LINKcat News

4.10 LibLime Koha Upgrade "Coming Soon"

 

We are planning to do the 4.10 LibLime Koha Upgrade in mid-January (no specific date yet).  The LibLime elves are working on completing the final bug fixes.  Next week, ILS staff will be doing additional testing in the sandbox and begin preparing the documentation for the upgrade.  Included in the 4.10 upgrade are:

• Last patron information (more details coming next week)
• Holds Managament which resolves the problems with manipulating holds when there are a large number on a single bib. See the Holds Managament document under Testing on the ILS Web Site Training page. We strongly encourage you to look at this in the sandbox as it substantially changes the way holds are displayed for staff.
• Display Agency code when checking in holds
• Improvements to relevancy ranking (more details coming soon)
• Many bug fixes (more details coming soon)

We realize there are a lot of "details coming soon", but we wanted to get the word out about this upgrade as soon as possible.

Following this upgrade, LibLime will be delivering to our sandbox a substantial number of additional bug fixes and enhancements pertaining to our contracted development. We are working on a complete list which is "coming soon."  This will be the beginning of LibLime Koha 4.11 which will also include our next phase of new development.

 

Testing, testing, testing

Testing in the LibLime Koha 4.9 Sandbox

I am pleased to report that we received a great response to our call for general software testing in the sandbox.  Here are some statistics:

• We had 16 checklists covering the various modules.
• We had 56 individuals participate in testing!
• The most tests that one person completed was 8.
• We had testers from 23 libraries.

This testing was in preparation for the 4.10 upgrade which will be coming in mid-January 2012.  We asked for people to test to identify bugs in the sandbox that can be fixed before we go into production.

Thanks to each and every one of you who helped out. You will be receiving a little Thank You in delivery.

More details on what will be included in 4.10 will be coming shortly.

News summary: weeks of 11/28/2011, 12/5/2011 and 12/12/2011

News

• 12/19/11 Please check the Recently Added section of the Known Problems page for updates on several problems that have occured since the Amazon server maintenance on 12/12/11.
• 12/16/11 Items with a status of Withdrawn will be deleted on 12/22/11. See the blog post for details.
• 12/13/11 The Purchase Alert reports have been reworked and changes have been made based on the feedback from the earlier reports.  (Thanks Greg!)  The new reports are split out by agency with the holds in one column and the number of copies in the next.  The reports are current as of 12/07.  Please take a look and let us know what you think of the new reports. These will go into production soon. http://www.scls.info/ils/reports/Purchase/12-07-2011/
• 12/8/2011 Read the Annual Reports blog post for all the details on how this will work on Koha.
• 11/29/2011 LibLime is applying a fix to Koha tonight. It should resolve the problems with drop-box checkin and may address some issues with Lost and Damaged items and the Holds Queue Report. We will provide more details tomorrow.
• 11/29/2011 We have created a check-list for staff to test and try out the new holds management feature in the Koha sandbox. Before proceeding, it may be helpful to read the document called Holds Management in Koha which can be found on the Training page under Testing.

Recently Fixed

• New items/bibs not searchable: New items and bib records that have been added since 12/13 (after the server work overnight on 12/12) are still not searchable as of today. (12/15/2011) (SCLS Support Ticket 41630) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet) (Fixed 12/16/2011)
• Dropbox checkin and the Override check in date options are fixed: Items checked in using the Dropbox option credited one day of overdue fines and recorded the return date as yesterday.  Items checked in using the Override option credited overdues and recorded the return date based on the date set.  The system retained both options throughout the process.  IMPORTANT: You must uncheck the Dropbox option to get out of it and you must use the Clear screen button to remove the setting for the Override option.  Just leaving that screen will not 'turn off' those check in options.  If you are still having problems or notice that fines are not being credited correctly, please submit a Koha Problems and Questions form. (Fixed 12/1/2011)
• Subject searching: "Corporate names" are not included in the subject or subject as phrase searches in both the staff client and PAC. (A corporate name is a name that represents a group, not an individual. It can be a band name, such as "Red Hot Chili Peppers" or a corporate name, such as "General Electric Company.") You can still do a keyword search for corporate names. (10/31/2011) (SCLS Support ticket 41342) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet) (Fixed 11/30/2011)
• Damaged items appear on Holds Queue reports. (8/23/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 40836) (Fixed 11/30/2011)
• If an item appears on a Holds Queue report, and its status is later changed to a status in the Lost status category (Mending, AV Repair, etc.), the item does not automatically drop off the Holds Queue report. If there are other Available items to fill the hold, try Passing the item to remove it from the Holds Queue report. This includes items that are marked Trace from the item record. Items should be marked Trace from the Holds Queue report, not from the item record. (10/7/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 41024) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet) (Fixed 11/30/2011)

