1. It may remove the transfer completely!  If this happens, you can use Circulation > Transfers to re-set the transfer.
   Video: http://screencast.com/t/jMh5LtgBKgY
   
2. It may change the Current Location from the receiving library (the library where the Hold is) back to your branch…so it looks like the book is on it’s way to a library while still being at your library.  Confusing.
3. It may also break/remove/mess up the Transfer.  Instead of saying “In transit from Library A, to Library B, since Date. On Hold for Patron A…” it just says “In transit from Library A, to , since date” – those important Library Branch names are GONE.
   
4. If this happens, rely on the SLIP or the “delivery at Library B” information in the Status note to get the item where it needs to go.
   Video: http://screencast.com/t/hXFbymsFvqF

So, how can you “safely” see the status of a stack of books?

• Scan the barcode in the “Search the Catalog” box rather than “Check in” – then you can see the Status clearly on the Holdings table.

We will share this information with ByWater, in hopes that we can get this fixed or develop a “Check Status” option that does NOTHING to the transfers, holds, or overall status of an item.

Until then, if you wonder about the status of an item in hand, scan it at the Search the Catalog box, not Check In.

Hi everybody.

This is an important update on Koha’s “Lost Status” functionality.

Since our upgrade, there have been significant changes to the way Koha behaves when a Lost Status is applied:

First, as I mentioned in my earlier email message on November 21, the ONLY way to change an item’s Lost Status is to click on the item barcode and then select the appropriate Lost Status from the dropdown menu. You can’t EDIT the item and modify the Lost status any more.

Second, these Lost Statuses behave differently than they have in the past. Here is Nicole Engard’s reply to my question about the change in Koha behavior:

…there was a bug that made it so that the other statuses didn’t mark things as lost on the patron record. Once that was fixed you started having problems. I think that Ian has been looking in to another way to solve this ‘bug’ so that it doesn’t effect those like you who had a workflow in place

without realizing that there was a bug in the system. I’m sorry about this and hope that Ian can help us come to a solution that works for everyone.

Until further notice, please be advised that ALL Lost Statuses in Koha will CHECK IN THE ITEM AND APPLY A REPLACEMENT COST TO A PATRON’S RECORD, IF CHECKED OUT.

These are the defined Lost status values in our catalog:

0 = Not lost
1 = Lost
2 = Long Overdue/Assumed Lost
3 = Missing
5 = Claims Returned

Until recently, the only one of these choices which checked an item in and applied a replacement charge was the LOST (1) status. Now, regardless of which value is selected, Koha behaves the same as if you had selected LOST (1).

This will have a significant affect on several libraries’ workflows. I know that some people have used the LONG OVERDUE/ASSUMED LOST status as an intermediate step to marking an item LOST; CLAIMS RETURNED has likewise been used as an information status for items that are in dispute.

Please be aware that as of now, ANY use of LOST, LONG OVERDUE/ASSUMED LOST, MISSING or CLAIMS RETURNED will result in the same action in Koha: If checked out, Koha will check the item in and assign a replacement cost to the patron’s fines tab.

Please pass this information along to your staff, and let me know if you have any questions about the change. ByWater is looking into how to address this situation and to give us some time to reevaluate our processes. Thanks.

Mickey

From the Release Notes, I see that we already have most of these new features, but I will be looking more closely at these this week:

ADMINISTRATION and CATALOGING

• New permission for overdues report
• Z3950 results highlighting
• And a whole bunch of stuff that will make Heather dance for joy…

A reminder – we have the LIVE catalog (staff.nexpresslibrary.org) and a TEST catalog at staff-test.nexpresslibrary.org.  TEST is our play ground…you can’t hurt anything…it’s old data.  You can create new patrons, place holds, pretend to route holds, mark books lost – basically all of the things you do in the LIVE catalog…only for “does this still work right?” purposes.

If you could help us test circulation, label making, fine paying, hold placing, hold reordering (the arrows should work again) and book cataloging (including Fast Add that should work again)…we would be mighty grateful.  I would be, at least.  Feel free to use our fancy testing protocols.

Exciting new features and some much-anticipated bug fixes (in no particular order):

Bug 6871 – Reports – Link to a fancy new Database Schema page within the Reports module.  For those of you brave enough to write your own SQL reports, the table and field names are now readily available.  There is a link to this and the Reports Library also on the Reports front page under “Other.”  Contact me (Sharon) if you want assistance with reports or help building your own.

