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Masquerade Mode

Masquerade Mode

This documentation describes how to enable and utilize Masquerade Mode in Pika.


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Masquerade Mode basics

Masquerade Mode allows library staff to access patron accounts in Pika without a patron’s personal PIN or password. This is a more secure way to troubleshoot issues with patrons' accounts in Pika, since it doesn’t require that a patron provide their secure PIN or password to library staff.

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Enabling Masquerade mode

Masquerade Mode is enabled in the ILS/Account Integration section of the Library System settings. There are also required settings in the PTypes table that correspond with the staff Ptypes that you allow to masquerade as other users. Follow the instructions in this document to enable Masquerade Mode for your library system.

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Begin Masquerade Mode

To masquerade as a patron, you must be logged in to your library’s Pika instance as a staff patron that has a Masquerade Level enabled. When logged in as a staff patron with an applied Masquerade Level, you will see the Masquerade option in the My Account menu.

Click on Masquerade to bring up the Masquerade As popup window. Enter the library barcode number of the patron you want to Masquerade As and click Start. While the action is processing, you’ll see an alert in the Masquerade As popup window.