LINKcat News

Deleting the Not for Loan status "Exception"

The Note for Loan status "Exception" was originally a status that was incurred after using an old offline circulation software; it has not been in use since 2011.  

 

All items that had that status in Koha have had that status changed to "Unavailable" and the description of the status has been changed to "DO NOT USE".  In January 2016 SCLS staff will be deleting this status after all of the 2015 Year End processes and reports have been completed.

 

 

2015 Purge of Inactive Patrons

The annual Purge of Inactive Patron records will take place at  end of  December 2015.  For the purposes of this report and purge, SCLS libraries define "Inactive Patron records" as patron records that have not checked out items in the last 2 years AND have been expired for at least one year AND owe less than $20.00.

Your library will be sent a list of patron records that are eligible to be purged. These patrons will:

•     have your library listed as their home library;
•     have not checked out items since December 2013;
•     account expired before December 2014; 
•     have no holds on their record and
•     owe less than $20.00. 

 
When you receive your report, please review the records, especially the records with a Patron Category of WEB.  If these WEB records are for temporary Internet or Database use, you may not want to delete them. If there are records that you DO NOT want purged, you must (manually) Renew those records so they will not be included in the final extraction.  Otherwise you need do nothing further.

The deadline for review is Friday, December 18, 2014. We will re-run the report on Monday, December 21 to exclude any records that are modified, and will submit the records to be deleted that day.

News Summary for 10/1/2015-11/30/2015

News (in case you missed it!)

• 11/24/15 The minutes from the November PAC Meeting are posted online.
• 11/24/15 The minutes from the November CMC Meeting are posted online.
• 11/24/15 The minutes from the November CSC Meeting are posted online.
• 11/19/15 74,707 items and 7,197 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 11/19/15 3,559 bibliographic records were added and/or updated in the database between 10/30/15 and 11/18/15.
• 11/18/15 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for October are posted.
• 11/17/15 A change was made to the Patron records policy. The change was approved by the ILS Committee 10/7/2015.
• 11/11/15 The LibLime Koha 4.18.18 upgrade took place last night. See theRelease notes for details on the upgrade.
• 11/11/15 Changes were made to the following Cataloging Policy: Searching and Matching. These changes were approved by the ILS Committee at itsOctober 7 meeting.
• 11/2/15 The Koha monthly reports for October are available online.
• 10/29/15 1,001 bibliographic records with no items attached (that were created before 7/1/15) were deleted from the database.
• 10/29/15 22,335 items and 2,738 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 10/29/15 9,115 bibliographic records were added and/or updated in the database between 9/25/15 and 10/28/15.
• 10/21/15 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for September are posted.

Koha Known Problems--Recently Added & Updated:

