Customizing the Form Fields

Central to GIST are repurposed ILLiad fields that collect feedback data from users. These are text fields that are typically not utilized for ILL requests, thus they are very easy to customize for other purposes. To customize the GIST form fields yourself, you have to first make changes to the fields on your ILLiad webpages. Then you need to customize your ILLiad 8 field labels accordingly.

If you wish to use the form fields and customized layouts included with the GIST downloads, you can still customize the response options on the ILLiad webpages. If you have status-specific webpages, this means you can provide different response options to students than you do to faculty (i.e. you might not want to give students the delivery option to place an item on course reserve).

Note: Try planning on paper before you begin editing the webpage itself. This will help you keep track of which fields you’re using for each purpose, while also helping you when customizing your ILLiad 8 layout.

Although you can customize any field you’d like, a select handful typically goes unused by ILLiad and most users. By repurposing those fields, you can actually gather feedback and other information right into your ILLiad requests. Below you will find a table listing the fields used at SUNY Geneseo for faculty.

Note: to set a certain response option to be a default selection, use the selected attribute in your <option> tag:

<option selected>Hold for pickup at Circulation</option>

Tip: When you’re ready to make changes, try this first:

1. Save a copy of your request page with a -Tester suffix (i.e. LoanRequest-Tester.html)
2. Then, open your user record in ILLiad and change your status to Tester. This way, the changes you make to this page will only be visible to you and nobody else (in case you make mistakes)
3. When you have the page to your liking, simply save a copy of it over the original page (i.e. LoanRequest.html)

Once you customize the form fields on your webpage, you’ll need to rename the field labels accordingly. This will greatly help staff navigate and interpret the data imported into ILLiad through your customized webpages.

1. In ILLiad 8, click on the Document Delivery tab
2. Open any request (does not matter if it’s active, finished, or cancelled)
3. In the request form, right click on a form label and select Customize Layout
4. The Customization form will appear. Click on the button and open the GIST Doc Del.xml file.
5. Close the Customization form and the ILLiad request. This customized layout will now be applied to every Document Delivery request you open.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 in the Borrowing tab, using the GIST Borrowing.xml file.

You can also create your own customized layout, or alter the downloadable GIST layouts to better suit your needs. For more information about customizing layouts, please see the Atlas documentation.

Below is a sample of the customized ILLiad 8 document delivery layout developed by SUNY Geneseo.