Bug 15174 - Allow borrowers to be members of additional categories
Summary: Allow borrowers to be members of additional categories
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Koha
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Circulation (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All All
: P5 - low enhancement (vote)
Assignee: Martin Stenberg
QA Contact: Testopia
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2015-11-11 14:05 UTC by Martin Stenberg
Modified: 2023-08-27 14:40 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

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


Attachments
Bug 15174: Member of multiple categories (15.05 KB, patch)
2015-11-11 14:17 UTC, Martin Stenberg
Details | Diff | Splinter Review

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Description Martin Stenberg 2015-11-11 14:05:35 UTC
Make it possible for borrowers to be members of more than one category. When doing checkouts the librarian should be able to choose which category to use for the borrower for the specific checkout.

If useful, this could later be extended to other areas.
Comment 1 Martin Stenberg 2015-11-11 14:17:18 UTC
Created attachment 44762 [details] [review]
Bug 15174: Member of multiple categories

This patch makes it possible for borrowers to be members of more than one
category. On checkout, librarian can choose which category to do checkout as.

Test plan:

    1. Apply this patch
    2. Run updatedatabase.pl
    3. Log in to staff client and modify a patron
    4. Under "Library managenet" a new field "Additional categories" should be
       visible
    5. Select one or more additional catogaries for the patron
    6. Save
    7. Make a checkout for the modified patron
    8. A new dropdown box labled "Choose category for this checkout:" should be
       visible on the checkout page
    9. Choose one of the additional categories in the dropdown box and checkout
    10.Confirm that appropriet circulation rules for the category was applied to
       the checkout

Sponsored-by: Halland County Library
Comment 2 Katrin Fischer 2015-11-11 21:27:28 UTC
Hi Martin,

I am not sure about this change - Koha uses the patron's home category in a lot of places. Can you describe the use case for this?
Comment 3 Martin Stenberg 2015-11-12 10:49:06 UTC
Hi Katrin,

thanks for the feedback. The primary/home category is left unchanged with this patch, so that shouldn't be a problem.

One use case would be a teacher who wish to make a personal loan and a loan for his/her class during the same session.
Comment 4 Katrin Fischer 2015-11-12 11:16:40 UTC
Hm, what about handling the overdues? Isn't the "chosen patron category" lost after checking out? So it would only be used for the loan period?
Comment 5 Martin Stenberg 2015-11-12 11:28:55 UTC
Hm, yes, looking at the overdue code, that seem to be the case. That must also mean that if you change a patrons category, all loans made while the patron belonged to the old category will be overdue-ruled according to the new category. But perhaps this is a desired effect?
Comment 6 Viktor Sarge 2015-11-12 18:46:39 UTC
> I am not sure about this change - Koha uses the patron's home category in a
> lot of places. Can you describe the use case for this?

We developed this one as a bit of a favor to Luleå who have been in need of this feature (though I think they will change their rules now instead). It's quite common for libraries here to have multiple accounts for the same patron depending on in which role they use the library. We have lots of integrated libraries that are both the school and community library at the same time. That means that the same library will serve the same patrons as both students/teachers and as ordinary child/adult accounts. One solution might be to switch library but that will mess up shelving since there's actually only one library and is also impractical when the public can access the library during school hours. This patch would mean that it's a bit easier to handle that type of problems without ugly hacks. 

When discussing this development Martin did identify a whole lot of places expecting a single code (73 I think), but we suspect that checkout and overdue notices/fees may be enough for the scope of this problem. Before doing further development I think that we need to see that others would find this useful and that it has a fighting chance to get accepted.
Comment 7 Katrin Fischer 2015-11-17 13:18:59 UTC
Hi Viktor,

currently the patron category would be only used at checkout time - so overdues/notices, renewals, etc. would still be those of the initial category as after the checkout there is no trace of the switched category. That's why I feel quite uncomfortable with the idea to be honest. The only thing it will work for is determining the initial loan period.
Comment 8 Viktor Sarge 2015-11-17 14:12:57 UTC
> currently the patron category would be only used at checkout time - so
> overdues/notices, renewals, etc. would still be those of the initial
> category as after the checkout there is no trace of the switched category.
> That's why I feel quite uncomfortable with the idea to be honest. The only
> thing it will work for is determining the initial loan period.

I knew we would not be able to ignore all the other places the category is used :) You are quite right of course Katrin - renewals is another place that we would have to take into account to make this happen. 

Since there is no desperate need for this patch and the scope is growing to include all those places we suspected I propose that we leave this in discussion for the time being. There´s other development that needs to happen, but if someone would find it highly useful we might pick it up again. I think the current patch is great for trying out the concept and get a feel of the proposed change if anyone would want to try the suggested workflow. I still think the idea is worthwhile, but the development cost is currently looking to high for us compared to the payoff.
Comment 9 cfhong2000 2019-01-05 02:46:56 UTC
Hi,

Can this patch be applied to Koha 18.05? 
If so, how do I apply this patch?

Thanks,
Chee
Comment 10 David Cook 2019-02-15 00:02:59 UTC
Sounds vaguely interesting but I could see this causing confusion/difficulties in reporting if nothing else...
Comment 11 Katrin Fischer 2023-08-27 14:40:08 UTC
I think the idea of this to be able to apply different circulation rules for a short term loan or other means is still valid, but the proposed implementation left some unresolved questions. I am closing this WONTFIX for now, but please feel free to reopen!