What’s new in the Technology Suite

Destiny v23.0 features Unified Navigation enhancements, with a modern design and centralized side navigation. The redesigned interface lets you quickly jump between tasks, as well as areas of Destiny and Follett Software products. The features you use every day, like checking out resources, haven't changed. You'll find them organized in the same way, through the new sidebar.

Use the primary navigation bar

The primary navigation bar, available at the top of every page, lets you quickly jump between areas in Destiny and across Follett products.

Use the secondary navigation bar

Destiny organizes tasks in a collapsible sidebar menu. Whether you want to catalog or circulate resources, run reports, or configure your site, use the following basic navigation steps:

1. From the sidebar, click one of the following menu items: Catalog, Circulation, Reports, Admin, My Info, or More.
2. Click an option.
3. Some pages have tabs. Click the appropriate tab for the task you want to perform.

Log in to Destiny

The login page also has an updated look. You can still log in to Destiny using single sign-on (SSO) with Google or another protocol, or your Destiny username and password. Log in as guest routes users to Library Search.

Learn more about navigating Destiny and the benefits of Unified Navigation. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

There have been several enhancements to Destiny AI: Data Assistant.

If you have Resource Manager, you can now ask Destiny AI: Data Assistant questions about your resource circulation statistics, catalog, and inventory.

The AI is smarter. Its expanded capabilities let you ask how-to questions, as well as inquire about tips and best practices (such as weeding recommendations). In addition, a new question bank with commonly-asked prompts lets you customize the prompts to meet your library and resource needs.

Library prompts

Resource prompts

Destiny AI: Data Assistant is accessible through the Site Dashboard in Destiny Back Office and is available to US-based Destiny Cloud-hosted customers.

Learn more about Destiny AI: Data Assistant.

You can now upload a custom district and/or site logo. And, customize the district home page with text, links, and images.

Learn more about profile options. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

Administrator and staff users can now set individual default site and/or product preferences when logging in from their district or site page. Decide which view you want to see upon logging in: a particular site or the whole district, including the last visited site or district used. You can also choose a default product on login or the one that was last used.

Learn more about profile options. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

You can now click a patron's barcode to get to their Patron Status page from the following pages:

• Copy Status or Item Status (from either Catalog or Circulation)
• Check Out History or an item's Transaction History

Learn more about viewing copy status (Library Manager) and item status (Resource Manager). (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

There have been a few updates to enhance security in Destiny.

• Destiny Administrators and district users can now recover their password. SMTP must be set up for the district. Also, a valid email address must be in the user's record, as a reset password link is sent to that address.

  Note: Follett recommends using a district-approved email address.

  

• Destiny Administrators are now required to enter an email address in their user record.

• Every 90 days, district users – including Destiny Administrators – will be prompted to confirm the email in their record is correct.

• If a district user attempts to use a weak password, they will be forced to change it upon login.

Learn more about Set up Destiny Administrator access, Set up district users, Reset password, and Set up SMTP settings. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

There have been a number of enhancements for unbarcoded items.

Add unbarcoded items through inventory

Districts that conduct inventory for unbarcoded items, such as consumables, can now allow users to add unbarcoded items when the actual count is found to be higher than what had been cataloged in Resource Manager. After entering an Inventory Count greater than the Item Count, clicking Save, and getting the alert message, the user can click Add Items to go to the Add Item page.

The Add Resource Items or the new Add unbarcoded items through inventory permission must be enabled to see the Add Items button. Resource groups are honored during inventory, meaning you can only access the resources you have permission to view.

Check out unbarcoded items

Now, when you check out unbarcoded items using To Patron and there is only one resource matching your search, Destiny will automatically check out one item of that resource. If you want to check out more than one item of the resource, you can enter the quantity, and then click the new Check Out More button.

Learn more about conducting an inventory and checking out items to patrons. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

There have been a number of enhancements for transferring resources.

Performance update for tracking transfers

Districts that do a lot of transfers will now experience faster load times when viewing the Track tab (Catalog > Transfer Resources).

In addition, only resources you have permission to access will appear. For example, if you only have access to the Textbooks branch of the tree, you will just see textbook transfers.

Request tab updates

To make finding requests more efficient, district and site users will now have the ability to do the following on the Requests tab (Catalog > Transfer Resources):

• Sort columns in ascending and descending order.
• Customize the page using Customize View.

District and site users can now bulk-delete completed transfer requests. Site users are able to delete completed requests sent to or received from the district.

Learn more about tracking and processing transfers. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

Districts that have a lot of fines and use a third-party payment system can now limit data by additional parameters, as well as see resolved fines.

Limiters

You can now limit fine data by:

• When it was created or edited, based on a selected time frame
• Patron persona (student, employee, other)

Resolved fines

Previously, when a fine was resolved in Destiny (such as a lost book being returned and the fine waived), it disappeared from the output. Now, the Fines API output can include a Resolved Fines section, which appears after the Site and Patron sections.

Learn more about managing API accounts. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

Destiny Help Desk is a subscription service integrated with Destiny Resource Manager to create, track, manage, and resolve service requests.

The button or icon will only appear if the user has the appropriate permissions and the item is a technology-related resource.

You will see the Add Help Ticket button or Create Help Ticket icon on the following pages:

• Catalog > Resource Search, find a resource, then click the Items tab

• Circulation > Check Out Items > To Patron, To Department, To Location, By Class, and To Teacher in the Items Out section

• Circulation > Check In Items, Most Recently Checked In section

• Circulation > Item Status

• Circulation > Patron Status

View Help Desk tickets

There is also a new Help Desk Tickets section on the Item Status page. This section shows the date, status, request number, and ticket description.

