Koha-US SIG - Acquisitions Special Interest Group, 17 Aug 2021

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From YouTube: Acquisitions Special Interest Group - 8/17/21

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00:11:09 Jason: https://koha-us.org/conference2021/
00:14:13 Barbara Johnson: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=22329
00:18:13 Barbara Johnson: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=26878
00:20:24 Barbara Johnson: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=28449
00:21:47 Barbara Johnson: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=10758
00:24:01 Barbara Johnson: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=28562
00:26:04 Barbara Johnson: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=28237
00:29:32 George Williams: I've added Bugzilla@koha-us.org as a CC on all of the bugs mentioned so far today
00:29:33 George Williams: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=In%20Discussion&bug_status=Needs%20Signoff&bug_status=Signed%20Off&bug_status=Passed%20QA&bug_status=Failed%20QA&bug_status=Patch%20doesn%27t%20apply&bug_status=Pushed%20to%20master&bug_status=Pushed%20to%20stable&bug_status=Pushed%20to%20oldstable&bug_status=Pushed%20to%20oldoldstable&bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&bug_status=BLOCKED&email2=bugzilla%40koha-us.org&emailassigned_to2=1&emailcc2=1&emaillongdesc2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailtype2=substring&list_id=381296&query_format=advanced&title=Bug%20List
00:29:52 Barbara Johnson: thanks george
00:34:08 Margaret - Support Team: [26630] Allow custom text for each library on the purchase suggestion page
[27023] Add class names in the suggestions column in suggestions management
00:34:49 Margaret - Support Team: and [23420] Add “SuggestionsUnwantedFields” to hide fields from the suggestions form
00:48:06 Margaret - Support Team: Got to run! See you all next month/virtually at the conference!
00:49:16 Jason: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=27595

A

Welcome everyone to the august meeting of the acquisition sig for koha u.s. um We will have um don't have a specific agenda. This is kind of uh meet and share kind of time this month, and if anybody has particular issues that they're struggling with with acquisitions or bugs they'd like to highlight or other things, then we can talk about that and I also have a couple of them that I've been looking at. So you know nobody has any ideas. We can start with those and I'm sure it will stimulate ideas as we go along.

A

So and I apologize for all the clanging and banging you might hear in in the background they're working on the streets like right outside my window. So it's loud.

B

Go ahead, I wanted to get everyone pumped up for version 2105, because some of you, I'm sure, are aware um there is going to be an acquisitions log system, preference added to all the logging system preferences, and we talked about that what over a year ago and everybody contributed comments and round rock contributed. I think to that development to you. So we got one in and it's an important one, so good job everybody so coming up.

B

um If you haven't already upgraded to 2105 out in the broader co-op community or if you're, a bywater partner, you can expect to get that this fall and start logging. All of those important acquisitions changes that we wanted to know about.

A

Yeah that was like step one of the process that we wanted to, that we put in a bug for being able to track uh changes in the budgeting. So you know it won't show up on your screen. You know uh part of the gui interface, but you can do now or as soon as you get uh 20 2105, um you should you'll be able to like write a report and see what changes you've made to the budget. So it's step one in in the right direction. So, thanks for highlighting that um any and and I.

C

A

The other thing that I should be highlighting is the conference um coming next month for kova us. We want to encourage everybody to participate, whether that's in person or online, because it's a great way to make connections, so our meeting next month will be during the conference either thursday or friday.

A

I think our meeting is on thursday um of the conference and that's the 23rd of uh september and jason put a link in there for the conference information and um we will have some people uh in person, but then we're also going to you know, do a zoom thing. Where we can. You know everybody can um attend a meeting at mckinney virtually or in person. So I would really encourage you to register um registration if you're doing virtual is free.

A

You just register so that we know have a sense of how many people are attending and then there's some really really good presentations um this year. You know interesting stuff, so you can, you know, pick the ones that you want to watch um on tuesday and wednesday. It's basically two days of presentations and then um thursday and friday are um sig groups. So you you know.