• 11/11/15 NOT COMPLETELY FIXED. Testing in the Sandbox showed this problem fixed; testing in Production still produces a time lage anywhere from 5 seconds to 2 minutes. Re-reported to LibLime. 6/16/2015Time lag between placing a hold and having it trapped. Libraries have found that when they place a hold and immediately check the item in to trap it for the hold, the item is not trapped. They have to wait a few minutes, check it in again and then the item is trapped. Problems only started occurring after 3/4/2015 4.18.09 point upgrade. This has been reported to LibLime. (5/6/2015) (SCLS Support ticket 3033)
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 2/2/2012 Sorting private list by title: The Title sort on patron private lists does not work - titles do not sort correctly. (2/2/12) (SCLS Support Ticket 2727*) [BUG]
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 8/19/2011 "Add to" drop down box in PAC only shows 10 private lists, even if patron has created more than 10 lists. (8/19/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 1147*) [BUG]
• 11/23/2015 FIXED. 9/29/2015 New. E-Commerce bug: error message may cause patron to submit payment twice, which produces duplicate payment entry in Koha. IF YOU OR A PATRON SEE A DUPLICATE SIP PAYMENT IN THEIR ACCOUNT , DO NOT ISSUE A REFUND UNTIL SCLS STAFF CONFIRMS THE CARD WAS CHARGED TWICE. So far only one patron has stated they were charged twice and we are awaiting confirmation. (SCLS Support ticket 4516)
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 6/18/2015. New. Lost items returned may incur duplicate credit. During the small window of the 4.18.13 point release, a bug manifested duplicate credits when a Lost or Claims Returned item was checked in. This behavior stopped once the point release was retracted but staff may find a negative Outstanding amount in the patron's Account History that is not an Unallocated credit. If you do find one of these negative Outstanding amounts on a patron record please submit the patron barcode and problem line number from their Account History via the Help Desk Portal. (SCLS Support Ticket 3313
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 4/17/2015 PAC/Searching. Incorrect relevance ranking for keyword search of advanced search: The relevance ranking is incorrect when you do a keyword search using the Advanced search screen. This is true in both the staff client and the LINKcat PAC. The relevance ranking is correct when you do a keyword search using the main search box. Unless you are using a limit that is only available on the Advanced search page (such as Audience) you can use the main search box to do your searching. (SCLS Support Ticket 2944)
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 4/3/2015 Circulation/Fines. Pay All button and Pay Selected button problems reported. Madison has reported 3 incidents where an initial Payment using the Pay All button has failed to apply the complete payment to the patron's charges. Attempting to use the Pay All button again or use the checkboxes and the Pay Selected button producesError messages on the Account screen. ONLY using the individual Pay button, in the Action colum for that entry, successfully applies payment to each entry. This does not happen every time. IF you notice this happening, take screen shots of the problem and save them. Submit the patron record, the date of the payment, the original balance and the actual amount applied on the Koha Support form. This has been submitted to LibLime and they have staff actively working on a resolution. (SCLS Support Ticket 2854)
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 5/2/2014 Circulation/Patron. Item Checkout History screen recording incorrect information in both the Checkout (Issuing)and Renewals Library columns. Issuing library incorrectly displays Owning library, Renewals library displays the owning library or the checkout (issuing) library.(5/2/14) (SCLS Support Ticket 402 / 4.18)[BUG]
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 6/11/2014 Circulation/Fines. Refund All button is brokenDo not use the Refund All button (in the patron's Account screen) to clear multiple Unallocated credits/Refunds. Using the button causes an odd debit charge to be added to the patron's record instead of clearing the Refund(s). Use the individual checkboxes and the Refund Selected button when you need to clear multiple Refunds. This has been reported to LibLime. (6/11/14) (SCLS Support Ticket 784/4.18) [BUG]
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 2/14/2012 Circulation/Checkout. Patrons able to check out over 100 max limit: there is a bug in the system that allows patrons to check out over the max. cko limit for their patron category if they check out at different locations. Staff do not get the pop-up message informing them that the patron has (already) reached the max. limit. (2/14/12) (SCLS Support Ticket 1115* / 4.10) [BUG]
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 9/15/2014 Circulation/Fines. Sporadic duplicate overdue fines when items renewed online. We've sent out emails to libraries with affected patrons to ask the patrons what browser(s) they are using when they are renewing the items. LibLime is tracking this problem. (9/15/14) (SCLS Support Ticket 806/4.18) [BUG]11/11/15 FIXED. 8/18/2011 PAC/Carts/Lists. Cannot save contents of cart to a list when using Select All. Must add items individually. (8/18/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 717 / 4.8) [BUG]
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 11/19/2014 Update. Duplicate holds may be caused by hitting any key on the keyboard after clicking the Submit button (on the holds confirmation page). If patrons report problems with duplicate holds, please review the process with the patron in person while in the library. Please confirm the steps that the patron takes and whether the problem occurs when placing holds while in the library or if it only occurs when placing holds from home. This issue has been reported to LibLime. 5/31/2013 If patrons click the Submit button (on the holds confirmation page) more than once, then duplicate holds are placed. The holds transaction is not complete until the patron is brought to the list of holds in their patron account. If the button is clicked again before the initial transaction has completed, then the browser sends a new transaction and this results in duplicate holds. This is a browser issue and also happens on commerical web sites. There is a notice on the holds confirmation screen instructing users to click the Submit button only once. Fixing this problem would require development to make the Submit button disappear after it is clicked. (5/31/13) (SCLS Support Ticket 492,*936, 1718, 1616, 1900) [BUG]
• 11/11/15 FIXED. 5/21/2014 Problems with Payment receipt.Payment receipt no longer lists itemized payment amounts, just the total payment amount. Would like the itemized payment amounts back.(SCLS Support Ticket 623) [DEVREQ]