Bug 11858 - RFID for circulation using RFIDHub
Summary: RFID for circulation using RFIDHub
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Koha
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Circulation (show other bugs)
Version: Main
Hardware: All All
: P5 - low enhancement (vote)
Assignee: Bugs List
QA Contact: Testopia
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2014-02-27 09:35 UTC by Magnus Enger
Modified: 2023-11-23 14:03 UTC (History)
15 users (show)

See Also:
Change sponsored?: ---
Patch complexity: ---
Documentation contact:
Documentation submission:
Text to go in the release notes:
Version(s) released in:


Attachments
Screenshot of new featured (46.87 KB, image/jpeg)
2015-10-29 20:29 UTC, Héctor
Details

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Description Magnus Enger 2014-02-27 09:35:49 UTC
See http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/RFID_RFC for details. 

This patch will add some sysprefs and JavaScript for talking to an "RFIDHub" which is a separate project.
Comment 1 Viktor Sarge 2014-08-05 12:26:23 UTC
I'm very interested in seeing how this comes along since Hylte that I work a lot with will be adding RFID. Will it benefit from the current work to "Ajaxify" circulation? There seemed to be plans to handle highlighting of multiple messages at once there which would be relevant for RFID as well. 

It seems input has been slow on this RFC(?) I know Dobrica created some RFID hack (from KohaCon11 http://www.slideshare.net/dpavlin/kohacon11-integrating-koha-with-rfid-system) - he might have some input?
Comment 2 Nicole C. Engard 2015-05-19 15:28:48 UTC
I have a library that likes this idea a lot - what's the status of this? Is it sponsored or looking for sponsors?
Comment 3 Viktor Sarge 2015-05-19 20:27:50 UTC
Nicole - I very much suspect that the relevant projekt is over at https://github.com/digibib/koha-rfidhub. But I'm not shure whether it's near getting the full workflow with the necessary parts in Koha done even if the RFIDhub seems done. 

The way Hylte does RFID now is that the vendor created a workflow with the RFID-reader posting codes at a certain pace and relying on focus being set to the barcode box. That's not very pretty even if it works and for the staff side I'm looking forward to batch checkout since that lets them checkout the whole bunch at the same time which works perfectly with how the reader wants to work. I guess running the RFIDhub would be even better :) But at least it works for now (and I guess some RFID-vendors might use SIP2 instead(?)
Comment 4 caro fjorde 2015-08-26 19:27:08 UTC
Hi there, 

My name is Caroline and I work at the Farmington Library in Connecticut. We use Tech-Logic RFID readers and have been tagging our collection for almost a year. We are able to check in and out one item at a  time, but would love to improve our accuracy and be able to check in multiple items at once using RFID. We noticed that we can use the KOHA offline component to check multiple items at a time using RFID, but sadly holds are not picked up using this method. I am not the most tech savvy person, but am willing to help. Thanks.
Comment 5 NancyK. 2015-10-27 22:38:18 UTC
We are looking to go with RFID at Washoe County. To have to check in and out one item at a time is not going to go over well. What can we do to get this moving?

NancyK
Comment 6 Héctor 2015-10-29 20:29:43 UTC
Created attachment 44178 [details]
Screenshot of new featured
Comment 7 Héctor 2015-10-29 20:33:27 UTC
Sorry for the last comment/attachment.

It was a mistake.
Comment 8 Viktor Sarge 2015-10-30 06:18:40 UTC
> We are looking to go with RFID at Washoe County. To have to check in and out
> one item at a time is not going to go over well. What can we do to get this
> moving?

I´d say that even without the feature for RFID discussed in this thread there are two quite good options: 

* The new batch checkout feature. This one lets you send all the barcodes at once. It´s pushed to master and I hope that means it will show up in 3.22 that´s released in november. 

* Plack. It's not fully tested for staff use yet but we use it in production with quite good results (only have to restart every night and stay off the parts with known bugs - which we don't use anyway). Let med explain: The library I work tightly together with uses RFID in the existing circulation without adaptations. The RFID scanners just send the barcodes one at a time and rely on the fact that the barcode box has focus. The RFID scanner can then just pretend to be a keyboard. The problem has been page load times. Before with a load time of generally in the 1,5 - 2,5 span with some transactions taking perhaps 3,5-4 seconds we had to set the RFID scanners to wait up to 5 seconds between every barcode. Now with Plack they have been able to set the delay to 1 second. 

Hence: 
- 10 books before = 5*10 seconds = 50 seconds. 
- 10 books now = 1 * 10 seconds = 10 seconds. 

Much better. We will anyhow have a look at batch checkout which seems even better. In short a proper RFID feature would be welcome but we don't really feel any need to work towards this development now. It's not perfect but it works well enough.
Comment 9 Katrin Fischer 2019-05-04 17:55:53 UTC
Are there any plans to submit patches here?
Comment 10 Magnus Enger 2019-05-06 08:11:04 UTC
OPL are now saying they have forked Koha, so I don't think we can expect any patches from them.
Comment 11 Katrin Fischer 2023-07-09 09:49:20 UTC
(In reply to Magnus Enger from comment #10)
> OPL are now saying they have forked Koha, so I don't think we can expect any
> patches from them.

I think that's for sure now. Closing. 

Note: I know there are some RFID plugins about or worked on. Problem is that it usually depends on the RFID provider providing some sort of API to work with.
Comment 12 Marcel de Rooy 2023-11-23 13:48:28 UTC
(In reply to Viktor Sarge from comment #8)
> The RFID scanners just send the barcodes one at a time
> and rely on the fact that the barcode box has focus. The RFID scanner can
> then just pretend to be a keyboard. The problem has been page load times.
> Before with a load time of generally in the 1,5 - 2,5 span with some
> transactions taking perhaps 3,5-4 seconds we had to set the RFID scanners to
> wait up to 5 seconds between every barcode. Now with Plack they have been
> able to set the delay to 1 second. 

Linking bug 19814 (still NEW) to this one. This is about getting batch checkin just like we alrady have batch checkout for some time.

Do you have details about the RFID scanner you are using btw?
Comment 13 Magnus Enger 2023-11-23 14:03:34 UTC
(In reply to Marcel de Rooy from comment #12)
> (In reply to Viktor Sarge from comment #8)
> Do you have details about the RFID scanner you are using btw?

Viktor is no longer working with Koha, so you might not get an answer from him.