Bug 6801 – Patrons - Patrons with many checkouts was SLOW to load.  Well, this is what I call an “efficiency fix.” The developers worked with us to look at the code and identify where the slow down came from with some of our power-user patrons.  According to Chris on a “borrower with 286 checkouts the load time dropped from 108858ms to 4075ms.”  I’m guess that means microseconds, but still…from 108 to 4 seems good to me.  Note: The TEST server is on a slower machine than LIVE – so results will be even better on our live catalog.

Bug 6869 - Cataloging – Items with diacritics and special characters in the title can now be Batch Edited.  Had any of you who batch edit noticed this?

Bug 4298 – Holds – You will notice new wording in the Holdings Table for item-level holds.  This is another one of our ‘pet bugs.’

Bug 6901 – OPAC and Staff Client – We (Liz) can now customize how the Details page displays information in both the OPAC and the Staff Client.  As an example, for eBooks from Project Gutenberg in the OPAC we increased the font size and changed the the color to red to highlight the hyperlink.
What else would you like changed or improved? We can add bulleted lists (I think), change font sizes, font color, etc.

Bug 6870 – Patrons - This enhancement improves how Koha manages emailed messages, according to what we wrote in the original post…  Rather than using the Admin email address (nexpresshelp), the emails appear to come ‘from’ the patron.  Liz says, “This way, the library can respond directly to the patron’s information update, as an example, letting them know that the update has been completed.”

Acquisitions - Suggestions for Purchase work great!  You can sort, you can click on a title and Accept/Reject each individual record OR you can use the check boxes and accept/reject or delete many suggestions at once.

Bug 2534 – Cataloging - An old bug that finally has a partial-fix.  The sometimes unruly Items Table on the Edit Items page has been expanded and the scrolling from right to left has been improved.  Hard to explain, so here’s a Silent Video demonstration.  Interesting discussion about how to really fix this right (which I think would involve being able to hide empty columns…).  I just learned that our friends at Ottawa Library helped with this re-design! Go NExpress…

Bug 6360 – Circulation - New Sound Cues for transfers!  Again, I think this is one we asked for specifically.

Bug 6887 – Circulation/Patrons - New “Checked out from” column added on both the Patron Check out screen and the patron details screen showing WHERE an item was checked out…so those patrons who use multiple branches can be clearly identified and assisted.

Bug 3498 – Circulation/Fines - Enhancement pulled from ‘that other ILS’ allowing for payment of Partial Fines!  Woot.  Check out the [?] help file on the Pay Fines tab of a patron’s record for detailed instructions.  Well during this Silent Video demonstration, I found a bug…when you reverse payment on a partial fine it doesn’t work quite as expected!  I reported it.

Bug 6861 - Cataloging - Fast Add from Circulation spits you back into Circulation when you’re done with the Fast Add BUT if you are Fast Adding from Cataloging, you STAY in cataloging.  This is good, I think.  Associated bug 6853 is marked as Critica and is still being worked on (default to SET library from Cataloging Fast Add).

Bug 6687 – Holds - Fixes Arrows and Delete buttons on the Holds Priority List!  If you click an arrow, you can move someone up or down one place OR to the top or bottom of the holds priority list, you can also “toggle lowest priority” or delete a hold.  The help file for this page needs to be updated…badly.  Play around with this in TEST, but use with extreme caution once it’s in the LIVE environment.

OPAC - OPAC Note versus Message.  During testing, we played with OPAC Notes (from the Patron Edit page) and compared that to the “Add a Message” feature on the Patron’s Circulation tab.  Both options create messages – either on the OPAC for the patron or on the Circulation tab for other librarians.   The nice thing about the Add a Message feature is that it puts a time stamp and Library tag on each message.

Persistent Bugs (that I keep re-discovering and Liz has to remind me that we already knew that…):

Bug Alert From April Upgrade Post:  Bug 6226 - Misrouted Holds.  Scenario:
Library A transferred a book to Library B, but accidentally sent it to Library C on the Courier (you “O” libraries know what we’re talking about…).
What happens when Library C checks in the item?  They get a reminder that there is a HOLD and to send the item to Library B.  That’s good.
However, if Library C happens to check in that item a second time the transfer Goes Away.  That’s bad.  Also, if Library C goofs up and sends the book to Library D, when they check it in the transfer Goes Away.  That’s bad, too.

