Home → Administration Manual for Libraries → OPAC Options → Self Registration Page Customizations
6.1. Self Registration Page Customizations
Last Updated 11/09/2023
There are number of changes and customizations that can be applied to the patron self registration page to control the look & feel and logic of the page.
Page Customizations
Required Fields
Any of the fields on the form can be made required or not. Some of these can be controlled via library settings on the back end while others must be hardcoded into the form.
Pre Form Message
A pre form message can be added to the registration form to give users additional context or instructions for completing the form.
Post Form Message
The post form message appears once a card has successfully been applied for.
Embedded Image
Images can be embedded anywhere within the form.
Address Validation
For forms with a required address, any part of the address can be validated to prevent users from outside of a certain region from submitting the form. For instance, Sandhill has a list of valid of zip codes that the address must belong to in order to be valid.
Date of Birth Validation
The logic of the date of birth field can be altered to prevent users below or above a certain age from submitting. The logic can also be tied into the digital signature feature mentioned below. Lastly, a counter can be added to the input to show how many years past the date is.
Permission Group Selection
A checkbox or drop down that allows users to set their own permission group. In Sandhill's example, their checkbox sets the users permission group to 42 (Internet). Additional logic can be added to the form to handle different permission groups. For example, if the Internet Only checkbox is checked, email will become a required field.
User Settings
Any of the user's settings, such as SMS notice info, can be put into the form so that they don't need to do it later. This plays into the digital signature feature described below.
Digital Signature
Digital signatures were implemented for parents to sign off on a card for their minor children. This is a new user setting that contains the parent or guardian's full legal name.
The date of birth field can have its logic altered to make the digital signature field required for minor users.
On the pending patrons staff page, the electronic signature will look like this:
Front End vs Back End Validation
Validation occurs when users submit data into the patron self-registration form. Back end validation happens on the NC Cardinal servers and prevents data from being input into the database if things are missing or formatted incorrectly. Back end validation is the stronger form of validation because it's guaranteed to run for all data. It's harder to implement back end validation because it requires changes to be made to Evergreen's code.
Front end validation happens on the user's web browser and can prevent data from reaching the NC Cardinal server. Every web browser is different, and what works on one doesn't always work on the other. It's possible for a browser to be unable to run the validation and allow "dirty" data to reach the server. Sneaky users may also "hack" the form to bypass front end validation. It's always a good idea to review the data by hand before accepting the new user.