D

A

Is meeting but also you know, education and uh I can't even think right now all the other sig groups that we have will be um circulation. You know all that all those different groups um and and um the general koha u.s meeting is also going to be during the the conference. So.

E

You can attend.

A

That too um so.

F

A

If you get a chance um tune in and join us and hopefully we'll get to see some of you there, I know it'll probably be full of texans at this point as a kind of what it's looking like, but um yeah. If you can join us, that would be great.

A

So um does anybody have a bug they'd like to talk about or a process that they're having trouble with or or even better something that you've worked out? um That.

D

A

Think would be great for us to just to share with everybody.

C

I have some bugs that I was in bugzilla yesterday looking at acquisitions, some that are interesting to me, but if other people have other things like processes and questions, I don't want to stop them from doing that.

B

C

That seems like a no.

A

C

So we've got so. I I put a bug in the chat two two three, two nine.

C

C

This one, I think, is um it, says um parent funds showing incorrect amounts for order spent available on the acquisition's home page, and this one I think, corrects the behavior that I was looking for.

C

There was some other bug that got fixed recently and I thought it was going to fix this behavior, but it was something similar but different, and this one, I think, is where, if you have a parent, if you set up parent and child funds, if you have a parent, that's got ten thousand dollars in it and you have child funds that are five thousand and two thousand three thousand that whatever you spend in the child.

C

Funds should be reflected in the total amount shown in the parent fund, and it's not really doing that right now and so we had set up. I know rhonda showed me at a conference how they had the parent and child fund set up, and I thought I'm going to do that for my next fiscal year. I don't remember what conference that was, and so I set them up, and then I was looking at all the totals and everything and it's like.

C

I don't understand this, this doesn't seem correct, and so we ended up reverting back to just the you know way where everything is just a fun, not parent and child.

C

But you know if you're interested in that um you know interested in using it um make a comment on this one, because it would be really nice to have the financials. Actually, you know make sense.

A

Yeah this is this is one that I've um been watching too. I did discover that if you go to the budget, I think let's see I can follow the bouncing ball. You go to the budget page. I think it is.

A

If you go to acquisitions and then budgets and then click on your budget there they do the math right, but I don't want to have to do that.

C

Right- and that was our thought too, is if you're going to the acquisitions home page. You know I want to see it correct there and then the discrepancy then creates staff questions between. Why does it show this here and something different there.

A

A

I think I've commented on that once, but that was yeah. I think it was. It got closed. Oh, it was marked as a duplicate of another bug and now reopening it. So maybe.

A

B

Does need to be in that not quite hard line, gray area, where technically this functionality is an improvement on the existing one, even though it's not working right so developers call it an enhancement, though, from where you're sitting it looks like a bug, it should number right yeah a good one to get a lot of attention on at the kauai us conference, maybe yeah, maybe.

C

And I came across a related one that is 26878 um ad ability to prevent spending against parent funds.

C

Oh and I think when we were setting this up, we were never thinking about.

C

You know our thought was you have a parent fund and it's it just reflects like a total and everything happens in in all the child funds. But apparently you can spend directly from a parent fund. We weren't thinking of it that way, but this one would be like you know, do you want to allow spending directly from the parent fund or maybe not, and I thought this was an interesting one.

C

I think if we set this, if this gets corrected and and the you know totals get fixed, then if we set this up, you know and this other bug went through, we would probably elect to say no don't spin from the parent funds only spin from you know the children and then that feeds into what the total shows on the parent.

C

So I thought that was kind of good.

A

I will write that one down and come back later and comment on it.

A

Because well, every once in a while, we'll see you know, oh, why is that? Why is there money out of our parent fund? You know we, that's not the intention of the for us, it's not an intention of the parent fund, so if we could block that, that would be great.

C

I have a few more do you want me to keep going go for it all right.

C

This one is 28449 and it's linked from basket summary to invoice for an order line, and if I'm understanding this one correctly, this is basically a you know reduce the number of clicks you have to do to get there. I think right now you have to.

