Koha-US SIG - System Admin Special Interest Group, 8 Aug 2023

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From YouTube: System Administration Special Interest Group - 8/8/2023

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00:13:27 NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams: It's awesome
00:15:17 NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams: WEll documented and backed up is the way to go
00:16:35 Mike Barrette: Our Batch Patron Permissions Modifier is not at the end of the IntranetUserJS. Sounds like I should move it to the end?
00:16:57 Rebecca Coert - APL (VA): Reacted to "Our Batch Patron Per..." with 👏🏻
00:17:15 Mike Barrette: I try to stay away from that box. It scares me.
00:25:01 Andrew Fuerste-Henry: Bug 27779 - Cashup summary 'refunds' should denote what the refund was actioned against - this is in 22.11
00:25:08 Andrew Fuerste-Henry: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=27779
00:30:57 NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams: Remove HTML from downloaded reports: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=5920
00:32:01 Michelle, CLAMS Library Network: We've been working directly with Kyle on the Overdue notices plugin. Poor thing must regret he ever made that
00:39:19 Rebecca Coert - APL (VA): https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=31557
00:39:29 Rebecca Coert - APL (VA): Bug 31557 - Add ability for holds queue builder to prioritize either matching a patron's home library to the item's home or holding library
00:40:13 Michelle, CLAMS Library Network: There is a holds meeting on August 24th
00:40:40 Michelle, CLAMS Library Network: Yes!
00:45:03 Michelle, CLAMS Library Network: We are seeing the same thing
00:45:51 Andrew Fuerste-Henry: Bug 29002 - Add ability to book items ahead of time - https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=29002
00:46:44 juliet.heltibridle: Our book clubs would like that
00:46:50 Wally DesChamps - Prosper Comm Lib: Reacted to "Our book clubs would..." with 👍
00:46:58 Mike Barrette: Library Police
00:47:04 Barbara Johnson - Bedford: And for Library of things
00:47:13 Wally DesChamps - Prosper Comm Lib: This would also be helpful with room or equipment "reservations"
00:47:32 Rebecca Coert - APL (VA): Reacted to "This would also be h..." with 👍🏻
00:48:14 Mike Barrette: BAHAHA
00:48:21 Wally DesChamps - Prosper Comm Lib: Reacted to "BAHAHA" with 😂
00:49:09 Lori Schlernitzauer: We had the same problem at Williamson County.
00:49:33 Lori Schlernitzauer: With our EDI invoices
00:51:50 Lori Schlernitzauer: Are the plug-ins updated on a certain schedule? My apologies, I'm new to Koha.
00:53:20 Lori Schlernitzauer: Thank you!
00:56:08 Michelle, CLAMS Library Network: Does anyone know what happened Friday afternoon with searching?
00:59:49 Mike Barrette: We had an outage of some sort a week prior. They said it was "all set", and I asked Bywater for a post-mortem, but I never received a response.
01:05:10 Wally DesChamps - Prosper Comm Lib: Thank you all!
01:05:33 Mike Barrette: Thank you!
01:05:34 Rebecca Coert - APL (VA): Thanks All!
01:05:36 Sally - Knox County Public Library: Thanks all. Have fun in NH.

A

I even thought about it, and then it was done.

A

So you know for the recording for posterity hi, I'm Andrew. This is the koha U.S Netflix and we're going to talk about Administration and SQL and staff.

A

Does anybody have a cool thing they've done at Administration that they're happy about.

A

Conversely, a cool thing they've been trying to do in administration that they look forward to being happy about. After some questions are answered by the group.

B

Well, I have something with the new pages that I'm kind of pleased with myself about um I, don't want all of our staff. We have 19 libraries and 200 staff members and not all of them need access to all of the reports, but you know some of them need access to like okay, here's the missing list of missing stuff go check the shelves so without having any kind of real permissions to say you have access to these permissions, but not these.

B

What it ended up doing was using the pages to um load the data tables JavaScript and then using Json pull the data from a report into a page, and then everybody can access without giving them permissions to access the report. Module so I can just publish these on the circulation page and say Here's. Your reports go check your shelves or look for whatever you need to look for. No.

A

B

Have limited access to reports now that.

A

Makes sense we've got, um we have a report that we had volunteers using yeah.

B

Same kind of thing.

A

That they needed to they needed to be able to run the report. It was.

C

A

A barcode and get information about a single title and we ended up having uh Lucas at buywater, write a whole bunch of jQuery a bit like blocked. The Run of any other report in London is that one volunteering yeah which like worked because it was we needed a pretty simple solution but I like your use of pages um here. Let's just for the interest of show and tell uh the.

C

Pages technically.

