Top Rated SirsiDynix Symphony Alternatives
I like that you can open a patron's record to view a list of the materials they currently have checked out, after which you can update due dates and also see their circulation history. You can also update any personal information, such as office number or phone number. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Several times a patron reported that they received an overdue notice for an item they returned. I checked their online record, which said they still had the item checked out. We checked the shelves and found that the item, based on the barcode, was indeed returned. So sometimes an item's barcode is scanned but the system doesn't register it as returned. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
15 out of 16 Total Reviews for SirsiDynix Symphony
Customer Service has to be our best feature. We are very happy with the level of service provided anytime we need help. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Lack of notification of features. Features may be available but are not turned "on". You have to ask. If you are paying for product, just give all features available with the subscription. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Everything has it's own folder and there are multiple ways to access them through a drop down menus, the side bar, or the overhead menus. It's perfect for anyone who likes to find things under categories. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It's not very intuitive. It does take time to really learn everything about it, and because there are so many categories, users tend to get confused. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The main menu is very intuitive and clear, which is great. I like the option to change the colour scheme and fonts as it is quite windows 95 looking otherwise. The option to change between tabs on a user's account is very useful, as their personal data does not come first, which is good for GDPR. History of Checkouts is useful because we can confirm exactly the time when someone claimes they returned a book. Same goes for the current Checkouts; sometimes users think they did not borrow a book which is on their account, and we can check if they borrowed any other books at the same time. Being able to override pretty much anything is extremely helpful, however it does require some policies in place. The automatic emails we can send to users, such as checkout receipts, return receipts, notifications of reservations available, even fines are very useful. I would advise revising wording for teams and testing out the layout first, as we have had several instances when monthy summaries cause confusion. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
This could be specific for our institution, but I wish the menu names could be changed. So, for example, it would be called reservations in workflows for staff, as well as in the student-facing part instead of holds. The Receipt printer and font/theme settings are a little hidden, as well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
For anyone familiar with Integrated Library Systems, SirsiDynix at its most basic is fairly intuitive. When in combination with a system admin on site and programmers who can create the functionality necessary for the end user, Sirsi can be a dynamic and useful program! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
SirsiDynix for our system of colleges has currently been less than stellar. It may be largely due to the fact that we seem to be unable to connect Sirsi with our main database for students, faculty, and staff as well as the cashier's office which means we have to hand input every patron (despite them being in the school database already) and fine do not automatically show up to pay and must be transferred by hand to the cashier. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I like how its easy to to sort through the titles and you can do it by library, title, author and so much more. Each task is divided into its own tab, and for some people that can make it a lot easier to use. It's not intuitive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It confuses me that there are so many different tabs. I know how to use it but for some people who are learning how to use it, there are so many different ways to actually use it that no single person could have the same way of doing something in it. I also don't like when you need to sort results alphabetically, if there are too many it won't. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It is very user friendly and straightforward. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The terminology in general (which can be adjusted) and the 90s look and feel of it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I like the ease of toggling back and forth through the check out and check in process. I love the cataloging widget. It is easy to use! This program makes my library automation easier. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
When our network goes down and I haver to manually input it is more difficult. I don't like that the program does not allow you to toggle between check in and check out. It is supposed to but my computer does not allow it to . Tech department has got it working but it only lasts for one day. I would like to leave both windows open all the time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There is an integrated desktop client with options for pretty much any function in the system. Offline transactions saved our butts a couple of times when our remote site lost network connectivity. It was easy to upload and reconcile the offline transactions. The addition of the Web Services API's made life a lot easier for us and they seemed to work pretty well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The client, while integrated and near feature complete, is definitely a design of the past. It would be nice to see a proper web-based client (one that does not require purchase of a cloud solution). The public catalog option was abysmal, which is why we opted to use an open source discovery layer and require access to Symphony's Web Services API's. The mobile circulation option was almost unusable. We hoped to use its collection weeding functionality, but we couldn't get it to work. The company, while trying to address the drawbacks of their current system, seems to offer promises but ultimately fail at delivering on those promises within a reasonable amount of time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
When new "wizards" are opened, they remember the current record being used in the other wizard(s). Search and retrieval is reasonably fast. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There are perhaps more wizards than necessary that serve very similar functions. I dislike closing them all individually before being able to close the software. It can be very difficult to find the correct record because the search often pulls up old records or related records. Sometimes it appears that there are multiple lines for the same record. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I like being able to specify categories and easily sort of toggle through settings to find the appropriate material. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Really random and irrelevant items will sometimes come up and disrupt a search. Also, there are sometimes too many categories and not enough options to include multiple (e.g. juv_easy and deposit). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
