Bug 25643 - Move maxreserves functionality into circulation rules
Summary: Move maxreserves functionality into circulation rules
Status: In Discussion
Alias: None
Product: Koha
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Hold requests (show other bugs)
Version: master
Hardware: All All
: P5 - low enhancement (vote)
Assignee: Bugs List
QA Contact: Testopia
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on: 4045
Blocks:
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Reported: 2020-06-01 15:00 UTC by Caroline Cyr La Rose
Modified: 2022-09-05 08:58 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

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Description Caroline Cyr La Rose 2020-06-01 15:00:25 UTC
Unless someone can explain to me how it's not redundant, I think we should remove the maxreserves system preference. The maximum amount of holds (regardless of patron category and can be set in Circulation and fines rules > Default checkout, hold and return policy > Maximum total holds allowed (count).

For upgrades, if there is a value in maxreserves, it should be transferred to circulation_rules > max_holds. Not sure what it should do if there is already a value in max_holds... take the biggest? give a warning in the about page?
Comment 1 Jonathan Druart 2020-06-01 15:03:52 UTC
Kyle, Nick, Katrin, do you see any reasons to keep this syspref instead of using the "Maximum total holds allowed (count)" of the default circ rule?
Comment 2 Nick Clemens 2020-06-01 16:02:29 UTC
(In reply to Jonathan Druart from comment #1)
> Kyle, Nick, Katrin, do you see any reasons to keep this syspref instead of
> using the "Maximum total holds allowed (count)" of the default circ rule?

I don't think it means the same thing under all circumstances, at least not currently

See bug 24868.
Comment 3 Katrin Fischer 2020-06-01 16:38:19 UTC
The maxreserves is an 'over all libraries' rule. The default on all libraries is (I think) just a fall back if there is no rule for a specific library.

At least it should be.
Comment 4 Katrin Fischer 2020-06-01 16:42:56 UTC
I've seen some discussion currently on several bugs and I think that things are confusing at the moment.

The page is labelled: Defining circulation and fine rules for all libraries

But that's not actually what it states below and how it does work. A rule that you set there will only apply, if there is no other more specific rule for the library. It's a 'default' (fallback) not an 'all libraries' page. 

And I feel the fix is to change the labelling (and I also believe that in old versions it was labelled differently). And maybe have real global settings somewhere else, not necessarily in the system preferences.
Comment 5 Jonathan Druart 2020-06-02 08:56:44 UTC
So far the maxreserves syspref is only used in the controllers, it is not used in the "canbereserved*" subroutines. That means there is an obvious issue in the code.

My proposition is to:
1. Remove maxreserves
2. And instead use:
 * max_holds from "Default checkout, hold and return policy" as maxreserves. Either for "default" (all libraries), or per library.
 * or max_holds from "Default checkout, hold policy by patron category" if defined (default or library specific).
Comment 6 Katrin Fischer 2020-06-02 09:27:55 UTC
I believe it's not the same thing and we should really discuss how to interpet default vs. all libraries - I believe we cannot have both and should not mix them. There needs to be a clear definition to move forward and we should avoid changing behaviour unintentionally for libraries.

Say you have 3 libraries.
As they all have the same circulation conditions you only enter rules under "Default (all libraries)". Max holds is set to 5.

maxreserves is set to 10.

What I believe happens is that you can have only up to 10 holds (capped by maxreserves), but a max of 5 for each of the libraries.

If we remove maxreserves, we either remove the ability to inherit or remove the global capping.
Comment 7 Andrew Fuerste-Henry 2020-06-02 11:47:58 UTC
(In reply to Katrin Fischer from comment #6)
> I believe it's not the same thing and we should really discuss how to
> interpet default vs. all libraries - I believe we cannot have both and
> should not mix them. There needs to be a clear definition to move forward
> and we should avoid changing behaviour unintentionally for libraries.
> 
> Say you have 3 libraries.
> As they all have the same circulation conditions you only enter rules under
> "Default (all libraries)". Max holds is set to 5.
> 
> maxreserves is set to 10.
> 
> What I believe happens is that you can have only up to 10 holds (capped by
> maxreserves), but a max of 5 for each of the libraries.
> 
> If we remove maxreserves, we either remove the ability to inherit or remove
> the global capping.

+1 to all of this. Katrin's example scenario correctly describes the current behavior (based on what they've got ReservesControl set to). There's nothing in the circ rules that can accomplish exactly what MaxReserves does and I hate to remove that functionality, even though it is confusing.