A

Live in tools rather than Advent, but seemed like fitting uh so in here with news and HTML customizations, there is now eight for ages tools, so it lets you just Define, so I think we could already do this. On the the OPEC side, you could create more pages within the OPEC, or at least there was some way to accomplish that. There.

D

A

ah Okay, but now there's a thing: it's usually.

B

D

A half yeah it actually.

B

Became a thing yeah we're a discovery um Aspen, so we, when we migrated last fall. We're like please don't turn on the open. Do I have to turn on the OPAC. Well, we deliver that so I'm like I'm, like you know, there's an OPAC hanging out there that no one ever does anything with yeah.

A

We're in the same boat, we have a totally secret OPAC that won't show you anything yeah.

B

Exactly yeah um so yeah.

A

I've only got one page made here and it's uh sort of similar to yours. It's I wanted a place to stick some data that I'm pulling via jQuery. This is our our program, calendar and.

C

It's just a page.

A

That lists all the programs but yeah I, like the idea of throwing report data on there. For somebody who wants to see report output but not run anything.

B

Right, they just need to go to the page and it loads all the stuff they need for them.

A

I do wish that this made that the pages got better URLs. It seems like there would be the possibility of like a URL slug, that you could custom Define.

B

Earl's and some kind of table of content, yeah.

A

B

But you know it's, it's a start. Yeah.

A

And it's a nice little thing like I I, look forward to seeing what else people do with Pages. Yes, yeah! Well cool thanks for sharing.

B

I also have a negative thing that I ran into that I thought it'd, be a good idea to share and I'm still I'm, not 100 positive, that what happened is what the source of the problem um we use this, the batch Patron modification plugin so or permissions modification, so that we can control permissions for groups of Staff um and I'm, not entirely positive positive. What version causes this or even if it is this tool, that's causing it but Friday afternoon, early around noon.

B

We change the configuration of that to remove one of the patron and list pairs that we didn't need anymore. The template list pairs and at about 4 45 I realized that all the code in the internet user JS file that comes after the plug-in code was gone, including all those reports that I had just created using these Pages stuff. So fortunately I backed it all up and.

E

B

To put it back, but if you're using that plug-in, you might want to watch out I'm, not sure, that's what happened, but that's the only thing I can think yeah.

C

B

C

I checked the log. It.

B

Said that I had deleted all my code at around the time that I change the configuration so I'm thinking, that's the only thing I can think it was so.

A

B

A word heads up for.

A

A scary thing, yeah.

B

So we put the we put all the code back above the the patron modification plugin, but permission modification plugin. So hopefully it won't do it again, but we fortunately we had backup copies of all this stuff. So it wasn't yeah.

D

I missed part of that you use the patreon batch modification plug-in and.

B

D

All your jQuery.

B

um Anything you know in the there's a the plugin itself has some jQuery in that user. Anything after that plug-in, oh.

D

Okay, actually, that makes sense to me because the command that puts that in there appends it to what's already in there yeah.

B

D

You want to make sure that it's the last thing in.

B

There yeah so we've discovered.

A

um Oh yeah, just sort of visual aid for yes, um yeah, there's a batch permission. Batch Patron permissions, modifier plug-in it's great. It lets you make lists of people and give them permissions um and I know that it needed an update after 22 11., when our POI got upgraded, I needed to grab a new version of the plug-inter.

B

Yeah we did that too.

A

um And then in when you install that plug-in it inserts into your internet, user.js.

A

A whole bunch of its own JavaScript and.

F

A

Makes sense, as as George said, if it's appending this I can see it accidentally deleting anything.

B

A

If I were to write now add some highly important jQuery down here. Yes,.

B

A

um That should all be logged really well too, in the action logs.

B

Yeah it was, it showed that I had deleted it. Yeah I'm.

C

Like I did not.

B

Delete it, it was changing the configuration that deleted it, but I was the one who did it so it logged it as me deleting the stuff. So.

D

It should be logged if you have that log turned on yeah.

A

That's a fair point: if your system is saving changes to system preferences in the logs, um it should every time you edit internet user.js, it should save the entirety of it. So, like theoretical, you maybe could have gone back to the the edit before that edit, but it also.

B

It's messy yeah.

A

It strips all the formatting which is I, would hate to take this and try to shove it back into that box and make it available again. That would be a long day or a week.

B

So I'm very glad I was well documented and.

C

B

B

But it was a shock at about five o'clock on a Friday afternoon, so yeah.

A

As George says, in the chat well documented, backed up is the way to go.

B

You learned that lesson early on as a system administrator, yeah.

A

Some days I think I could get like really over involved and like make a git repository of the contents of our internet, user.js and then I decided I, don't care that much type like maybe.

D

A

What I do yeah yeah? It seems worthwhile.