• To Check the Status of an Item, use “Search the Catalog” not “Check In” to.  Look at the Status information in the Holdings Table.  
• If you accidentally make a Transfer Go Away, you can useCirculation > Transfer to re-add that transfer information!  Select the destination library and scan in the barcode to re-trigger the transfer.

So, you have the new Best Seller, but you can’t put it on the shelf until next month.
How do you catalog it so that patrons can start placing holds on the title before it hits library shelves?

The OLD cataloging specs were:

Item Subfield 7: Not for loan: Ordered
Collection: On order
Shelving Location: Cataloging
Item type: On order*

*We suspect that Koha gets confused when assigning holds on materials cataloged this way when/if the item type designation on the items are changed from On Order, which is completely unrestricted, to Local Hold.**

**I created an elaborate test video to recreate this scenario, but of course Koha worked just like it was suppose to!  Figures, eh?

However, the Best Practice is this:

• Go find a Bibliographic record from the ether
• Catalog your items as you would normally (Local Hold as Local Hold, Walk in as Walk in, Book as Book)
• Set the Not For Loan status in Item Subfield 7 to “Ordered”
• When you are ready to start circulating these items, edit and change the Not For Loan status back to ‘blank’

An Example:

Patrons

• We paid to fix Bug 4415 – Child record only using parent’s info.  Now, after you add a Child patron to a Parent using the Guarantor feature and EDIT the child’s record (say by updating their email address), the edited information will display (instead of the parent’s information).   Read through the bugzilla entry if you want to see how it takes all of us testing and tweaking to get the fix ‘just right.’

Cataloging 

• Bug 6635 - Now you can page through the search results to create a new Label Batch.  If you happen to create batches by searching by title or author, you can now move past the first page of search results to find the item you want to add!  Nicole Engard found this and Owen Leonard fixed it!  Thanks to both of them.
• Heather and Liz proposed the next few fixes and now they are part of Koha!   That’s the power of Open Source
• Bug 6325 – Bib detail – z39.50 button functionality should be under “Edit” menu.   If you want to upgrade a Bibliographic Record (go find a more complete record and overwrite the ‘inferior’ record in Koha), you can do that by clicking on Edit and “Replace record via Z39.50.”
• Silent Video demonstrating this Function
• Bug 6313 – Adding option to “attach another item” when finished attaching items.  Pretty self-explanatory, this new feature should make cataloging multiple copies fast and efficient!
  
• Bug 6543 - Column hiding on batch item edit/delete not working.  The bug this fixes is demonstrated in this Silent Video.  You can again hide columns and NOT lose track of the Title!

Circulation

• New Feature for us?  Bug 5922 - Show waiting items for patron on return.  If we turn this new System Preference on, when you check in items (either when they are returned or when unloading the drop b0x) and the person returning the items has something Waiting on the Holds Shelf, you will get a pop up message.  Good or annoying?
  
• Bug 6623 – Nicer Style for “Clear Screen” Button – Another development by our friend Owen.   When you hover your mouse over the X, it turns red.
  
• Bug 3397 – Deleting item record leaves a hole in patron’s reading history.  This is a bug we identified in June and now it’s (sort of) fixed.  Rather than leave a hole, if an item is deleted from your collection, that item will be removed from the Patron’s reading history table.

Forgot this: Search to Hold is back!!!  It works great, too.

At check in, only patrons with fines will have the yellow dialog box appear. No fines? No box!

In Cataloging, the parseerror is NOT fixed. We have let our support vendor know.  For more about this, read this.

When importing a batch of bibs, you can now Pick a Framework!  It’s a new drop-down option.

Holds – several fixes including:

• Cancel Hold in Transit bug has been fixed!   If you cancel a hold for a patron that has already been transferred between branches, when that item arrives at your library, you will be prompted to either send it to fill the next hold or prompted to send it back home.
• Dual Prompts have been fixed – meaning that no new dual promptsshould be created.  However, there will be some lingering problems.
  • Specifically, when the status information lists 3 different libraries, that is an indication of this bug.  There were two prompts – one trying to send the book home for reshelving and the correct prompt transfer the item to fill a hold:

