Set an inactivity timeout for in-house workstations

To automatically log out patrons from in-house workstations after a specified period of inactivity:

Note:
These settings do not apply to patrons who are not logged in or those working outside the library.

In the Administration Explorer tree view, open the Profiles folder for the organization, and click the PowerPAC tab in the details view.
Double-click Patron inactivity timeout. The Patron Inactivity Timeout dialog box appears.

Select Enable patron inactivity timeout for in-house workstations to enable the inactivity timeout.
Set the time after which the patron is logged out and the specified page (see step 5) is displayed. You can specify a time from 1 to 20 minutes.
Specify the page to display after the inactivity period and automatic logout:

Select Default PowerPAC home page to return to the page you have specified as the PowerPAC home page. See Set up Polaris PowerPAC.
Select URL and type the complete URL of the page that should be displayed (255 characters maximum).

Click OK to save your settings.

Patron Inactivity Timer

The patron inactivity timer starts only when a patron has stopped doing any of the following actions: clicking Polaris product buttons, links, cover images; clicking in the PowerPAC portion of the browser window; or entering a credit card payment. When any of these actions occur, activity is registered and the inactivity timer is restarted. Actions that are not counted as activity include resizing or moving the browser window; accessing browser menu options; scrolling; or accessing any third-party resource that opens in a lightbox, frameset, or new browser window.

When this feature is enabled, the browser status bar displays a count-down timer when 60 seconds are left before automatic logout. In addition, an alert box displays the following message 30 seconds before the session is due to time out: Your session will end in 30 seconds.

If the user clicks the Continue session button in the timeout alert box, the session timeout clock restarts, and the user remains on the current page. If a lightbox was open, it remains open. If the user does not click the Continue session button, the session ends, and the page defined in the Patron inactivity timeout profile displays.

Note:
When a credit card payment is submitted, the Patron Inactivity Timeout value is calculated by adding it to the credit card gateway timeout set in the Credit Card parameter Online payments: Configure plus 90 seconds.

The count-down timer text can be edited in Polaris Language Editor (string ID PACML_TIMEOUMSG).

The following language strings can be edited in Polaris Language Editor:

PACML_TIMEOUTALERT
PACML_TIMEOUTALERT2
PACML_CONTINUESESSION
PACML_TIMWINTITLE
PACML_TIMEOUTCLICK
PACML_TIMEOUTSECONDS

Note:
The number of seconds cannot be modified.

Note - Secure Socket Layer (SSL):
If SSL is enabled for the entire site, the 60-second countdown timer appears in the status bar only if you add the site to the trusted sites list in Internet Explorer. For more information about SSL, see Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Set the entire PowerPAC site to https only.

Note - Firefox browsers:
You may need to clear the browser history to make the timer work correctly.

To display the count-down timer in the status bar, select Tools, Options, Content tabbed page, and click Advanced. On the Advanced JavaScript Settings dialog box, select Change status bar text.

The automatic logoff applies only to in-house workstations. A workstation is typically considered to be in-house if it is registered in Polaris Administration (staff client workstations) or if the workstation’s IP address is listed in the In-House IP Addresses database table. If you use Polaris PowerPAC on workstations within the library and you are enabling the patron inactivity timeout, be sure to list them in the In-House IP Addresses database table.

For information about registering client workstations in Polaris Administration, see Setting Up Workstations.

For information about listing PowerPAC workstations in the In-House IP Addresses database table, see Identifying In-House Computers.

You can determine whether the system checks both the In-House IP Addresses table and the registered workstations (the default setting), or only the In-House IP Addresses table, to determine whether a workstation is in-house. See Set criteria for determining in-house location.