Local Coordinators FAQs

New service providers at your library will require an account on the AskAway staff website. This account will:

• Allow them to access the Guest Logins page
• Subscribe them to the appropriate mailing lists

Create a new account

1. Login to the AskAway website with your local coordinator account
   • Having trouble logging in? Contact the Admin Centre
2. Click the "My service providers" shortcut in the menu at the very top, on the left-hand side
3. This brings you to a page listing service providers at your library and their roles, with a link to edit each one
4. To add a new service provider, scroll to the bottom and click the link "add a new service provider"
   1. Select Yes or No for mailing lists you would like them to be subscribed to:
      • All service providers should be subscribed to the Service Providers' list
      • Evening and weekend service providers should *also* be subscribed to the Evenings / Weekends list
      • If they are not a local coordinator, select No for the Local Coordinators' list
   2. Enter the required information and select "Notify user of new account"
   3. Under Roles, select the appropriate roles:
      • All service providers have the service provider role
      • Evening and weekend service providers *also* have the service provider - evenings/weekends role
   4. Select your institution from the Institution drop-down
   5. Enter the new service provider's LibraryH3lp username
   6. Click "Create new account"

Request a new password

To request a new password, visit the request new password page.

Temporarily remove a role / unsubscribe from mailing list(s)

If you'd like to temporarily unsubscribe a service provider from a mailing list and update their roles, follow these steps:

1. Login to the AskAway website with your local coordinator account
2. Click the "Add/View Service Providers" shortcut in the top left
3. Find the service provider in the list and click "edit" to edit their account
4. Under "Mailing Lists," select the "Unsubscribe" button to unsubscribe them from the appropriate lists
5. Under "Roles" deselect any role(s) you're removing
6. Click "Save" to save your changes

When the service provider returns to AskAway, simply resubscribe them to the mailing lists and update their role(s).

Delete an account

Please keep your list of service providers up to date.

To delete a service provider account, follow these steps (Note: Do NOT delete local coordinator accounts or accounts that may have belonged to a local coordinator. Instead, contact the Admin Centre and we will remove this account):

1. Login to the AskAway website with your local coordinator account
2. Click the "Add/View Service Providers" shortcut in the top left
3. Find the service provider in the list and click "edit" to edit their account
4. Scroll to the bottom of their profile and click "Cancel account"
5. Select "Delete the account and make its content belong to the Anonymous user"
   • If you think the service provider may have created content on the website, select "Disable the account and keep its content"
   • Note: Do NOT delete local coordinator accounts or accounts that may have belonged to a local coordinator. Instead, contact the Admin Centre.
6. Click "Cancel account"

Create New Service Provider Accounts

1. Login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard with your institution's admin account (e.g. kpu-admin)
2. In the left-hand navigation menu, click Users
3. Open the folder for your institution and make sure the folder is selected
4. Click the green "+" drop-down
5. Click "Add a user..."
6. Enter a Username according to the following format:
   • institution-firstname-lastinitial (e.g. kpu-sadie-p)
7. Enter a Password and click "Ok"
8. The new user should now appear in the appropriate institutional folder
   • If they're not in the correct folder, you can drag and drop them in
9. Click on the new user and enter an email address
   • This will allow them to use the forgot password and username feature
10. Click "Add/Remove Assignments..." and assign them to the following three queues:
    1. askaway
    2. askaway-practice
    3. institutional queue (e.g. kpu)
11. Click "Ok" and their queue assignments should now appear
12. ***Important: You'll also need to set their auto-busy status to 99:
    1. To do this, log out of the Dashboard and login to their account in the LibraryH3lp Webclient
    2. Navigate to Preferences
    3. Set "Automatically set me to 'Busy' after this many open chats" to 99
    4. Logout of the Webclient
13. ***Important: Email the Admin Centre so we can assign the new service provider the appropriate scripts (aka canned message)
14. Email the new service provider their username and password

Edit an Existing Account

1. Login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard with your institution's admin account (e.g. kpu-admin)
2. In the left-hand navigation menu, click Users
3. Open your institution's folder and select the user you're editing
4. Here you can do the following:
   • Change the email address associated with the account
   • Change the password
   • Change Queue Assignments

Delete Service Provider Accounts

1. Login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard with your institution's admin account (e.g. kpu-admin)
2. In the left-hand navigation menu, click Users
3. Open your institution's folder and select the user you're deleting
4. Once they are selected, click the red "–" button in the top left
5. Click Yes to confirm

Reset Service Provider Passwords

1. You can change a service provider password using the steps above for "Edit an Existing Account"
2. If a service provider has forgotten their password, they can use the "Forgot your username?" or "Forgot your password?" option on the Webclient login page.