C

C

It was like three clicks and if there was a link directly there, you know it would just be nicer.

C

This one might be the one you were going to mention earlier, rhonda 107.58.

C

Now. I think this is like absolutely essential um when you cancel what is it show bibliographic information of deleted records and acquisitions, so when you um you've ordered something and then later that bib gets deleted, you lose all that bibliographic information.

C

And you just get like I'd, have to look at one, but you get some kind of generic. um I don't know. Bibliographic information can't be shown for this record or some something, but you have no clue what it was um and it just seems like it. It's really absolutely essential to be able to have the bib information for that stuff.

A

And this this the fact that it doesn't show that bibliographic information or there's something about if you delete a record ahead of time, you know before it's received or something like that, then the basket never closes. Also that's another problem. You know you we, you know we're bywater supported, so we have to contact bywater and go into the you know the database itself and do some magic there in order to get the basket to actually close.

C

C

This one is 28562, um add date received to basket summary and I hope I'm understanding what they're saying here.

C

I think they're meaning on the page, where you see everything where some of your things are received and some are not um that there would be a date included on that page and so in the comments um it was maybe add a receive date as a new column which could be hidden if you needed it to um or possibly make it visible along with the the received um so that you would see you know for every title you would see received and you would see the date um I kind of played around with like well.

C

What would that look like, and I I felt like to me, it seemed like another column would be better, um but that's just my feeling, but this one um you know if you've got thoughts on it. I'd say, put some add some comments. There.

C

This is the last one I have.

C

uh 28237, which is make notes from basket visible on the order receive page, and it says that um we show the internal note from the order line on receive, but the notes added when creating a basket are not shown anywhere in the basket summary. It would be nice if we could show the internal note from the basket when receiving an order from the basket.

C

um So, basically, just you know making in information. That's in one place visible in another.

A

I think this is what what we need. We had it. We had our system set up so that any notes that we put in ingram or midwest tape or anything like that- would actually get somehow it was getting saved and then put into the final record. You know get copied over to the final record somewhere.

E

Along the line.

A

That got that broke in some release, um and so that that's something which is very helpful. You know like for a catalog for the collection developers to pass information to the catalogers to pass information to the processors. You know all that kind of stuff. um I think that would be really great if we could get something like that.

C

C

So if any of these kinds of functionality are important to you, please go in and make comments, because I think that's you know how you get, um how these things get noticed and how developers know we want these changes to happen.

A

Yeah add yourself on the email list so that you can see any updates that get made to the bug, and then you know you can comment. If, if you see something you really like or you you know don't like or whatever you can be on top of it, I I get emails from bugzilla regularly on on things that I've um that I'm interested in. So it just kind of keeps you in the loop.

A

And, of course, um so does anybody else have any bugs or anything? I know I'm fracking, my brain. We talked about something that I'm going to put marcy on the spot. Here we talked about something at the last meeting that we thought marcy was doing, and I cannot remember what it was right now.

C

A

To do with and marcy we talked about it.

A

And I can't remember what it was now.

D

Well, I um had to do with interlibrary loan and kind of using the purchase suggestions, module.

F

F

So we haven't really moved forward on officially trying to migrate interlibrary loans, more ills to patron suggestions. We do.

D

F

Patron suggestion module customized to just work better for my workflow but staffing-wise. I would need more staff in tech services in order to really do that- and I think interlibrary loan right now is not in tech services. So maybe in another year we'll revisit it.

F

But I do I do remember thinking. Oh, I should have gone to the last meeting because I missed it.

A

um So when you say that you that your purchase suggestion is customized, what kinds of things did you do.

F

We didn't like what the different statuses were called.

F

So we change that.

F

And I'm trying to think what else.

F

That may be all for now it's been a while, since we we had bywater help us with that. I can say that every time we upgrade it kind of loses the customization. So.

F

That's a little annoying, but you know it works.

A

So, what in in a perfect world? What would your process look like your purchase, suggestion ill process so.

