Textbook Express – Bookstore Overview

Owned by Dawn Brunke (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 30, 2020 by Dawn Brunke (Unlicensed)
3 min read

Textbook Express is a feature of PrismWeb that receives the student’s schedule information from the campus website, and displays all of the books and materials for their courses.  From there, the books can be added to the shopping cart and purchased or reserved.  If configured, students can also pre-order their books.

Textbook Express is not just limited to the student’s schedule. Textbook Express can be utilized to link to materials on a course by course basis. The links would generally appear on the school’s online course catalog listing or similar. This will allow the students to view the information before they are enrolled in any classes.

To start the process, Campus IT will add code to student registration pages that will dynamically generate a link on the student’s registration page. This is achieved by using specific parameters set by PrismRBS. You can download specific details to give to your Campus IT Department. Textbook Express – Campus IT Technical Details .

How Textbook Express Works

Below is an example campus registrar’s website, with a student’s course schedule brought up.

When a student clicks on the Click here for all your textbooks link shown in the image above, they will be taken to a page on the bookstore website where the books for the courses registered will be displayed.

From this page the student can change the quantities and book type (new/used/rental), and add books directly to their shopping cart.  They can then proceed with the normal checkout process to purchase their textbooks.

Pre-Orders with Textbook Express

If you choose to use pre-orders through Textbook Express, the student will see a page similar to the one below.  Instead of seeing their book information, they will see their courses listed with options to select their book preferences.

Once the student creates their pre-order, the bookstore can process that pre-order normally (refer to the Textbooks section of this manual for additional information about pre-orders). 

PrismWeb Manager Options

There are four options to control Textbook Express in the PrismWeb Manager. Log in to the PrismWeb Manager and navigate to Setup > Site Options > Textbook Options to see the options available.

Parameter

Definition

Reserve via Textbook Express?

Controls whether Textbook Express is enabled for purchases or pre-orders.  The options are:

·         Purchase via Textbook Express:  only allow purchases through Textbook Express

·         Pre-order via Textbook Express:  only allow pre-orders through Textbook Express

Textbook Express Materials (Pre-Order Only)

For pre-orders through Textbook Express only, this allows you to set the default book materials options.  The options are:

·         All

·         Required Only

·         Required and Recommended

Textbook Express Preference (Pre-Order Only)

For pre-orders through Textbook Express only, this allows you to set the default preference for type of textbooks.  The options are:

·         New Only

·         Used Only

·         Prefer New (will accept used)

·         Prefer Used (will accept new)

Textbook Express Course Error Message

You can customize this error message that displays if there are no courses found in a Textbook Express link. 

Textbook Express Demo and Additional Information

Textbook Express is relatively easy to implement and deploy. After the initial implementation, there is very little maintenance required.

If you have questions or need further information on getting started, please call PrismRBS Support at 800-510-3911 or email us support@prismrbs.com.

First Published 5/19/2020

Edited 09/30/2020

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