Enable Pika Offline Mode

This documentation outlines the process to enable and disable Pika’s Offline Mode for planned ILS outages.


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Offline Mode Basics

The purpose of Offline Mode is to allow libraries to set Pika to show as offline while doing an ILS upgrade. It would be used when you know you will have a down outage.

The Offline Mode cannot be used for unexpected ILS outages.  If you have an unplanned outage and would like to turn on the Pika Offline Mode, please contact Marmot at pika@marmot.org so that they can engage the Offline Mode using backend settings.

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Enable Offline Mode

To enable Offline Mode, your account must have the OPAC Admin permission.

You can see your roles for Pika by going to My Account and Account Settings.

Under Staff Settings will be the Role of OPAC Admin.

On the sidebar will be System Administration and System Variables. Click on System Variables.

A variable has been added to allow for the use of Offline Mode. Limit by typing either offline or offline_modeClick the Id number or Edit to change the Value from false to true.

Click on the Set to true button to turn on the offline mode.

The Value is changed from 0 to 1. Once the Value has been changed, click the Save Change and Return button. 

The system will generate a message at the top of the homepage to let patrons know the system is offline.

The offline mode can be used when offline logins are allowed.  There are conditions to offline mode that would either disable login entirely for offline mode, and another to disable placing holds in offline mode.  If logins were disabled in offline mode, as soon as you turned it on, you would not be able to log in to turn it off. 

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Disable Offline Mode

Go back into the Systems Variable and click the Set to false button. 

The Value will change from 1 to 0. Click the Save Changes and Return button.  The Pika site will start to communicate with the circulation system.

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Offline Access Unavailable

There is a backend setting which will display logins in Offline Mode. When that backend setting disables login, you will not be able to change the Offline Mode Value from false to true.  The message, “While offline logins are disabled offline mode can not be turned on with this variable” will appear after trying to change and save the Value. This prevents an OPAC Administrator from turning on Offline Mode when they will be unable to turn back off later.  If you encounter this situation and would like to have the Offline Mode on, please contact Marmot at pika@marmot.org .

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