F

What we hope to do eventually is increase patron-driven acquisitions and what we're finding is a lot of the interlibrary loan requests that are being made would be more appropriate as a purchase suggestion, because the item is newer or it's something that other people would also probably check out and so right now our interlibrary loan.

F

Of course we use navigator um and when people make their requests, they're they're live, they go directly live, and so, if we were going to convert those into patron suggestions, we would need staff to be going in very frequently to cancel the interlibrary loan. Put it into a patron suggestion. So one of the things we've kind of tossed around doing is not having the interlibrary loans be live and have it all filter through a generic form. That's hey!

F

I need material that you don't have and then letting staff decide if it should be a purchase for an ill again, very labor intensive, which is the hold up so we're kind of negotiating.

F

How important is it to do this?

F

My director likes the idea of us purchasing more and spending that time on purchases instead of ills, because then other people can also check it out, but it's going to take a lot of staff time. I think so.

F

That's the biggest hold up.

B

I don't know if it helps too much, but there are more customizations getting enhanced uh in the purchase. Suggestion area in 2105 that might help with the whole upgrade and things get blown away.

F

That would be good.

A

Custom textbooks library.

A

I know that one thing we did at a library I used to work at is: there was, like you said, mercy, one form and people could on that form say um you know everything was assumed to be a purchase suggestion, but then staff would could look at it. You know like if it was out of print or if it was you know, there's all these different reasons. Why you would you know some obscure thing that nobody else will want. You know whatever, um but the.

F

Difference between purchase suggestion.

A

And interlibrary loan is the library I worked at did charge postage for the the um interlibrary loan so.

D

There was a little radio button or.

A

Whatever that said, um if, if the st, you know, if the library you know this is not the diplomatically correct way to say it, but you know if, if the library staff has determined that this you know, we want to do this as an interlibrary loan. Are you willing to pay the five dollars you know? If not, you know, then we'll just reject it.

A

You know right, for whatever reason um that really kind of worked well, because the collection developers would get to see what um what was being suggested or you know what people were doing, interlibrary loans for you know right now. We just get this one report like once a month and it's just this big spreadsheet and it's got. You know every.

A

Okay, uh well, you know if you've got the children's mixed in with the adults mixed in with it, you know, and it's like you know, do I even want to look at this kind of thing yeah so that that's always been kind of my thought in the back of my head. If we could get to that point where, where you know we could somehow customize the form to let people know you know yeah, this will be. This is a purchase suggestion, but.

F

Yeah we don't charge for interlibrary loan so, but I still think one of the questions I would like to ask on the purchase. Suggestion form is: do you want to hold on this item or do you just think we should have it probably not phrased quite that way, but um you know yeah.

F

I know there's yeah there's some that I think people just think we should have, because because their brother-in-law wrote yes or they grew up reading that book and how can you not have it for kids so.

F

We did um recently stop using new stickers on our new items. Oh so.

E

F

Did you manage that? um Well, it was kind of a process and it wasn't the smoothest transition.

F

um We were using shelving location to designate new status and then, when the items arrived, my staff would have to put the stickers on and then the stickers would have to be removed and the statuses changed to whatever shelving location it would have.

F

So we migrated that to an item type instead of shelving location and then we could program our check-in stations and our sorter and all of the peripherals to route it to a new display.

F

um So we we found out a lot of things that it was possible to do, but the order of how it was routing things you know if it went into transit to go to the other location, we don't care, we don't need to see that it was new, so we had to. We had to kind of work with it to say it goes into transit, just put it in transit. But if it is staying at this location and it's not on hold, then we want to see it route to new.

F

So um it was a little bumpy, but it's actually been a lot smoother than I thought it would be. I thought staff would bulk a little bit more, but it seems to be working pretty well and at the end of the month, I'll just take off a month's worth of new stuff, and um no one will have to de-sticker.

D

F

It's really saved a lot of time on the front end with this stickering.

C

How do staff know that it is new and it should go to a new display. So if it's manually.