Learn more about Help Desk. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

There have been a number of improvements to Help Desk.

Mass Update enhancements

If you assign a team to work on specific requests, you can now assign that team via a mass update. In addition, you can now mass update a request with a note. This makes updating requests efficient when parts are delayed, school is closed, etc.

Learn more about Mass Update.

Navigation enhancements

• To allow more space for widgets, filters have been moved to the left side of the screen on the following Dashboards:
  • Request Summary Dashboard
  • Labor Dashboard
  • Total Cost Dashboard
  • Technology Summary Dashboard
• Request details and asset details pages now have Previous and Next buttons at the top-left. This lets you navigate directly to the next request or asset item instead of returning to a list.

  

Any resource item marked as an IT/Technology Resource Type Category in the Resource Manager template tree can be synced to Help Desk as an asset. Resource Manager item fields that are mapped to the asset field appear in Help Desk. The sync automatically occurs every 24 hours, but it can also be done manually.

Learn more about syncing items from Resource Manager.

Before Destiny users can access Help Desk, they need to be set up in Help Desk as a single sign-on (SSO) group. You can now bulk add Destiny users, such as staff and students, to have access to Help Desk.

Learn more about bulk adding Destiny SSO groups.

You can now view role history, including when permissions were added or removed and by whom.

Learn more about managing roles and permissions.

You can now mass update request categories. This section only appears if all requests selected for update use the walk-through mode.

Learn more about mass updating requests.

You can now view request type history, including when settings were updated or removed, by whom, and when.

Learn more about managing request types.

Users with the Manage PMs permission can now require technicians check that each step of a preventive maintenance (PM) procedure is done before they can mark a request complete.

Learn more about managing preventative maintenance procedures.

Dashboard reports have an updated look with a variety of formats, including bar graphs, pie charts, and line charts. These let you drill down to get the exact information you're looking for.

Learn more about:

• Request Summary dashboard
• Labor dashboard
• Total Cost dashboard
• Technology Summary dashboard

The following enhancements were made to Unified Navigation: 

• Name change on Update District Sites page: The setting to enable or disable Unified Navigation has been changed to reflect the updated name.
  
• Ability to copy and bookmark URLs: You can now copy and bookmark URLs across Destiny Back Office, Destiny Discover, and Collections. This lets you share direct links to pages for specific sites, such as the Destiny Discover and Destiny Back Office homepages, a collection, or a specific title's details.
• Destiny Discover permission update: There has been an update to honor the Use Destiny Discover by default permission. With the permission disabled, users will automatically access Destiny Back Office. Before, if your district had enabled Unified Navigation and the Search using Destiny Discover permission, users would be routed to Destiny Discover automatically, even if Use Destiny Discover by default was disabled.
• Collections navigation: When you use the app switcher to navigate to Collections from the Profile page, it now takes you directly to the Collections homepage.

Learn more about Unified Navigation. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

Destiny Help Desk is a subscription service integrated with Destiny Resource Manager to create, track, manage, and resolve service requests. Districts using Resource Manager version 22.5 with Unified Navigation enabled can track IT service requests from the time they are submitted until they are closed.

Learn more about Destiny Help Desk.

District-level users can now easily transfer resources from or to any site in the district using a CSV file.

The CSV file needs to include an item identifier and site where the item is moving. You cannot transfer containers or their items with a CSV file. Also, items cannot be transferred from an Advance Booking site or to a site that does not have Resource Manager.

Learn more about district-wide transfers using a CSV file. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

To make updating item records easier, you can now change custom item fields when doing an individual, batch, or global update (Catalog > Update Resources).

Individual Update

When looking to update items, you can select the appropriate Resource Type of the items and see the associated custom fields. For example, the resource type of Technology > Computer Equipment > iPad will include custom item fields for an iPad, while Technology > Computer Equipment may have different custom fields. If a resource type is not selected, only Item-Specific Fields common to the Resources template appear.

Batch Update

In Batch Update, the layout on Step 1 of 2 has been updated. As with Individual Update, you can select the Resource Type and have the ability to update up to 10 Item-Specific Fields by selecting the Resource Type. You can also move items from one resource type to another.

When you move to Step 2 of 2, you will see the selections made in Step 1 of 2.

Global Update

As with the Individual Update and Batch Update, you can now select the Resource Type on the Global Update page at both the district and site level.

Learn more about Individual Update, Batch Update, Global Update (site level), and Global Update (district level). (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

There are two new features when starting a resource inventory.

You can now limit unbarcoded resources and consumables that are in your inventory to Home Location, Custodian, or Department. If any unbarcoded resources and/or consumables are not counted, you will have a chance to mark them lost or ignore them when you finalize the inventory.

Also, you can select to bypass the component pop-up verification during inventory. With this selected, users will not have to enter the number of included pieces when scanning items with components one-at-a-time.

Learn more about starting a resource inventory. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)

The Current Checkouts/Fines report now honors the resource groups a site-level user has access to – both when creating or editing a report. Also, if a user runs a saved report, the output will only show the resource types the user has the applicable report permissions for.

When setting up or editing a report, click Update next to All Resource Types. The Select Resource Types page only shows resources the user has access to.

Learn more about the Current Checkouts/Fines report. (Before you click a Help topic link, log in to the latest version of Destiny.)