The choice of deleting last year’s patrons is entirely up to each library. Other libraries using our software have done both; although, the majority tend to clear the records from year to year. Here are the pros and cons of doing either.

Clearing patron records:

Pros

• No duplicate patron records  
• Patrons do not have to be aware of using the ‘Signed Up Before’ button to retrieve last year’s registration information

Cons

• The patron records have to be deleted  
• Patrons have to retype all of their registration information

Leaving patron records: 

Pros

• The patron records don’t have to be deleted  
• Patrons don’t have to retype their registration information

Cons

• Duplicate patron records are a possibility if patrons don’t use the ‘Signed Up Before’ feature (this is less of a problem now with the ‘Merge Patron’ feature but still requires staff maintenance)  
• Patrons have to be aware of using the ‘Signed Up Before’ button to retrieve last year’s registration information (this is the big hang-up because in order to retrieve last year’s information they need to confirm their identity by typing in their user name and password)

If you choose to delete the patron records, here is the procedure for doing so:

• Make sure to enable ‘Allow Bulk Deletion of Patron Records’ in System Maintenance à System Settings (set it to ‘Yes’ - this will enable a button in the program’s setup called ‘Clear All Program Records (Including Patrons)’ and also a button called ‘Delete All Unregistered Patrons’ in Patron Registration Information)
• Run any statistical reports that you may want to capture prior to doing any deleting.
• Go to each of last year’s programs (make sure you are in the right program before proceeding) and click on the ‘Clear All Program Records (Including Patrons)’ – this will delete all the program-specific records (logging, reviews, prizes, etc…) as well as the patron records. The ‘Clear All Program Records’ button simply deletes the program-specific records but DOES NOT delete the patron records so don’t use it.

Doing this will delete all the information from last year’s programs. One thing to note – the ‘Delete All Unregistered Patrons’ is provided in System Maintenance à Patron Registration Information (you’ll see after you do a search) in case the ‘Clear All Program Records’ button was used at one time, which will keep the patron records in tact, and you want to remove UNREGISTERED patrons that are still present in the database but do not belong to a program. This will not delete any patrons that belong to a program – only those that do not belong to any program.

As to your other question regarding old reviews, we do not have a bulk delete feature for reviews. You can delete them but it has to be done individually. There should be no reason that you should have to delete these if you are using a new program or if you ‘Clear All Program Records’ or ‘Clear All Program Records (Including Patrons)’ on your old program which deletes all program-specific records including reviews. I suggest simply copying last year’s program and then editing as necessary so you have all the program setup information but do not have any of the program’s participants and their information. You can copy a program by going into the program’s setup, click on ‘Copy Program’, enter the name of your new program and click on ‘Save Copy’.