F

Checked in coho pops up a message that says route to new display if it comes in at our john and judy gay library, there's a sorter and it's it routes it into the same bin that the holds go into. So then staff is manually scanning those and it will either pop a hold or say route to new display.

F

And then we also have it's sort assist at our downtown location, where we have a smart bin that checks things in as they're dropped in. But then staff sets a clump of five books or five items onto a pad and that one was the hardest one to program.

F

But they finally got it to where it'll pop up a message that says route to new display.

C

And so the materials go onto like a cart, a special card specified that these are new. So it's the cart that is designated not the actual items on the cart right.

F

The card itself is designated for new, so we had to decide for some of our collections, where we don't have that many or they're not shelved with all the other new materials like we decided not to do new cd audio just because we didn't have that many anymore and they're not having it go on that same cart would be wouldn't really fit. With our shelving system.

F

But other than that, I think it's been pretty smooth.

B

A

Anybody else have any um fun things that they're doing with their process or questions for marcy about what she's doing.

A

Well, whenever I get a chance, I will beat the drum for this particular bug. um One nine three, five eight: where did it go?

A

This is to connect purchase suggestions um to the edi orders, because, right now you can connect them to regular. You know non-edi orders, but you can't connect them to edi orders. So if we can get lots of uh attention on this, one that would be great barbara's got her comments in there. I've got mine um um yeah. If we could get this because I know this is like step one step, one of being able to put holds on stuff for people if they want a hold on it. You know some.

A

Some libraries will do that if you put in a purchase suggestion they'll automatically put a hold on it, but until we can get you know for edi libraries until we can get this working, um we can't really even begin. You know we can't even take steps towards getting that functionality.

A

So if you can comment on that, one that would be great.

D

C

And I think this we did a paid development with bywater for this kind of functionality, and I think it's related to this mode, because that vote number sounds familiar.

A

C

And I think it was us and several other libraries I'm remembering correctly yeah. I think I think it was like a two-part development. Something had to happen first, and it was something that wasn't really going to benefit us because of the way our process works, and then there was a second part to it and.

C

C

I don't know that it's actually been.

C

Assigned or not, I'd have to go back and look to see the last communication I had about this one.

C

F

Yeah that one would be super helpful for us because we do place, holds on patron suggestions, and so I'm manually doing that and it takes a while.

A

Hang on one second, I gotta shut my door.

C

It looks like I did put a comment on my ticket in december about you know: what's the status of this, has it been assigned? What's the timeline kind of thing, and I don't think I got a reply.

C

I could be wrong.

D

C

So I'm not exactly sure where that one is at this point.

D

Is there a separate bug for that one barbara, or is it related directly to one nine three, five, eight.

C

A

Yeah, it looks like it was you or you know,.

A

Barbara you're us in one other library.

A

Because I've got a ticket in our ticketing system as well.

C

Yeah in my ticket it says that um when they gave us the quote- and we talked about everything it says um of monterey, when an order is placed from an existing suggestion, immediately place a hold for the item for the patron who made the suggestion.

C

Also based on work in bugzilla, 19358, create a hold for a patron. When you link a suggestion to the order.

B

A

Yeah so well yeah. This um 19358 is actually uh co-sponsored with round rock monterey and north central regional library.

A

And then so someday it should be. There.

C

What's your ticket number rhonda, okay,.

A

um In in uh the bywater ticket system or yeah yeah.

A

Three: seven: eight six, zero.

D

A

Okay, yeah so um but yeah um for those of you that are going to the conference. um You can see what marcy is doing in real.

D

A

Kind of watch watch the whole new books thing, and maybe we can brainstorm about. um You know, purchase, suggestions and see and versus ills. um That, to me is really great yeah! That's really interesting to me. You know to try and uh streamline that whole process.

A

Is there anything else anybody else wants to ask about share.

D

I just came across this bug that I poked in the chat um place holds for patrons on accepted purchase suggestions, which sort of sounds like what barbara was talking about. um I'd love to see that too, so.