D

I wrote a report to get me all the data, so I can just pump it into a git repository once a month.

A

B

I think that's been one of the most interesting. We migrated in November 2022., the most interesting things is just learning all, because we we were Symphony library for 30 years and I managed it for 20 years. So I knew what was going to happen in Symphony sure.

C

B

Now I'm I'm, remembering just as I'm going through and finding these little things that I guess I didn't know that and learning all this stuff for new again. So it's been a fun year in.

A

Odd ways, there's always a an interesting, idiosyncratic collection of breaks. Yes,.

G

A

Says our batch Patron permission: modifier is not at the end of Internet. User.Js sounds like I should move it to the end yeah it sounds like that would be safe, hi. Don't.

D

Think of it as moving that to the end, think of it as putting all the stuff after it to the front.

B

Well, that's all for me. Thank you.

A

H

Well, I'm working on some custom, POS reports and I wanted to create a report that showed me uh totals for all of my different um funds and payment types and whatnot that you know all the money coming in and I wanted to Union it with a report that would show all of the refunds. So all the money coming in and all the money that had to be refunded from a register.

H

So I've got so many reports going right now, anyway, I I think I accomplished it somewhat, but as far as the Union, but it seems like on the side where you're taking the money, everything is associated with your register, but when you're refunding the money it doesn't look like that refund is being associated with a register.

H

So when I put the created the drop down so that you could run the report, you know based on which register you wanted.

H

Of course, then I didn't get any of the refund side because it's like those don't seem to be associated with a register.

H

So then I wondered: is there a way to run a report to sort of hack it somehow that it's kind of like yes, I know, you don't have a register on that side, but I still want you to report data like you know, can I run it with I, want it to be this register or blank.

H

You know and accomplish my.

H

Transactions that come in on the one side, but my refunds, that aren't associated with register on the other side, if that even makes sense, I.

A

Mean it sounds like it should be, doable.

A

Might end up restructuring your report somewhat just kind of based on where your? Where is and because yeah you should be able to say where for actual sales register is blah blah blah, but where for refunds register is no or is whatever.

H

Because it felt like my my selection of the register and the where was controlling, like both sides of my union but you're thinking that.

A

It didn't have to do so. Okay,.

H

I'm not good at this Union stuff and so but I'll I'll go poke around and it seemed odd to me that a refund is an associated with the register. You're running it through that.

A

Dog's being weird to me too, and I I'd be kind of inclined to do a refund and then like really Trace that data through every table, because I.

H

Did the account offsets yeah and you know, looked at every thing in an account offsets and it it looked like it. Looked like it's not recorded on a refund. What kind.

F

Of refunds, are you doing because I I? That's the part that really tripped me up when we were getting cash registers is refunding things I, don't even we needed a way to refund things that actually weren't entered in in the first place and that isn't possible at all, but we just do a sale and encounter just made it's weird, but I'm just curious about your refunding process. Well,.

H

So we have multiple different things that certain staff is is telling me, so they might sell earbuds and the person comes back and these don't work getting my money back. So we we see how to do that in the possible and then sometimes we have somebody that comes in with a lost book and they pay for it. And then in the afternoon you know oh I found it. You know, and so we do a refund for that.

H

But then we have refunds where the person paid for the Lost item and two months down the line. They find the item and we have like a six-month return policy and at that point we can refund them in cohop, but that refund isn't going to come out of our register. That refund is going to be issued by our finance department, so that is tripping me up a bit when I look at like the cash up summary reports, because that gets included.

H

But that's not really coming out of my drawer.

F

Yeah, that's we just ran into that too, and we decided to handle those as if we were just we had to make it so that we were canceling the refund and like we would. If we didn't want somebody to get a refund and then I don't know we still having trouble with that same thing.

H

Yeah and I'm I'm needing to do it per they want stuff. You know buy totals by cash totals by credit card Tolls by check, but I also have City friends and Foundations. So I've got all these levels of reporting and it's um yeah, but the refunds are you know if everything was on a cash basis and it all happened just in that day then then I completely understand how everything is working but um and then I guess.

H

Another question was like: we've got this old Antiquated cash register and so Circ staff says well sometimes one of those staff. Might um you know key the sale in wrong?

H

You know so they say it's a friend's sale when it actually should have been a city sale, and so they would be able to run a report on this old Antiquated cash register and then they would spot their mistake and they'd be able to go and fix it before they closed out for the day and I'm, not really seeing when it looks like when you cash up.

H

You know you don't really know what all those amounts are until you cash up, because it says you know, confirm you're, removing this amount of money from the drawer and you say yes, I am and then it gives you this report um with different totals and stuff.

H

um But it's like there's no way to go back in that particular day and fix things. Do you ever run into something like that.

