whose subscription review date is within the range specified by the Start and Ending review date parameters.

The library might execute the subscription jobs quarterly or annually, or whenever renewals are required. It is assumed that when the subscription renewal is done that the passed subscription period is complete and no more commitment will remain for the period. If there is an outstanding commitment, it will be adjusted based on recalculation/inflation rate.

After selecting this option an input form will be displayed:

Fields on the form

Start review date: Select a start date for the review period.

End review date: Select an end date for the review period.

Minimum renewal period length (in days): Enter the minimum renewal period. Any subscription with a number of days in field Renewal period that is less than the number defined here will not appear in the report.

Maximum renewal period length (in days): Enter the maximum renewal period. Any subscription with a number of days in field Renewal period that is greater than the number defined here will not appear in the report.

Note

When no period is defined for a subscription but it does have a review date, the subscription will appear in the report.

Inflation rate: Enter an inflation rate, this can be positive or negative. The price of the subscription (as derived from the original order) will be adjusted according to this rate in the report.

279.3 Review process[//]

Use this option to generate the review report. This job selects order records that meet the conditions described above. This job does not affect the database.

A message will be displayed that the report will run on the parameters from the Setup section:

When you click OK, the system will switch to the standard screen for scheduling processes.

279.4 Review report[//]

With this option you can view the results of the reporting. After selecting this option an overview screen will be displayed:

Options on the screen

Delete report: Select a line and then this option to delete the report from the list. The system will prompt for confirmation.

Print report: Select a line and then this option to print the report. The system will switch to the standard screen for generating output.

The report lists the orders in a sequence based on:

1) library

2) budget

3) title.

4) For each title, the report shows any outstanding encumbrance and shows the predicted percentage change and renewal amount.

Notes

Each budget is reported separately. If an order has copies or percentages allocated to more than one budget, the order will appear more than once in the report. Although the unit cost shown in each place is the full predicted cost per copy, the total costs shown are for a single budget only: some percentage or fraction of the order's full total costs.

All report amounts are in the base currency of the system.

Sample report:

279.5 Renewal update process[//]

Use this option to generate the renewals. This job selects order records that meet the conditions described above. The job first checks that there is sufficient money in the budgets to encumber for the renewed orders. If even one budget is short, none of the renewals will take place.

For each subscription, the job will:

· reset the start date to end date +1

· reset the end date to old end date + renewal number of days

· reset the review date by adding the renewal number of days to it

· adjust the total price and commitment on the order

· adjust the commitment on the budget of the order

A message will be displayed that the process will run on the parameters from the Setup section: