Bug 41641

Summary: Link emails sent from cart or lists to existing patron accounts
Product: Koha Reporter: Christopher Brannon <cbrannon>
Component: NoticesAssignee: Bugs List <koha-bugs>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Testopia <testopia>
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P5 - low    
Version: Main   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
GIT URL: Initiative type: ---
Sponsorship status: --- Comma delimited list of Sponsors:
Crowdfunding goal: 0 Crowdfunding committed: 0
Crowdfunding contact: Patch complexity: ---
Documentation contact: Documentation submission:
Text to go in the release notes:
Version(s) released in:
Circulation function:

Description Christopher Brannon 2026-01-15 23:23:00 UTC
When sending a list or a cart to a patron via email, it is great that we are not limited to existing patrons, but it would also be nice if the email we are sending to would check if the email is going to a matching patron account so the email could be added to their list of notices in their account.  It would also be great if instead of entering an email address, we could search for a patron account and select from any email addresses listed in their account, and then linking to their notices as well.
Comment 1 Katrin Fischer 2026-01-17 12:48:56 UTC
2 problems here:

* Using the email address to link will only work if there is only one account using this email address.
* Searching for an existing patron account can only work in the staff interface and probably be limited by the visibility settings. In the OPAC this would be a security/data privacy issue.
Comment 2 Christopher Brannon 2026-01-20 19:31:04 UTC
(In reply to Katrin Fischer from comment #1)

> * Using the email address to link will only work if there is only one
> account using this email address.

Not from the staff interface.  I would expect it to give you a list of all accounts that have that address that you could choose from, even if there is only one match, to confirm the correct patron.  In the case that the match isn't someone in the system, you should have an option not to link.  (i.e. A relative comes in, and has the same email address, but they are not any of the people that come up as a match)

> * Searching for an existing patron account can only work in the staff
> interface and probably be limited by the visibility settings. In the OPAC
> this would be a security/data privacy issue.

It was implied that this would be related to staff functionality.  The idea here is that we should be able to track notices/communications sent to the patron through Koha.  We wouldn't need any such linking/tracking if the patron did this themselves on the OPAC.