The LibraryH3lp chat snippet is the code that you use to embed an AskAway chat box, button, or tab on your library's website, in databases, etc.

Follow these steps to retrieve your library's chat snippet:

1. Login to the LibraryH3lp admin dashboard with your library's admin account
2. In the left-hand navigation, click Chat Snippets (the < > icon)
3. You should only see your library's chat snippets listed
4. Click on the snippet you would like to view (embedded chat box, button, or tab)
5. Copy the code in the grey box and paste it wherever you need to embed the widget

Note: The snippet embed code is identical for all libraries except for the unique snippet ID number. In the example below, the unique snippet ID number for this library's embedded chat box is 806 (in bold).

<!-- Place this div in your web page where you want your chat widget to appear. -->
<div class="needs-js">Chat loading...</div>

<!-- Place this script as near to the end of your BODY as possible. -->
<script type="text/javascript">
  (function() {
    var x = document.createElement("script"); x.type = "text/javascript"; x.async = true;
    x.src = (document.location.protocol === "https:" ? "https://" : "http://") + "ca.libraryh3lp.com/js/libraryh3lp.js?806";
    var y = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; y.parentNode.insertBefore(x, y);
  })();
</script>

If you need to edit an existing or create an additional, new chat snippet for your library, see the FAQ Edit or create a new embedded chat box for your library.

If your library has a new link to its Policy Page, you'll need to update it in two places:

Library Policy Pages page on the AskAway website:

1. Log into the AskAway staff website
2. Navigate to your library's Edit Library Info page
3. Here you can change the Policy Page URL
4. Click Save to save your changes, and they will be reflected on the Policy Pages page

LibraryH3lp Policy Pages link:

1. Log into your library's LibraryH3lp admin account via the Dashboard
2. Navigate to Queues in the left-hand menu
3. Open the folder "AskAway Queues"
4. Select your library
5. In the Profiles area, update the profile URL for your library
   • You should be able to update the link using either the "Hyperlink" or "Source Edit" button in the editor
6. Click Save
7. The updated policy page URL will now be available to service providers in LibraryH3lp

Your library's policy page will now be correctly linked from two places:

• Library policy pages on the AskAway website
• From within LibraryH3lp

If you'd like to create institutional scripts for your library's service providers to access, follow these steps:

1. Login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard
2. In the left-hand menu, navigate to Canned Messages (pencil icon)
3. If you have no institutional canned messages, you'll need to first create a new message pool by clicking the green + button
4. Give your new message pool a name (this should be the name of your institution, e.g. SFU)
5. Leave "viewable by all operators" checked off
   • Note: this will ensure all service providers at your institution can access these canned messages.
6. Click Ok
7. Beside "Messages in [institution] pool" click the green + button to add new messages
8. Add the text of your canned message and click the check mark button to add it to the pool
9. To delete a message, click the x button beside the message

Note: Institutional scripts will only be available to service providers at your institution and not all AskAway service providers.

The offline message is the message that displays on chat boxes when the service is closed for the day or between terms.

Currently, the AskAway Admin Centre hosts a single offline message that displays for most libraries. The Admin Centre will change this message at the beginning and end of each term to reflect that the service is open or closed.

Customize your library's offline message

If your library would like the ability to customize and control the offline message, you will need to be able to host an HTML file on a secure (HTTPS) page. The URL for the offline message will then need to be updated in your library's chat snippet.

If you'd like to look into hosting your library's offline message, please contact the Admin Centre and we can work together to set this up.

Embedding your library's chat boxes in EBSCO is a great way to increase AskAway's visibility at your library and allows students to access chat support when they need it most: while researching.

