Re: [VuFind-General] [VUFind-Unicorn-L] Prevent renewals of overdue material

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Hi Bill, et al,
My $.02 worth:
The advantage of having VuFind suppress the renewal checkboxes based on the ILS driver, is that it greatly reduces patron frustration.  When one has many items checked out, and has spent the time carefully checking the items one wishes to renew, it is very annoying to be told after the fact that those items are not renewable.  It is helpful to know up front that these 35 items can’t be renewed.

Even if one only goes for the low-hanging fruit:   Is it overdue(in Thomas’ case)? Has it already been renewed 1 or x times(my site’s criteria)?   Those can be accomplished without too much effort.  Why spend the resources and time sending renewal requests to the system that one knows up front won’t pass the system rules?

Yes, some items’ renewability can’t easily be identified in advance, and those will still need to be tested by the system, and patrons will still be frustrated in those cases. And, yes, one needs good explanatory messages. However, I can’t think of a good reason *not* to design VuFind to provide options for taking advantage of ILS information (in those areas in which it can) that will  improve the patron experience.

FWIW, in our previous Web2 catalog I had removed the checkboxes based on whether the item had been previously renewed.   One of the most common complaints we received in our catalog survey when we switched to VuFind was that renewals were harder. There were 2 main reasons: 1) items appeared renewable, but weren’t;  2) after going through a long list checking items to be renewed, one had to scroll back up to the top to actually do the renewal.

At least #2 one was an easy fix, I just added the Renew Selected and Renew All links to the bottom of the page. Still working on #1. ☺
--Karla
Karla Smith, ILS Manager
Winnefox Library System
Oshkosh, WI 54904
~If Truth is Beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? – Lily Tomlin




From: Bill McClendon [mailto:bil...@di...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2013 9:24 AM
To: VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List
Cc: Karla Smith; VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List; Thomas Misilo; vuf...@li...
Subject: Re: [VUFind-Unicorn-L] Prevent renewals of overdue material

All,

My vote is to muddy the waters a bit.  The system applies rules during the renewal process.  So iBlink/E-Library will,display the option to renew and the patrons who cannot receive a descriptive message explaining why.  So, how would this be accomplished when the decision is based on the patrons profile, the circulation rule, and the presence of holds?

"Not easily" would be the answer.  To know with certainty, you would need the circulation rules and a matrix of how they would be applied.  Is the current driver returning the proper result message if/when a renewal fails?  If so, I suggest the display of that message be the focus.  If not, I suggest that inclusion of that message be added.

Bill

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 23, 2013, at 11:19 AM, Demian Katz <dem...@vi...<mailto:dem...@vi...>> wrote:
Okay, thanks.  Given that this is not a simple fix and I have no way of testing the code, I’m not going to make any changes to the default driver.

If there is a way to find out through the API whether or not an item is allowed to be renewed, the driver should be revised to take that into account – that is the most efficient solution since it allows you to utilize whatever rules are defined in your local Symphony system.

If the API can’t tell you about renewability, then perhaps we need some way of defining rules in the Symphony.ini – but I’m not sure exactly what that should look like.

Is there an issue tracker for the Unicorn/Symphony driver?  If so, it would be wise to open a ticket.  If not, perhaps we should open one in the main VuFind JIRA.  Either way, I’ll be happy to commit a patch if somebody gets around to developing one.

- Demian

From: Karla Smith [mailto:sm...@wi...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 12:12 PM
To: 'VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List'; 'Thomas Misilo'; 'vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>'
Subject: Re: [VuFind-General] Prevent renewals of overdue material

Yes, there are Symphony/Unicorn users who would want to allow renewals of overdue items!  It’s probably the #1 reasons why our patrons renew their items. The items is a day overdue, they can’t make it to the library today, and rather than keep accruing fines, they’ll renew the items.

However, it would be nice if there were an easier way to define what does/doesn’t get a renewal checkbox—kind of like the list of invalidPickupLocations or [UnavailableLocations] in Unicorn.ini.

For example, our system is set up so that Symphony blocks renewals if there is a hold on the item or if the item has already been renewed once(and I guarantee there are sites with different policies).  However, VuFind displays the renewal checkbox, and the patron can TRY to renew only to get an error message that no renewal is allowed.  It would be nice if the checkbox didn’t even appear for those items that the ILS knows aren’t renewable(for whatever reason).

