Bug 26146

Summary:	Patron duplicate matching - fuzzy matching?
Product:	Koha	Reporter:	Sally <sally.healey>
Component:	Patrons	Assignee:	Bugs List <koha-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED MOVED	QA Contact:	Testopia <testopia>
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P5 - low	CC:	gmcharlt, kyle.m.hall, sally.healey
Version:	Main
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
See Also:	https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=21978 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=30568
Change sponsored?:	---	Patch complexity:	---
Documentation contact:		Documentation submission:
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Description Sally 2020-08-05 14:50:53 UTC

Koha doesn't have a middle name field so librarians may try to use the first name field to hold both first names and middle names.

This means that Koha's duplicate patron feature doesn't work, e.g.

Brian David Jones already exists on the system.
Patron is added as Brian Jones.
Koha doesn't find the duplicate patron, because it thinks "Brian" is different to "Brian David"

OR

Brian Jones already exists on the system.
Patron is added as Brian David Jones.
Koha doesn't find the duplicate patron, because it thinks "Brian David" is different to "Brian"

Is it possible to have fuzzy matching on the first name field, so "Brian Jones" would match "Brian David Jones" and "Brian David Jones" would match "Brian Jones" ?

Comment 1 Katrin Fischer 2023-09-22 19:07:31 UTC

Hi Sally, Koha does have a middle name field now - does this resolve the issue?

Comment 2 Sally 2023-09-25 08:38:23 UTC

(In reply to Katrin Fischer from comment #1)
> Hi Sally, Koha does have a middle name field now - does this resolve the
> issue?

Hi Katrin, yes - middle name solves it.  :)

This issue is why we sponsored the middle name development - but I forgot we had this bug open!  I'd close it, but not sure which RESOLVED status is best to use.

Comment 3 Katrin Fischer 2023-09-25 08:42:13 UTC

Hi Sally, you could use "RESOLVED MOVED" here or maybe "RESOLVED WONTFIX". I tend to use the first if the problem has been resolved, but the other bug is not a real duplicate.

Comment 4 Katrin Fischer 2023-09-25 08:42:41 UTC

... but overall, we are not picky :)

Comment 5 Sally 2023-09-25 11:41:03 UTC

Fab, thanks Katrin :)