Steps to add LibraryH3lp widgets to EBSCO

1. Login to your library's EBSCO Admin
2. Click the Viewing Results tab
3. Beside Widgets click Modify
4. From the Custom Widgets for: drop-down, select where you'd like the widget to display (Result List or Detailed Record)
5. To add a new widget, click Add Item
6. Select the Custom HTML radio button
7. In the Label field add a name for your widget (e.g. AskAway widget)
8. Enter a Height
9. Enter your library's Custom HTML
   • This is where you have 2 options (see below for more details)
10. Click Submit
11. Select the Yes radio button to default the widget to be opened
12. Check the Show box to enable the widget
13. Click Submit again to save your changes
14. Test the widget to make sure calls are coming through and to see how it displays when the service is open and closed

 

Custom HTML Options

Option 1: Use the chat snippet code

Enter your library's LibraryH3lp embedded chat box snippet into the Custom HTML field. See the FAQ Access your library's chat snippet for steps to get this code.

Pro: The customized offline message for AskAway will display when the service is closed.

Con: The referring URL that a service provider sees and that is stored in the session data will not lead to the actual page the patron was on when they initiated chat.

 

Option 2: Use the custom code template

Enter the custom code template into the Custom HTML field and update it for your library.

Pro: The referring URL will be a permanent link to a page in EBSCO.

Con: There is no option to display a customized offline message.

Here is the custom code template (you will need to update the bolded text for your library):

<script id="libraryh3lp-app" data-plink="ep.PermaLink" data-url="https://ca.libraryh3lp.com/chat/YOUR_QUEUE@chat.ca.libraryh3lp.com?skin=CHAT_BOX_SKIN_ID" src="https://widgets.ebscohost.com/prod/simplekey/libraryh3lp/libraryh3lp.js"></script>

YOUR_QUEUE is your library's queue name (e.g. kpu, sfu, sc, etc.)

CHAT_BOX_SKIN_ID for your library can be found by opening your library's simple URL chat box on this page: https://askaway.org/chat The skin ID is the last string of numbers in the URL (e.g. 15806)

If you need help identifying your library's queue or skin ID, contact the Admin Centre and we'll be happy to help!

Questions?

If you have any questions or would like help embedding widgets in EBSCO, contact the Admin Centre and we'll be happy to help.

Embedding your library's chat boxes in ProQuest is a great way to increase AskAway's visibility at your library and allows students to access chat support when they need it most: while researching.

Steps to add LibraryH3lp widgets to ProQuest

1. ​Login to your library's ProQuest Admin Module
2. Navigate to User Interface / Branding / Widgets tab
3. Click the Add widget button
4. In the Link text field, enter a title for the chat box (e.g. Ask a Librarian)
5. In the HTML code field, enter your library's embedded chat box snippet
   • See the FAQ Access your library's chat snippet
6. Add widget Width and Height
7. Check off Include widget directly on results page
8. Click Save Changes
9. Test the widget to make sure calls are coming through and to see how it displays when the service is open and closed
   • See this LibraryH3lp FAQ for ProQuest testing tips

To perform local coordinator tasks in LibraryH3lp such as creating accounts, updating your library's policy page, customizing chat boxes, etc. login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard:

• https://ca.libraryh3lp.com/dashboard/

Most local coordinators will login using their library's admin account (e.g. cotr-admin) unless your personal account has been set-up with local coordinator privileges. If you'd like to set-up your personal account with local coordinator privileges, please contact the Admin Centre.

Staffing AskAway?

When you're staffing AskAway, login to the LibraryH3lp Webclient: https://ca.libraryh3lp.com/webclient/client. Please login with your personal account (rather than the admin account) as this will help your colleagues recognize who's on shift with them and will make it easier to search and identify individual service providers in saved transcripts.

Simultaneous Sign-ins

Some libraries may have more than one local coordinator account set-up in LibraryH3lp or may share a single local coordinator account. If this is the case at your library, it's okay for more than one person to be signed into the dashboard at the same time as long as you're not trying to edit the same chat skin or chat snippet simultaneously as edits could be overwritten.

There are a few different places where you can gather statistics and session data for your library. This FAQ covers usage statistics. To learn how to gather session data and view transcripts, see the FAQ Gather session data and transcripts for your library.

View monthly usage statistics (AskAway website)

Monthly usage statistics are available to download from the AskAway website usage statistics page. Monthly usage statistics are broken down by individual institution.