Just my $.02 worth.
--Karla
Karla Smith, ILS Manager
Winnefox Library System
Oshkosh, WI 54904
~If Truth is Beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? – Lily Tomlin




From: vufind-unicorn-l-bounces+smith=win...@li...<mailto:vufind-unicorn-l-bounces+smith=win...@li...> [mailto:vufind-unicorn-l-bounces+smith=win...@li...<mailto:win...@li...>] On Behalf Of Demian Katz
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 8:52 AM
To: Thomas Misilo; vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Cc: 'VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List'
Subject: Re: [VUFind-Unicorn-L] Prevent renewals of overdue material

A slightly more compact approach might be to set:

$renewable = !$overdue;

…but that’s just me being picky!

In any case, this seems like a change that most people would want.  Should I commit this to the VuFind trunk, or are there any Unicorn/Symphony users out there who actually want to allow renewals of overdue items?  (I suppose this could become a Unicorn.ini setting if there is debate).

- Demian

From: Thomas Misilo [mailto:mi...@fi...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 9:38 AM
To: Demian Katz; vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Cc: 'VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List'
Subject: RE: Prevent renewals of overdue material

Thanks, I got it working. Below is what a diff of the changes I made.

@@ -746,6 +746,11 @@ class Unicorn implements DriverInterface
                 );
             }
             $charge_key = "$charge_key1|$charge_key2|$charge_key3|$charge_key4";
+            $renewable = true;
+            if($overdue) {
+               $renewable = false;
+            }
+
             $items[] = array(
                 'id' => $catkey,
                 'date_charged' =>
@@ -760,7 +765,7 @@ class Unicorn implements DriverInterface
                 'date_recalled' => $this->_formatDateTime($date_recalled),
                 'recall_duedate' => $this->_formatDateTime($recall_duedate),
                 'original_duedate' => $this->_formatDateTime($original_duedate),
-                'renewable' => true,
+                'renewable' => $renewable,
                 'charge_key' => $charge_key,
                 'item_id' => $charge_key,
                 'callnum' => $callnum,

From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 9:16 AM
To: Thomas Misilo; vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Cc: 'VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List'
Subject: RE: Prevent renewals of overdue material

If you want to disable renewals entirely, you can do that through config.ini.  If you fix the driver to set the correct flag value for allowing renewals, “renew all” should work correctly (it should respect that setting).

- Demian

From: Thomas Misilo [mailto:mi...@fi...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 9:13 AM
To: Demian Katz; vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Cc: 'VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List'
Subject: RE: Prevent renewals of overdue material

I am using the Unicorn driver, so I will look into that. Thought, I wonder if it would be easier to edit the template and make the checkbox disabled. Not sure what would happen though when I click “Renew all Items”.

Tom

From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 9:05 AM
To: Thomas Misilo; vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Cc: 'VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List'
Subject: RE: Prevent renewals of overdue material

Are you using the Unicorn or Symphony driver?  In either case, renewability of items is determined by the getMyTransactions() method of the driver found in web/Drivers.  It looks like the Unicorn driver is currently marking all items as renewable, so if that’s the one you are using, it may be necessary to add some additional logic there – probably not hard, since there is already a variable indicating whether or not items are overdue.  The Symphony driver already has some logic to block renewals in some circumstances, but it doesn’t seem to be taking overdues into account.

Unfortunately, I don’t know specifics related to Symphony itself – but hopefully this will help point you in the right direction!

- Demian

From: Thomas Misilo [mailto:mi...@fi...]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 8:49 AM
To: vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>
Cc: 'VUFind-Unicorn Driver Development List'
Subject: [VuFind-General] Prevent renewals of overdue material

Hi,

I am currently running Symphony 3.3.1 and VuFind 1.3 and we have run into the problem where users are able to renew overdue materials. Does anyone know of an easy way to prevent this.

Thanks,

Tom

----
Thomas Misilo
Systems Administrator
Evans Library
Florida Institute of Technology
150 W. University Blvd.
Melbourne, Florida 32901


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