New Problems Identified

• "Not found" message when using Search to Hold: Sometimes when using the Search to Hold button from a patron's Check Out screen, after clicking the Search to Hold button, you get a mostly blank pop-up screen with the header Search to Hold" and the words "not found" in the body of the screen. This as a sporadic occurrence that can be "resolved by exiting the "Search to Holds" pop-up screen, refreshing the Check Out screen and retrying the Search to Hold button. It has been reported to LibLime (12/16/2011) (SCLS Support Ticket 41636) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet)
• Odd display problems: Sometimes Koha displays with the wrong font or with icons out of place. This has occurred since the system maintenance overnight on 12/12 and has been reported to LibLime. The problem occurs in both the staff client and the PAC. Refreshing the screen or clicking on a link to get to another page usually clears the display problems. (12/16/2011) (SCLS Support 41637) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet)
• Problems checking in items on the Holds Queue report: Since the Amazon maintenance occurred 12/12, various libraries have reported problems checking in items on the Holds Queue report. Staff pull up the report, click the Check in hyperlink for the item to fill a hold and they get a mostly white screen superimposed on the report with the header Check In Item and "not found" as the info on the screen. If you have a large report, you may have to scroll down to find this screen. This does not happen for very item.
  If this happens to you, close the Check in Item screen, and check in a different item and then go back to the 'problem' item. The second check-in of the 'problem' items usually succeeds. You can also try checking in from the checkin screen rather than the Holds Queue report.  (12/14/2011) (SCLS Support 41627) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet).
• Clear Date button for the Override Check In Date Check in option is not clearing the date: If you select an Override check in date and check in some items, the system properly assigns the backdated date as the return date.  You can click the Clear Date button and the date is 'cleared' from the field but, unless you perform a check in transaction or click the "Submit" button with the date field cleared, the first backdate you 'selected' will return any/every time you go back to the Check In screen, regardless of which hyperlink you use. Libraries have also reported that sometimes they do not get the Clear Date button unless they click the "Submit" button or until after the first item is checked in. (12/12/2011) SCLS Support Ticket 41619) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet)
• Problem with mis-matched hold pickup locations: On Friday, December 2 a post was made to the status wiki that staff should not shuffle holds on titles with a large number of holds. Several titles were reported as having an incorrect pickup location after a hold had been shuffled. It is OK to continue to shuffle holds (aka change the priority). However, it is important that you not interrupt the process as this may be what causes the corruption. When there are a large number of titles, it does take more time to process changes to the holds queue. Be sure that it is finished before clicking on something else on the screen, or trying it again. ILS Staff have checked over 100 titles that have more than 50 holds with pickup locations that do not match home agency and have only identified the 3 titles mentioned above. LibLime has cleaned up the pickup locations on these titles: Social Network (DVD), Thor (DVD) and The Adjustment Bureaud (DVD). There may have been some holds sent to the wrong library, so you may want to check to see if any of these are at your library and send them to the correct location. Please let us know if you find any other titles with large numbers of holds with mis-matched pickup locations via the Problems and Questions form. This problem should be completely resolved by the new holds management feature which will be available with the next upgrade. (12/8/2011) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet)

Batch delete of Withdrawn items on 12/22

Items that have a status of Withdrawn will be deleted on Thursday, Dec. 22. If you have items to be deleted that do not have a Withdrawn status, then you must change the status by the end of the day on Wednesday, Dec. 21 in order to include them in the batch deletion.

A report of all items with a Withdrawn status (as of today, 12/16/11) is posted on the Reports page. The report is an Excel spreadsheet with three tabs. The first tab is ACL-MID (excluding MAD), the second tab is MOO-WYO, and the third tab is MAD. Also, please note that there are a few items included on this report that are checked out (the due date is listed in the last column, if the column is blank that means the item is not checked out). That means they have a Withdrawn status and are checked out to a patron. Checked out items will be excluded from the batch delete, but you might want to investigate these items because Withdrawn items should not be checked out.

If the last item on a bib is deleted and there are holds on the bib, then the holds will be canceled. Also, if the last item on the bib record is deleted, then the bib record will be deleted as well.

This will be the last batch deletion of Withdrawn items in 2011. For 2012, we plan to do a monthly deletion of Withdrawn items. We will notify you of the monthly dates when we have that information.

Problem with checking in items on the Holds Queue report

Since the Amazon maintenance occurred 12/12, various libraries have reported problems checking in items on the Holds Queue report.  Staff pull up the report, click the Check in hyperlink for the item to fill a hold and they get a mostly white screen superimposed on the report with the header Check In Item and "not found" as the info on the screen.  If you have a large report, you may have to scroll down to find this screen. This does not happen for very item.

If this happens to you, close the Check in Item screen, and check in a different item on the report and then go back to the 'problem' item.  The second check-in of the 'problem' item usually succeeds.  The SCLS Support ticket for this problem is 41627.  Thanks to everyone who submitted a report about this problem and and thanks also to the libraries that allowed me to remote into their PCs to track the problem.

Annual Reports Update

Good News!

Yes, it is almost annual report time!  The SCLS ILS Staff and Cindy Weber have been preparing to generate these reports for 2011.  First, we have some really good news:

• There will be no down time required for year-end procedures.
• There will be no moratorium on adding or deleting items and bibs.
• All reports will be posted electronically.
• Due to the improvements with LibLime hosting and system administration services, we are able to eliminate over 75 steps from our year-end process--many of these represent multiple hours of work.
• We may be able to provide sub-totalling for many of the reports.

The majority of the reports are already being run as monthly reports and it will be fairly easy to turn them into annual reports. The only reports we have not yet created are the serials reports. We will do our best to provide the data required for the state annual reports.

Dynix Reports

Many of the print Dynix reports were distributed after we went live on Koha. Don't be concerned if you do not know where yours are--we have duplicates!  We will be distributing these during the first week in January. This will be the last time we have to do our big report distribution process!

December Monthly Reports

We are still working out the details, but it is almost certain that we will not begin generating the December monthly reports until January 3.  This is due to the way the holidays fall this year.

State Annual Report

Libraries will have extra work when preparing for the state annual report this year as it will be necessary to combine information from the Dynix reports and the Koha reports.  SCLS ILS staff is planning to update the usual memo that we do to walk libraries through the process. We will also host webinars on completing the various sections of the state report using the Dynix and Koha reports.