F

It hasn't been so bad since we got we started using koha. It feels like staff, aren't making mistakes as often which is interesting. That would be good. Yes, I, like hearing that, but yeah um I haven't particularly heard that you know, because our staff didn't really reconcile when they ran the cash up before we had poha do it. It was the business office and she just explained.

F

You know she in her email to city that this is how this is and all that kind of and worked or magic, and so um staff didn't have a way to really fix those mistakes after the fact anyway, except if they did notice like if they said oh I accidentally rang that in as friends and it wasn't, they could go back and we I realized I had to give everyone permissions to do Anonymous refunds in order to do that and I hadn't, given those permissions to everyone, because it sounded scary.

H

Not sure I know what an anonymous refund is. It's.

F

Basically doing the refunds in the POS area: okay,.

H

F

It just sounds really scary when it says allow them to do Anonymous refunds, okay, but yeah I, I'm, not sure about that. One and I know that we were struggling with the same thing where somebody we don't allow staff to refund over fifty dollars, and so it has to go through the business office and I was trying to remember our steps that we do, but we don't handle it like a normal refund. Okay,.

H

Well, I might get back with you and ask you some more questions. I also just wondered when you're doing just like any report when you get the output, is there a way to like I've got some? You know totals for this group and totals for this group, because I'm unioning things is there a way to like make certain a certain part of your report?

H

um You know like give it style like make it bold, so that I can see that that total is. You know bold compared to the rest of my lines.

C

A

um For styling a report, the easiest way to do that is is kind of hacky, but you just concatenate HTML into the output so like if you've got a column that is giving you a total instead of just saying, give me some of amount concatenate like the HTML to make it bold so like.

C

A

A bracket with then your total and then they're, like closing brackets for that.

G

A

You were not, you were nodding like that all tracked, but it was weird I.

H

I sort of understand so and I think I I think I have seen some examples um just going through some things and just um I'll just have to try it.

H

A

Here may as well, like give an example.

A

G

Might borrower who am I.

G

I'm about exactly okay.

A

So if we just do that, let's get it I, don't know. That's my name but yeah.

A

Pardon me, while I'm bad at HTML and typing.

G

A

Yeah and so that just yeah, it makes the output of that column. It like turns it into something that gets parsed as HTML in the report. So I can make that a little more clear if I'm going to be added.

G

A

Like if I export, that it gets.

G

A

They've, given me the literal HTML there in my exports I know I've seen a bug somewhere suggesting a feature to allow that to get automatically stripped when you export something and I, don't know if I'd ever win anywhere, but I remember talking about that idea at some point right anyway, I love, shoving HTML into a report.

H

Thanks I will try some of those tips.

G

A

Anybody else admin or reports he thinks they've been.

G

G

F

I just have a quick question: we're talking about plugins a little bit earlier and if you are using a plug-in, but you have a suggestion to improve it or whatever do you guys know the the method of suggesting those suggestions.

A

um Technically you can most plugins like they're on git there's a place on git to file an issue.

G

A

I go to Vietnam.

A

Make that all their plugins.

A

Thank you for tap here for issues so just like submitting a bug on bugzilla. If I think yeah I could make a new issue here and say this plugin doesn't work in such a such way um and that would.

F

A

A message to whoever it Bywater gets this email.

F

But I could probably put a ticket in to buy water too if they were the one who made it yeah.

A

I, if it were by the Water by water, I would probably do both. Thank you. There should be I've seen plugins on like um git lab, as opposed to GitHub and I. Think it has a similar issue thing, but.

D

You can also, if you see an issue, and you know how to fix it. You can just you know, do the work in GitHub and submit a request to make it part of the code.

D

That's more advanced, though so.

C

F

Just finally under started learning how to use GitHub and figuring out where the code is actually on, the like I could get to them and I couldn't ever find the code, but now I'm, starting to figure that out so.

G

Good morning,.

A

um Over in the chat, George shared the bug to strip HTML from downloaded reports, which we will all note is sadly a four digit bug number, which means it's over 10 years old and nobody's working on it. I'll ask.

G

A

Enough um I, don't know how I would like figure out. What's HTML, it needs to get script and what is it.

D

Well, that's uh if you look down there, I put a comment on that book a couple years ago. That said, I would want to be able to to determine whether or not I wanted that scrubbed or not yeah.

A

That's fair, oh look, yeah in 2021 I was here.

A

uh And Michelle says that they've been working with Kyle on the overdue notices plugin and possibly make him making him regret the coding at that point in the first place.

G

Yeah fair enough.

G

G

A

Staring at you all.

G

A

You to have questions.

G

A

Sandbox I started to make when Barbara was talking about refunds. This time they start up. If we wanted to look at refund data and try to figure out if it does somehow tie to a registered, that's a good threat. I have questions. Oh we'll, look at account lines. Data.