Sessions with our Learners

• Sessions with our Learners: Total shows the number of AskAway sessions with students at your institution
• Handled by Us shows the number of these sessions that were handled by your service providers
• Handled by Others shows the number of these sessions that were handled by service providers at other institutions

Sessions with Other Institutions' Learners

• This column shows the number of students from other institutions that were helped by your service providers

Total Sessions Handled per Institution

• This is Handled by Us + Sessions with Other Institutions' Learners to show the total number of sessions handled by your service providers

View monthly usage statistics (LibraryH3lp dashboard)

You can also gather usage statistics for your library from the LibraryH3lp admin dashboard:

1. Login to the dashboard with your LibraryH3lp admin account
2. Navigate to Reports in the left-hand menu (chart icon)
3. There are a number of different reports you can run, view, and download in LibraryH3lp:
   • Choose Report
     • Select the type of report from the drop-down menu (Chats Per Hour and Chats Per Month are probably the most useful)
   • Start Date and End Date
     • You can select almost any date range for the reporting period
   • Include Not Answered and Minimum Chat Duration
     • You can decide if you would like to include calls that were not answered (no chat duration) or you can set the minimum chat duration in seconds
   • Queue
     • To view chats for your library only, deselect the check beside Queue to deselect all and then select only your institution from the list
   • Click Generate Report
4. You will see a graphical representation of the data, and you can also download the data by clicking the "Download CSV" button in the bottom right

 

There are a few different places where you can gather session data, transcripts, and statistics for your library. This FAQ covers session data and transcripts. To learn how to gather usage statistics, see the FAQ Gather usage statistics for your library.

View session data (AskAway website)

Monthly session data is available to download from the AskAway website session data page. Session data provides information for individual sessions and currently includes:

• Date and time started (also broken down by date only and time only)
• Patrons institution
• Session time
• Wait time
• Descriptive tags
• Referring URL

To view data for your library only, filter the Patrons Institution column and select your institution only.

View session data and transcripts (LibraryH3lp dashboard)

You can also gather session data and transcripts for your library from the LibraryH3lp admin dashboard.

View session data and transcripts

1. Login to the dashboard with your LibraryH3lp admin account
2. Navigate to Chat History in the left-hand menu (top menu item)
   • Note: the Chat History and Activity area includes transcripts and session data for *all* AskAway institutions.
   • Please *do not* delete anything!
3. To view a transcript, click on the chat and a transcript will pop-up below
4. To conduct an Advanced Search of session data and transcripts, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the search bar
5. There are many options for limiting your search, but here are some ways to narrow your search that you may find helpful:
   • from date / to date: narrow your search within a date range
   • queue*: enter your library's queue acronym to limit to results from your library only (e.g. sfu)
   • referrer*: to see calls originating from a particular webpage, enter a referring URL
   • tag*: to see calls by descriptive tag (e.g. research, citation, eresources access, etc.)
6. Most fields can be searched with the following wildcards and boolean:
   • * for partial matches (e.g. bird* for birds, birding, birder etc.)
   • ? to replace any single character (e.g. b?rd)
   • ! to omit exact matches (e.g. use !chat to omit results that contain the word chat)
   • " " to search a phrase (e.g. "house finch")
7. Once you've set your search parameters, click the blue search button to retrieve results

Download session data and transcripts

1. To download session data and transcripts (after you've narrowed the list of results), click the blue "download all chats" button (cloud icon)
2. Decide if you would like to download metadata only or the transcripts too
3. Select which data you would like to include or exclude
   • The following fields are recommended: queue, date and/or time started, wait, duration, referrer, tags
   • Note: AskAway does not collect guest IP so this field will be blank
4. Select the format for the downloaded file
5. You can also decide if you would like to hide the name of the operator (i.e. service provider)
6. Click Download and this will download a file to your local computer
7. Once downloaded, you may wish to delete any questions with the "practice" and/or "test" tags
8. You may also wish to add meaningful headings in your downloaded spreadsheet, for example:
   • started, date and time combined > Date and Time Started
   • queue > Patrons Institution
   • duration > Session Time
   • wait > Wait Time
   • tags > Descriptive Tags
   • referrer > Referring URL

Information about promoting AskAway at your library as well as templates for marketing materials can be found on the AskAway website promotion page.