A

A

Andrew's comment: this is a really common request when training new coha users.

A

Go figure yeah, so we can add that one.

C

Okay, I had a question and I think it's for marcy.

C

We were talking at a meeting and it I think it was so you've got an order and it has some. I you know, has several items attached to it, and then you learn that the order you know it's not going to fill. So you cancel the order and it had something.

C

I'm thinking that this had something to do with it was leaving behind.

C

Can you go through what that is again? Yes, so.

F

If you cancel an order and it's on hold yeah, then it will leave behind.

F

If you had five items it will cancel four of them and leave behind one, whereas before the last upgrade would cancel all the items and leave the bib out there with the holds intact.

F

So what I have to do now like if a date got pushed and I cancel it, but I'm going to order it again next budget year.

F

I have to remember to.

D

F

In and cancel that leftover bit our item record from the first order, which is a hassle um what we did before is we just left the bib record out there with the holds and then when we got to the end of the month and we went in to cancel you know, delete withdrawn and items and empty bibs.

F

We would leave them out there because I'm pretty sure it gives you if something's on hold it'll prompt. You it'll give you a warning when you go to delete batch, delete those bibs yeah, so we would just leave them out there and if I hadn't already placed an order, I would place an order. I would go investigate.

F

Oh this got its state pushed indefinitely, so I'm going to go ahead and cancel all the holds and delete the bit.

F

So it made more sense to me the way it was before, where it would let you delete all those items.

A

A

Does anybody else have any bugs they want to highlight or.

A

Process questions or anything like that, but definitely you know go in and and put your name on some of these in godzilla um if you're interested, because it really does make a difference. um If the developers see that there's you know, if there's a developer out there going.

D

A

Should I do next, um they're gonna go find the one that has lots of comments on it and uh you know start working on that. One.

E

A

All right just a reminder that our next month, our meeting, will be at the conference. So if you're attending the conference in person, you will be there, um but you can join us, it's jason. Do you have that pulled up what time it is? It's.

D

Thursday, at 10 o'clock central time is the acquisitions okay, thursday september 23rd. I believe we said.

E

D

At 10 am so an hour early an hour earlier and on a different day and.

A

On a different day, not you know.

D

um And we haven't really figured out the logistics yet, but you'll probably just be joining a zoom room if you're attending virtually um and then we'll have the zoom room up in in the actual physical room, so that the two places can interact somehow um working out the kinks on that. But we'll have it figured out and then for the first two days of the conference, where we're just having presentations. Those will probably all be on youtube. If you're watching remotely.

A

And and all the presentations will be shown, the ones that are live and the virtual yes correct.

D

A

Okay, because I I had somebody here say: oh they're only going to show the virtual ones they're not going to show the live ones and I'm like no yeah.

D

So the plan is to stream the the conference day, the presentation days, um the full days are going to be streamed to youtube. So if somebody's presenting in person then you'll see a person presenting in person and if they're presenting virtually you'll see somebody's zoom room screen, the workshop days are going to be a little bit different.

D

Some of those will probably be. um I would guess that those days are all going to happen entirely within the zoom rooms. So if you want to watch george's presentation on sql, for instance, he'll probably be presenting it in a zoom room and we'll just send that out to the online attendees, um but that's there's capacity considerations there too. So if we go over a certain limit, we may have to stream part of it and have interaction, yeah, we'll figure it out.

D

Yeah george will definitely be in the zoom room, one way or the other. I don't know about the rest of you.

A

Okay, well um coming up on five minutes to well the hour, which happens to be noon.

D

A

Time um so if there aren't any other questions, you can call it a meeting.

A

All right well, see you all either virtually or in person next month and um yeah we'll have a good month and you know definitely we've got our chat group or whatever you know. The google group that you can ask questions to there and definitely take advantage of that. You know don't have to just wait till we get together to um come up with ideas and stuff like that. So you take advantage of that and you can join that on the koha us page. You can join that chat group.

A

All right see everybody later bye, bye.