I

Well, can I ask my question before we go there in case you run out of time. What I am trying to do is I have a library where we normally don't allow holds on other libraries in the Consortium, so you can only place holes on your own Library, except if the item is unavailable in your own Library and I can't find a way to do that in KOA. But Charles was at cover con last year and he said there was a talk that said using the setting the library limits on the transport cost.

I

Matrix would enable me to do that and there was a recording, but it stops early. So.

A

You can't think how the transport cost Matrix would have anything to do with onshelf availability.

J

Yeah Bob might be the person to ask about that. I know that he works a lot with the transport cost. Matrix and I know that he has some limitations that he has set with certain libraries. He might be the person to ask.

I

Okay, sorry I missed. Who was that to ask Christopher Bob.

J

Benhoff Bob.

I

Okay, I will do this. Thank you.

D

The transport cost Matrix shouldn't make it in shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not something is available.

J

D

J

D

That was one thing that Daphne mentioned was she said transport cost Matrix, but that shouldn't prevent a hold if other items are are uh if, if items are available, if only it shouldn't prevent that circumstance, I don't think so.

G

A

Yeah, it's a it's a broader switch. It can items go from this library to this library at all. It's not even like by item type or by Circle. It that's across the board. Okay,.

I

um Presumably, that would only come into play when you're filling the hold anyway, rather than when you're placing the hold yeah.

A

G

D

See the circulation rules there's a place there that says on shelf, holds available.

A

Yeah, but it's not going to make this sort of per Branch distinction.

A

I

See that thing George is like deal in the olden days we used to say if the book was on the Shelf Not Gonna Get, It, Go, Get, It, Yourself yeah, and then, if it wasn't on the Shelf we'd, let you place a hold and then we just said we would allow on um childhood, and certainly we did that everywhere during the pandemic.

I

But what they're saying is you know I'm in my library and the book is not available right now, so let me place a request on another Library now, I think, logically, what could happen is by the time it comes from the other Library. The local one could be back yeah. You know, but they're quite happy to to deal with that, but I can find a way in kohad to.

I

Whether a thing is available, but in another location, I, don't think it's possible.

A

So this is at library a patron at library, a wants Library a is copied of a book, but the library a is copy of check out, so they can only in that instant place, a hold on any other library account yeah.

G

A

I, don't know if you could even accomplish that by like creating a new patient category, which I would be really hesitant to do, even if it would work.

F

Are they placing item level holds then because doesn't I thought if you placed a hold on a bip level, it just filled it with the Home Library first, if it was available and then went to the others, but does that have to do with how the whole cue is built.

A

I

Because I think, as I said, ordinarily, we don't allow holes in another Library, so I think you set those limits further down on the start confined.

G

I

But it's just we kind of want to bypass those in a scenario where the local copy is either checked out or damaged, or you know withdrawn or something.

A

uh Rebecca Court put a bug in chat, but it gets to what you were saying: Juliet about prioritizing the home library or other libraries when multiple copies are available and there's. There is some logic in there that every time I need to think about it. I have to like clear 10 minutes. First.

I

So think about holes, isn't it you think you understand what you want and you need a little lighter.

A

Oh yeah Michelle makes a good point. I did see uh the Consortium Sig of kohai. Us is gearing up for a big old conversation. If you have things you would like to see holds. Do I.

C

A

E

Can anyone attend, even if they're, not in accordance Russia, yeah,.

D

Sure, but it's going to be geared specifically um specifically, this is stemming from an issue that is specific to consortia So.

D

Currently in koha there is local, holds priorities and I'm in a situation here, where I have uh some libraries like I, have one school district um and I have one District Library, where there's one library with four branches, and then there are, you know 46 other libraries in the Consortium, and so what um the main thing that we wanted to start talking about is a way of saying local holds priority says if the you know, if, if the item is here at this Library give priority to to uh a person, checking that's placing the hold to be picked up at this Library.

D

So if the person is places to hold and they're number 20 on the waiting list, if the hold is the first one to be picked up at that library, then that one fills it.

D

It hops, the the cold skew to the front, and what we want is a something that will say first, give priority to the people at this library and then give priority to the people in this group and then give priority to everybody else in the Consortium or to organize it in such a way that it could also say give people to priority to all the libraries in this group and then all the other libraries. And so that's what we're specifically going to talk about.

D

um That's going to lead off the conversation. So if that's something you want to discuss, um you're welcome to come. But if that's something, that's just going to bore you for a half an hour, because you are a library that only has one one building, then um it might not be something you're interested in. So.

E

It sounds fascinating.