• • For transfers like that one that are already messed up, you will still see some dual prompts, ONLY CONFIRM the one that sends the item to fill the hold.   Checking out the item to the correct patron will put everything back to normal.
  • We are aware of two additional places where you may get dual prompts and the Community is working on those.
• Bug Alert:  Bug 6226 - Misrouted Holds.  Scenario:
  Library A transferred a book to Library B, but accidentally sent it to Library C on the Courier (you “O” libraries know what we’re talking about…).
  What happens when Library C checks in the item?  They get a reminder that there is a HOLD and to send the item to Library B.  That’s good.
  However, if Library C happens to check in that item a second time the transfer Goes Away.  That’s bad.  Also, if Library C goofs up and sends the book to Library D, when they check it in the transfer Goes Away.  That’s bad, too.
  • To Check the Status of an Item, use “Search the Catalog” not “Check In” to.  Look at the Status information in the Holdings Table.  
  • If you accidentally make a Transfer Go Away, you can use Circulation > Transfer to re-add that transfer information!  Select the destination library and scan in the barcode to re-trigger the transfer.

Patron Search defaults to ANY library for the initial search, not the Set Library.  To limit to YOUR library, click the [+] and select your branch from the menu.

Drop Down Menus default to Set Library
- Adding a new item? Defaults to your library.
- Adding a new patron? The form will default to your library.

Reports are now Sortable and you can show up from 25 to 200 reports per page.  We are still testing the new “Schedule” feature.

Outstanding Known Issues:

• Holds Awaiting Pick Up Report is still not functioning as expected.
• Managing Purchase Suggestions is still not functioning as expected or in a way that works with a big, multi-library system like ours.

• Circulation History in the Staff Client - we had to disable this over the weekend because it is causing Script Errors that are slowing down the ENTIRE system.  Bywater is working on this bug, which has to do with how Firefox splits the History results into pages.  Patrons CAN view their Circ History from the Online Catalog.  Teachable moment?
• Default Messaging Bug.  Our default messaging preferences are not working as expected – this is a new Community bug we have identified (way to go Diana).  Bywater and other “development gurus” are working on a patch.  So, If a new Patron provides an Email address, check this box:

• 
• Purchase Suggestions shows ALL: Jeanette reported that the Suggestions for Purchase feature in Koha shows ALL pending, accepted and rejected Suggestions, where in Harley it only showed the Set Library’s.  When I tried to resort the list, I got one of those icky Script Errors.  I will report this as a bug.

• Patron Circulation History in FireFox and Script Error.  We opened  Bywater ticket for this issue and the temporary work around is to NOT use this feature in FireFox, but you can use it in a different browser, such as Chrome.
• Library Associate v. Staff. We have taken what was formerly known as the “Staff” patron category and replaced it with the Adult patron category of “Library Associate.”  The Staff accounts currently in the system are ONLY the System Log ins (CIRC, etc.).  When creating an account for a new staff member, select ADULT from the drop down, not STAFF.  We will see about making the Staff option magically disappear.
  **We made this change so that Staff members can serve as Guarantors AND change their own passwords!
• Holds Queue Timing.  We are still working with Bywater to overcome Day Light Savings Time issues and getting the Holds Queue to run at 7 am, 1 pm and 4:30 pm.
• UPDATE: We have uncovered an issue with using the Holds to Pull Report - if the item on the Holds to Pull Report is at Library A for a patron from Library A…it wouldn’t be good customer service to make them wait for Library B to send their copy to  fill that hold.  Let’s stick with the Holds Queue for now.
  In the meantime – you can always see what Holds are Pending throughout the System using the Holds to Pull report!  (Staff bored? You can have them run this report and pull holds throughout the day.)
• Patron names appear on slips.  We have put in a ticket for this and the latest from Nicole is that this would make a great system preference.  There are also a couple of development requests out in Community to make receipt slips customizable. We are willing to co-sponsor those developments.  Your shredder may get a work out until we can get this fixed – need hamster bedding?
• Redundant Holds arriving. This is a symptom  of re-loading the reserves last Tuesday.  Last week you probably saw many redundant movies showing up on the courier and this week it’s probably going to be books (because of the different circ periods for those formats).
  • If you get a 2nd or 3rd copy of an item:
    Verify that the patron already has a copy of the item already checked out, if so, view their Holds and delete any redundant holds that are NOT in transit.
    For the redundant holds that are in transit, you will have to receive the item, check it in, confirm the hold, check it out to the patron, check it back in and move it on its way down the line.  Perhaps a quick email or phone call to them explaining the issue would smooth any ruffled feathers…and you get a Circ stat for your time and trouble
  • We believe this is a migration hiccup and will work itself out in time.  The reasoning was:
    Better to fill the hold twice than have it disappear all together.