For what it's worth, I get libraries asking for more functionality along the lines of what MaxReserves does -- they want to be able to set global limits irrespective of library and define things like "Patrons in Category A can have a total of 50 holds across all branches." As Koha stands now, that sort of rule may or may not be possible based on ReservesControl and other rules.
Comment 8 Katrin Fischer 2020-06-02 12:12:00 UTC
I agree that it would be nice and improve transparency if the 'maxreserves' was not hiding in system preferences. It would be nice if we had something like a different configuration area for this visible under circulation rules somehow.

I'd also suggest getting rid of the 'all libraries' terminology in favor of something else. I believe we had some iterations of phrasing there already, but the current one does seem more confusing than ever.

Maybe something like:
Default rules 
Default fallback rules (for libraries)

?
Comment 9 Jonathan Druart 2020-06-02 12:31:56 UTC
What about moving the maxreserves pref under a "global" section of the circ rules page?
It would be displayed only if no library is selected.
Comment 10 Andrew Fuerste-Henry 2020-06-02 15:11:33 UTC
I like moving this into circ rules somewhere rather than leaving in sysprefs. But that compounds both the naming issue that Katrin's raising *and* the control branch issue that Nick's raising. We don't exactly have a place in circ rules right now in which to define that sort of global rules, we only have default rules. Even if those defaults are our *only* rules, they'll still be enforced for each library individually.
Comment 11 Jonathan Druart 2020-06-04 13:02:29 UTC
If there is a discussion (maybe on the ML?) and we found a consensus, I am willing to implement it.
Comment 12 Katrin Fischer 2020-06-07 13:15:47 UTC
I think a new page would probably be best. Don't mix up things on the first page - it's already confusing. 

Funnily, when adding bug 25688 for the terminology issue, I found another really old bug about this problem: 

Bug 8371 - Add global level issuing rules (number of checkouts over all libraries, etc.)
Comment 13 Ray Delahunty 2021-12-09 13:14:12 UTC
I have been testing out changes to reservations / holds settings in our test server and the maxreserves setting is not working for us in the way Katrin reports. 

We are on 20.11.04 and all our 6 libraries have the same circulation policies so I have set Total reservations allowed (under Default issue, reserve & return policy by category) to 5 for all user categories permitted to place reservations. Our maxreserves is set to 10.  We do not (currently) allow OPAC item level reservations so I am not yet thinking about how the Reservations allowed (under Defining circulation & fine rules for all libraries) will work for us. (Like, how would Koha know the counts of reservations by item type in our title-level reservation environment, so it could limit reservations using this very granular functionality?).  I have set Reservations allowed to 10 which I think effectively takes ‘reservations by item type/user category’ out of the equation).

But I have not been able to place more than 5 reservation using either the OPAC or the Koha intranet.  I tried this with ReservesControlBranch set to either of Item’s home library or user’s home library, but I have not been able to achieve what I thought was how the functionality works- say 5 reservations for items at library A, 3 reservations at library B and 2 at Library C.

We are trying to unravel how the counts are set so we can set the counts to be how we want them to be. Being able to advise users that ‘Patrons in Category A can have a total of 50 holds across all branches’ (or whatever) would be great.
Comment 14 Tomás Cohen Arazi 2022-01-12 19:52:37 UTC
Lets axe this syspref :-D

It is exactly the same thing as if we set a global max_holds for all libraries, all itypes and all categories. If it is not the same, then we need to fix it. This is probably due to the lack of flexibility on the circ rules UI.
Comment 15 Katrin Fischer 2022-01-13 08:16:48 UTC
(In reply to Tomás Cohen Arazi from comment #14)
> Lets axe this syspref :-D
> 
> It is exactly the same thing as if we set a global max_holds for all
> libraries, all itypes and all categories. If it is not the same, then we
> need to fix it. This is probably due to the lack of flexibility on the circ
> rules UI.

It should intentionally not be the same. The all libraries is mislabelled and we need to fix it. It should be a fallback if no other rules are set for a library, not an "overall libraries". The GUI is bad.
Comment 16 Marcel de Rooy 2022-09-05 08:58:29 UTC
Any news here?

Having max_holds on various levels in circ rules and maxreserves as the general cap is quite confusing especially since the latter is a pref.
If seems to me that we can do without it. You can specify one general max_holds without a patron category serving as 'maxreserves' or define multiple maximums per patron category (probably more useful for most).

I think that changing the 'for all libraries' to something like 'Default rules (may be overridden by rules for specific libaries)' would be good.

Side note: max_holds in the staff view under 20.11 works a bit silently. I set it to 10, select 20 records. maxreserves is higher. Without warning I can place holds (in one action) but only 10 are actually placed.
Same under OPAC actually: rest is ignored.
Could be more user friendly?