A

um I have yeah I failed to make it to any of the consortial Fig meetings. Those who have attended do you feel like a large multi-branch system. Generally is enough like a Consortium that does take conversations would tend to be helpful.

D

uh I think some of them uh in a lot of respects, you know compared to other places, I've worked next search. Catalog is almost one big multi-branch system, because I only have two groups inside there, as opposed to one the the last Library I was at which there was in the whole Consortium.

D

There were only two libraries that weren't part of other groups, so.

D

C

Yeah they're I.

D

Think there's some advantages of uh that might be for, like.

A

How many, how many branches.

D

Do you have Andrew, oh.

A

We're small: we have five yeah.

C

Yeah I think I forget it. You got nothing but Rebecca.

A

Over in Arlington they're they've got more complicated.

D

Yeah they're huge yeah they're a lot they're really big. So.

A

Your Detention Center branch, that is like a whole, oh.

C

D

A whole other level awareness.

E

Yeah yeah, it's a we have eight locations and there's discussion about another one coming with the Amazon hq2 opening in uh here in Arlington. So there's discussion about a third or a ninth branch opening up down there.

A

Well, that does get into that space like that. That branch is going to be weird I bet, they're gonna do things different than the other libraries too yeah.

E

But no I think I. Think George is, you know conundrum of how you you know, game the system so that the ones at your branch get the book first. So you cut back on all this Transit time could be of use to anyone anywhere. You know so um if we could figure out a way like the transportation cost. Matrix is a great thing, but right now we're seeing with the whole Q report.

E

If it's on the Shelf at the branch, where that first Patron is picking it up, it's not even paging there or it's sending it to the whatever the transportation Matrix says that should be going to as opposed to having this kind of logic. That says. Oh, yes, this makes sense. If it's on the Shelf at the branch and the person who wants it is at the branch give it to that person first, so I think you know having a more robust hold system in general. I think would be very beneficial for all who use koha.

A

One I can't say there isn't room for some sort of um more intentional approach to building holds from the ground up, whereas like koha right now, it's like the the bug you linked about the whole ski was a really good example that that is adding customization to some very base level. Logic in the whole excuse script that had kind of been forgotten over time. I'm like oh yeah.

A

This does have a hard-coded preference deep down inside that we kind of didn't know was there and I think holds it like that they've been they've accumulated over time on that topic, I just talked to bug into chat that I had forgotten, existed and is worth being aware of. This is bug 29002, add ability to book items ahead of time, which right now is at failed, QA and I. Don't know, is it's a fascinating idea and I? You know I'm sure, you've all been asked about before this is the patron.

A

Who wants to make sure that section is. Such movie is available on September 13th, so they can watch it on their anniversary. How do I place a hold to make sure this thing? Will be here on September, 13th and not beforehand,.

I

But even if you allow it Andrew, how do you know the person who you say has to bring it back on the 12th will actually bring it back on the 12th.

A

That's the answer: I've given to every pigeon who's ever asked me this question and why I have always said it's impossible, so I'm interested to see how this module works and if it goes anywhere, it's a cool idea, but I, don't know how you accomplish it without a staff member that goes around to libraries and or to homes and takes books back.

C

A

Library police.

A

That's kind of a weird wrench of a possible future future. That's not even here yet, but was a good bit of bugzilla archeology.

A

And see yeah I do like that. Y'all were immediately the listing ways. This would be cool and helpful if it works. I am right there with you. I want this to work.

D

A

Relies on people so.

D

It can't be foolproof.

A

You know an enhancement to replace our patrons with cat. You can see this AI patrons, who check things out and return them on time.

D

Has anybody developed a Karen GPT like an AI That's, just a Karen like a mad yeah like a really angry AI.

D

I guess that's kind of uh oxymoronic.

K

I have a brief question on plugins, um so it was odd because in the past month I think it was the end of June. We needed to update our plugins and then in I think it was the end of July, beginning of August. We needed to update them again, so what's happening, is I'm not being alerted and so I'm all this I'm noticing because I'm in Acquisitions, like oh, the EDI invoices aren't coming in or what's going on here and then you know I contact Bywater, it's like!

K

Oh, you need to update your plugins and I was like well. This is odd. It's like two in one month so am I just supposed to check that periodically or how do you guys do that know when it needs to be updated.

A

That's a really good question, I'll, admit I've kind of relied on the wait until something looks like it's broken method, which is not ideal.

D

That's kind of what I've relied on too and what I think is going on is that there'll be a new version of koha and uh it breaks a plug-in and so about a month or so after the a lot of people have upgraded people start to realize the plugins broken, so they start pestering the plug-in developer and the plug-in developer, fixes it and uh and there's no real good mechanism for tracking those, because everybody has different ones, and so it's just kind of like an inevitability.

