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Appalachian College Association
Collaborating for Appalachian Higher Education

WorldShare Management Services: Troubleshooting

Resources for BCLA Cohort in WorldShare Management Services (WMS)

OCLC Help System

OCLC Help System

FAQs and Troubleshooting That Apply Across Multiple OCLC Products and Services

(See also the FAQs and Troubleshooting sections for each application).

OCLC Community Center

The OCLC Community Center is an online forum for library staff to connect with their peers, ask questions about workflows and best practices, and contribute ideas to improve OCLC products and Serivices.

Contacting OCLC Support

Start in the OCLC Help System and search for answers. The FAQs and Troubleshooting sections for each application have answers to many questions already asked by other users

Contacting Support

OCLC Support is available between the hours of 8:00 am and 7:00 pm EST.

Phone: 1-800-848-8500

Email: support@oclc.org

When reporting an issue please include the following:

  • Your institution's name
  • Your OCLC Symbol or Registration ID
  • Identify yourself as a WMS institution
  • Include the URL to the item, if relevant
  • Include the OCLC number or barcode, if relevant
  • Include proxy credentials for accessing your knowledge base if they are not in Collection Manager
  • Include a description of the issue and the expected behavior:
    • Identify the area you are working in 
    • Detail your issue and the steps you took to get there
    • Include screenshots when possible
    • The more detail the better!

Troubleshooting Typical Issues

Think there is an outage?

Locked out of WMS or Service Configuration? Do this.

User roles - Has the staff member been assigned the user role required to complete the action? 

Roles for every application

To assign and manage roles you must be an administrator of the application where the role is listed. 

How to assign and manage roles

Expiration dates - If a staff member's account has expired access will be denied. Someone else can search for the staff member's account and change the expiration date to to something in the future.

Search for expired user accounts

Why is my WorldShare account expired?

Logging out - Always log out of WMS using the 'Log out" option in the upper right corner.AND close the browser completely. The browser must be closed before you can open a new WMS session.

Browser cache/cookies -Clearing your cache and cookies can often resolve access issues. How to clear cache in every browser.

Pop-up blockers - Pop-up blockers can stop pages from loading in another tab.

Provider settings - Does the provider require an identifier specific to your institution be added to links to their resources? Check the list of providers requiring an ID. Add the required ID in Collection Manager > Institution Settings > Provider Settings. 

List of  providers requiring specific identifiers

Has the database been selected in both the Knowledge Base and Service Configuration? See how to How to Activate a New Database in the KB and Service Configuration to see all the steps needed to make items available in Discovery,

Blocked circulation? 

  • Look at the user's loan limit policy for the limits set for number of items loaned, number of renewals allowed, etc. 
  • Look at the user's patron type policy for limits set for overdues, fines, bills, checkouts, claims returned, etc. 
  • Check user's expiration date

Notifications - be sure to whitelist no-reply@oclc.org

OCLC System Status Dashboard

Is anything down?

ACA Group in the OCLC Community Center

The OCLC Community Center is an online forum for library staff to connect with their peers, ask questions about workflows and best practices, and contribute ideas to improve OCLC products and Serivices.