If you would like to place an order for marketing materials, please contact the Admin Centre. If you have any ideas or tips for promotion, let us know!

If you'd like to view a recording of a past LibraryH3lp training session for local coordinators, please contact the AskAway Admin Centre.

We'll be happy to share a link to a recording.

Exit survey results are posted each month on the AskAway website survey results page.

To limit to survey responses from students at your institution only, filter the "Which institution do you attend?" column and select your institution.

The AskAway surveys include information on how students learned about AskAway, why they chose the service, level of satisfaction, what they learned during their session, and more.

What this FAQ covers

This FAQ covers how you can make changes to the appearance of your library's chat box when the service is online.

In the LibraryH3lp dashboard, this is done using what's called the chat skins tool.

Some context...

Your library's chat service in LibraryH3lp has two major elements - a queue and a chat box skin. The queue is tied to your institution and determines how chats are routed. The chat box skin determines what the chat box looks like.

The chat snippet combines a queue and a chat box skin and gives you the embed code you need to add chat to your library's website, in databases, etc. To learn how to access your library's chat snippet, see the FAQ Access your library's chat snippet. To learn how to edit an existing or create a new chat snippet for your library, see the FAQ Edit or create a new embedded chat box for your library.

 

Chat Skins

The chat skins tool is where you can change the appearance of the chat box that displays to students when the service is online.

Before making any changes to your library's chat skin, it's highly recommended that you first create a copy of your library's current skin so that you're not making changes to the chat box that is live and up on your websites. Creating a copy will also give you all of the customizations for the default AskAway widget, which is a highly customized version of the default LibraryH3lp chat box.

Create a copy of your library's chat skin

1. Login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard
2. Navigate to the "Chat Skins" area in the left-hand menu (look for the paintbrush icon)
3. Select your library's widget from the "Widget:" drop-down (e.g. KPU AskAway watermark/feedback)
4. Note the 5-digit unique ID number (write it down)
5. Click "Copy Widget"
6. The widget is now copied and you should see a new unique ID beside the widget name
7. Change the name of the widget so that you can easily recognize it. For example, add Copy to the title or give it a descriptive name with your institutional acronym (e.g. KPU brand color)
8. Take note of the new widget ID number (write it down)
9. Click "Save Widget"

You now have a copy of your library's default chat skin and you can play around with it without affecting the appearance of the chat boxes that are live on your library's website.

There are several quick and easy changes that you can make to customize your library's chat box:

Branding

• Title
  • You may want to change this to something shorter and descriptive (e.g. Ask a Librarian, Research Help, Chat Now) as the longer title looks squished in some sidebars, especially in databases
• Typing Notification Identity
  • You could change this to something more inclusive than Librarian (e.g. Library Staff)

Frame

• Background color
  • Here you can change the color of the chat box. This color must be a hex color code. You may wish to change it to your institutional brand colors.

Wicked CSS Hack

Since AskAway chat boxes are highly customized, there are some things you'll have to change here instead of in the fields above.

Here are a few simple changes you could make to the wicked CSS hack code:

• Title color
  • Search for the header "h1"
  • Beside color: you can enter a new color for the title (must be hex color code)
• Sprites (these are the icons for volume, email for transcript, and to pop-out chat)
  • Search for "span.sprite"
  • In the png URL that follows, change to either light_sprite (this will be white) or dark_sprite (this will be black)
• Feedback link
  • Search for "a#feedback"
  • Beside color: you can enter a new color for the feedback link (must be hex color code and change to either black #000000 or white #FFFFFF to match the sprites)

***Click "Save Widget" to save any changes***

Preview changes

You can preview most of the changes you make live in the chat skins tool. However, the preview chat box won't show all of the features (e.g. the feedback link is missing). To preview your changes and to see a fully rendered version of the chat box, follow these steps:

1. Click on the "Queues" area in the left-hand menu
2. Open the "AskAway Queues" folder
3. Click on your "institution's queue"
4. Open the "Queue URL" in a new tab
5. At the end of the URL, add the following: ?skin=##### (the #s will be the 5-digit skin ID of the chat skin you're working on)
6. When you reload the page, you'll see a rendered version of the chat box, with any changes you've made now visible

Implement new chat skin in chat snippet

If you would like to use the new chat skin you've created in a chat snippet, please see the FAQ Edit or create a new embedded chat box for your library.