D

So I try and check the plugins every time, there's an upgrade um and and test them. You know, after after an upgrade to make sure they're working right and and if they're not then I go and look and see. If there's an update and if there isn't then I would contact the the person or people that created the plugin. So.

A

um It does look like GitHub gives you the ability to to watch a repository and get an update when there's a new release and like that would be kind of helpful. You would at least know if my water has released a new version of their plug-in they've. Theoretically. Did that for a reason, um I've not used this at all, but it looks like this button here.

A

You could tell it to let you know when there is a new release.

D

Then all you have to do is watch your GitHub account yeah.

A

That would always like yeah, let you know there is a version of this plugin which probably fixes The Dumpling that broke.

K

Great thanks, Andrew, oh you're, welcome.

A

That is still ultimately relying on someone noticing that something is broken, but I, don't that's kind of a trade-off of plugins. Ultimately, if they're outside of the koha development process, so koha absolutely can and will wander away from the plugins and then the plugins need to be brought back in line.

J

It would be nice if there was some sort of alert that said, hey uh you've got this version of this plug-in and we notice that there's an a newer version.

D

Maybe we should write a plug-in to alert you of which plugins are out of date. There you.

A

Go a plugin plugin well and, to be perfectly honest, every plug-in. Theoretically, when you load it up in koha, tells you which version of the plugin are you using it which version of koha does it correspond to, and those values don't seem to get updated carefully in most of the cohop plugins I've seen like they just kind of get like saying old version numbers, and so that would that data would have to get met like accurate for your plan to work, which is like theoretically possible.

A

In theory, people can put accurate version numbers in the code. They write.

A

A

Lori, sorry, that's the line positive I match up initials today, Lori asked: um are the plugins updated on a certain schedule and no they're not really plugins are kind of unregulated make plugins whatever you want update them whenever you want um which yeah again, it's like why they're a little more dangerous there's, not a big Community, making sure they get updated, they're more sort of one individual user.

A

There may be a few people generally I, wouldn't expect plugins to break outside of a co-hub version. Update I wouldn't expect the monthly co-house Point releases to change something up to break a plug-in. There will absolutely be exceptions to that, but yeah broadly I'd expect new plugin versions to pop up shortly after a new co-op version.

E

For those that have been on co-au really long time has there ever been a plug-in, that's made it into the actual Goa.

A

Oh yeah for sure.

D

The newest one is the uh curbside uh curbside plug-in. That's that part of Gohan. Now.

A

With another example,.

A

Oh, the the patreon emailer, although that's kind of get cranky right now or maybe the the community gets cranky about patient emailing.

D

There are other things like we talked earlier about the web pages and that was used to be a hack and then somebody. Finally, after you know, 15 years made it part of the system.

A

And honestly yeah, any plugins that are seeing a ton of yours are great candidates for getting actually moved into co-oper, because then they would be in the koha development process, like basically.

A

If we took that Patron permission modifier and moved it into koha proper, no one would be allowed to change koha in a way that would break the permission functionality which, right now you are I'm, allowed to change koha code.

A

Do whatever I want to permission without concern for whether or not it will continue to play with the plugin, because the plug-in's, not in koha proper, which is not ideal, the trade-off being then like nobody had to go through the whole Community QA process to get that plug in up and running and usable sacrificing control for flexibility.

A

G

A

We're at 10 51., we have nine more minutes of brilliance and then we all go down.

A

Well, that's a good question. Michelle asked: does anyone know what happened Friday afternoon with searching I was on vacation, but when I opened slack on Monday morning, I did see if it's something that happened.

J

All I heard was elasticsearch broke, but apparently it it was. You know, server-wide. It wasn't isolated to any particular um server. So.

D

I'm just glad it wasn't a three-day weekend because it broke here like at 4, 30.

H

Or it broke here, while we had a tech working on our Sorter and doing upgrades, and so they kept saying you know it's not it's not us, it's them and we're like um well and then we figured out it was Co-op, but they had a problem on their side too. So.

A

But it doesn't sound like anyone's part of it's a greater detail.

J

Looking at bywaters status page that they have they're not very forthcoming, with with information and generally in the past, you know when, when I've had when we've had issues- and they said- okay, it's fixed I would press them for at least a little bit of an explanation.

J

But uh you know if they're not pressed for information, they just generalize things which is a little frustrating. It would be like it would be nice to know a little bit about what's going on, so we have some sort of reference.

J

You know like if something else happened down the road you could say. Oh well, that sounds like.

A

Some constructive feedback, if they're continuing to make the same errors and crash things in the same way.

J

A

Like having to explain.

J

To our Consortium, it's just no worky yeah. That's all we get.

A

I've talked to it and they have confirmed that it is broken.

L

Well, that's I was just wondering if that's the first time it's happened, we've been on since February, so I was wondering. Is this a common occurrence? Does it happen like every few months, or should we be aware of that uh Fridays in the summer on Cape Cod very busy? So it's like we're just anything. We could tell our people to not be um upset about that.

L

We can give some sort of information would be helpful, so yeah uh We've shared the status page, but it really there was no explanation or any hint as to what happened so.

J

It is extremely rare, you know, you know when we get upgrades, you know they try to work out a lot of The Kinks and bugs and try to figure these things out well in advance. But you know until it hits production and it you know, and it's in Mass load. uh You know sometimes some things you know crop up unexpectedly, but you know, for the most part downtime on koha has been you know extremely low compared to our other ils's. That we've been in.

D

Yeah, for me, it's been uh like 11 years now that I've been using koha with Bywater Solutions, and this doesn't maybe once or twice a year there's this problem like this, but you know the worst ones: I remember one time where it was like July 3rd for 4 45 and then the Friday before Labor Day at you know at 402, and you know, and it took Larry like two hours to get us back up. You know it seems like the times that it has happened to me. It's always been like right before a three-day weekend.

D

So that's something to look forward to I, guess and.

J

George, you and I fondly remember our previous ILS, where it could be down for days.

D

Yeah, uh you know uh somebody putting a decimal on the wrong point. You could be down for three days.

D

um The situation there too was different because uh they're us office, we were in in the Pacific time zone, their U.S office was in the central time zone and their headquarters was in Israel, so the lines of communication were stretched, and, uh and so it was, it was a nightmare, and that was that was one thing.

D

I would say you know when um I was home sick when this happened on Friday again other people were, you know, sitting me, my phone was was going off and people were texting me saying who, where should I, send an email who's?

D

What should I do and I just my my best advice for getting by water to help you with anything is don't is go ahead and send an email and go ahead and use the the ticket ticketing system, but also phone um and ask them to call you back and when they call you back, you can ask, what's going on what happened, uh but I re I always recommend phoning I.

H

Phoned and when they routed my call Todd picked up and he said you're having trouble with searching, aren't you so they already knew, and you know he couldn't give me a lot of information, but he said they're they're on it they're working on it and you know hoping to get it quick and it it was a little while but not too bad.

A

I'm glad to hear it y'all um the state more or less the same thing I would have said about frequency of outage.

A

I wasn't um entirely entirely confident in my uh impression of it, given that I worked for Bywater longer than I worked in a Bywater uh supported Library, so I, don't yeah I, don't feel like I'm super, impartial, but I would have also said. Outages are rare.

A

From the like Insider perspective, I will say: if Bywater is a small enough team that you definitely they will run into issues where, like either I, can fix this. For you right now or I can explain to you how it's broken. I can't do both and there's nobody else to help so like the explaining part's going to need to wait and there as a whole, not great at remembering to follow up on stuff like that, like I'm, not surprised by Mike's comment that he asked for a course motor, but never got a response.

A

That sounds in character, and if you keep asking them, they will keep wholeheartedly intending to get around to writing that email. That explains what we're buying. It is not ever my impression that if I water gets secretive out of a desire to be secretive, but rather like they forget, you have to put words outside your head for people to know them.

D

That's one of the reasons I like calling is because I'll usually call and I'll say you know it's not working and then they say. Okay, is this a good number to reach you back and then, when they call back, then I say: do you know what happened and most of the time by the time they fixed it? They usually know what happened and they can answer that question.

D

A

Yeah anything taught in the support people have a pretty good understanding of like one of their important roles is to be the person who follows the devs and the systems team around and says: okay, but really what happened? People need to know.

D

And another thing I'd say about calling when there's a problem is he is he going to talk to people like Todd? You know you get a you know, I've I've, remember calling about one thing and then I ended up talking to Todd about for for like a half an hour so uh and the same with when Larry was there Larry and I could have a conversation in the last. You know an hour and 45 minutes you know and when we, when you're done it's like what do we talked about. That's.

J

Why I can never get a hold of anybody? George is on the phone.

D

Yes, I'm I'm logging, all the Bywater phone lives.

A

And it's such a nut. That's not a selling point for me, like I call them with my problem. I'll have to make small talk. Oh no.

D

Hey Larry was always a blast to talk to you. I miss Larry, so.

A

And with that y'all the clock has struck 11. or you know, adjust for your time zone. Does anybody have any final questions or concerns or I, don't know, philosophical statements.

A

I think, um let's see we all in New, Hampshire I believe that's how time works when we next meet. It will be at kohaka, no kohai us not Coho anyway, hope to see you in Portsmouth or on Zoom from Portsmouth or whatever all right go forth and be amazing. Thank.

K