Whenever possible, the AskAway Admin Centre will offer training for new service providers in-person or online.

At the beginning of every term, the Admin Centre sends a call-out to the local coordinators mailing list to find out if any training is required. Sessions are then scheduled as needed.

If your library requires training for any service providers outside of these times, please let the Admin Centre know.

AskAway training materials are available for both new and experienced service providers to further strengthen their skills.

What this FAQ covers

This FAQ covers how you can edit an existing or create a new embedded chat box (i.e. chat snippet) for your library.

There are a few situations where you might need more than one chat box for your library:

• You need chat boxes that have different widths / heights
• You need chat boxes that have different appearances (e.g. background color, etc.)

 

Chat Snippets

Edit an existing snippet

1. To get started, login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard 
2. Navigate to the "Chat Snippets" area in the left-hand menu (look for the < > icon)
3. By default, each library has three snippets:
   • Embedded chat box
     • ​In this FAQ, we'll cover how to make changes to the embedded chat box only, as this is the most commonly used snippet. If you'd like to make any changes to your library's chat button or tab, please contact the Admin Centre and we'll be happy to help.
   • Chat button
   • Chat tab
4. Click your library's embedded chat box to select it
5. Click the "EDIT" button
6. Using widget #XXXXX:
   • If you'd like to change the chat skin that this snippet is using, click the chat box preview under "Routing for incoming chats"
   • Here you can select which chat skin you'd like to display for this snippet
   • To learn how you can change your library's chat skin and create new skins, see the FAQ Customize the appearance of your library's chat boxes
7. Height and width
   • Here you can adjust the height and width of the chat box. By default the width is set to 100% so that it fills the space of any container, making it more responsive.

Create a new embedded chat box snippet

If you want to create a new embedded chat box snippet altogether, follow these steps:

1. Login to the LibraryH3lp Dashboard 
2. Navigate to the "Chat Snippets" area in the left-hand menu (look for the < > icon)
3. Click the "+ADD" button
4. Name:
   • Give your snippet a descriptive name (e.g. KPU Embedded Chat Box EBSCO)
5. Chat widget style:
   • Select "embedded"
   • If you'd like to create a new pop-up (i.e. button or tab), please contact the Admin Centre
6.  Routing for incoming chats
   • Make sure "Send chats to:" is set to your library's queue
7. Click on the widget preview to select the skin you want to use
   • To learn how you can change your library's chat skin and create new skins, see the FAQ Customize the appearance of your library's chat boxes
8. Height and Width:
   • It's ideal to set the width to 100% so that the chat box will fill the space of any container, making it more responsive
9. Please do NOT add a Service Rollover as this is configured separately by LibraryH3lp
10. Offline appearance:
    • The current offline appearance we have for AskAway is highly customized, so you will need to go back to one of your existing embedded chat boxes and grab the code. Follow these steps to do so:
    1. Click "Save" to save the snippet you're currently working on
    2. From your list of chat snippets, select the "embedded chat box" that your library currently uses
    3. Click "EDIT"
    4. In the "Offline appearance" area, copy the code in the text box
    5. Return to the new chat snippet you just created and paste the code into the "Offline appearance" box
11. Click "Save" to save your changes
12. You can now grab the embed code for this new chat snippet from the main chat snippets page

Testing

Any time you make changes to your library's chat snippets or create new ones, make sure to test them when online and offline. Here are some things to look for:

• Online: does the chat route to the appropriate queue?
• Online: is the appearance as expected?
• Offline: is the AskAway offline message displaying?
• Offline: when you click the "contact us" link, does it direct to the appropriate page or email address?

Guest logins for all participating AskAway libraries are available on the guest logins page (login required to view).

If you need to update the guest logins and/or the notes for your library, follow these steps:

1. Login to the AskAway staff website with your local coordinator account
2. In the top left corner, click the "Edit library info" shortcut
3. Here you can update information for your library, including Guest Login User ID, Password, and Notes
4. Click Save
5. The changes will now be reflected on the guest logins page