Koha Materials

Koha Post Training Checklist

by Kelly McElligott on Mar 29, 2018

Now that your training is complete your library will need to go through the Koha Testing Plan and thoroughly test your data and the system. Practice makes perfect! You will also need to set the following things up (all of these will remain set when you go live – we will not erase them).

System Preferences

Review all the system preferences that we did not set in training and decide what you’d like the settings to be. A great document to use for this can be found here.

Other System Preferences:

  • Remember to enter the system preference OPACBaseURL and staffClientBaseURL once you know what your new Koha URLs will be.
  • If you are using OpacSuppression preference you must have at least one record with a 942$n set to 1.
  • Make sure that the system preference KohaAdminEmailAddress is set to an address that you check, we will notify you of upgrades at this address.

Patron Categories

  • Enter Enrollment Periods and choose Koha type (Adult/Child/Statistical/Staff) for each of your patron types.
  • Set default Patron Messaging Preferences per Category.
  • Be sure to set ‘Overdue’ to ‘Yes’ for patrons who you will be setting Overdue Notice Triggers for. Set each patron category's patron privacy settings.

Staff Permissions

  • Make sure all your staff members have accounts in Koha and their permissions are defined. Any patron account that has assigned staff permissions, will not be overwritten when we the final migration.

Libraries & Groups

  • Verify that all information for each library branch has been entered in the Library Setup (found in Administration Module) such as address, phone, email, etc. 6. Item TypeReview every item type. Change their descriptions to English instead of codes so that your patrons know what they are. Add images if you’d like and mark which types are always ‚ ‘Not for loan’.

Authorized Values

Collection Codes (if you’re using them) - found in Authorized Values : ccode

  • Review every collection code. Change their descriptions to English instead of codes so that your patrons know what they are. If you’re using Collection Codes as a limiter on the advanced search you can choose an image for each type if you’d like.

Shelving Locations (if you’re using them) found in Authorized Values: loc

  • Review every shelving location. Change their descriptions to English instead of codes so that your patrons know what they are.

Circulation & Fine Rules

    • It would be best to have tested your circulation rules after they have been set up to ensure the circulation is matching the desired action.
    • Make sure that every branch has at least one all/all rule. This All/All rule will capture any circulation transactions not covered in the above rules.

Notices & Slips / Overdue Notices Status Triggers


Notices & Slips
Edit these all to have text specific to your branches. Note that while you might not send a notice your patrons can subscribe to it, so edit them all.

  • PREDUE & PREDUEDGST= Advance Due Notice &Advance Due Digest
  • DUE & DUEDGST= Item Due Notice and Item Due Digest
  • HOLD = Hold
  • ODUE, ODUE2 and ODUE3 = All overdue notices

Overdue notice Status & Triggers - found in the Tools Module

  • Set up when overdue notices should be sent per branch.
  • Add each Patron Category that will receive Overdue, the number of days after the item is due that the notice should be sent, and the way the notice should be delivered to your patron.

Testing Notices

We can set up your test system to run some test notices for you. Once you have been trained and your notices have been altered to what you would like them to look like, let us know!

We can set up your test site with blank email addresses for your patrons, to verify no emails go out accidentally during this testing process. Note: Your test site does not have the capability to send notices unless we turn this functionality on. Once the real patrons have no email, create a few test patrons with email addresses (they don't need to be valid).

Next, fill out the system preference, SendAllEmailsTo to an email that the library would like to receive the test notices from.

Our systems team will turn on the generation of notices and any notices generated will be routed to this email (set up in SendAllEmailsTo).

This testing phase will be turned off prior to go-live and data will put the emails back into the patron accounts and also remove the value of the SendAllEmailsTo system preference.

Other Administration

  • Cities & Towns
    • If you’d like to have a pull down of cities, states and zips on the patron add form, add them here.
  • Label Layouts, Templates and Profiles
    • If you’re using Koha’s label maker be sure to set it up before you go live and create some test labels to ensure it is working as expected.
  • Calendar/Holidays
    • Enter the closings for every library in your system.
  • Cron jobs (ticket created after training)
    • This was a survey that was sent through the ticketing system that asked what Cron Jobs that the library would like to start on Go-Live or when after go-live.
  • Local Use
    • If you’re going to count local use using a statistical patron then add that patron before go live (this patron type will not be deleted when your data is wiped before go live)
  • Privacy
    • There is an Anonymous Borrower set up on your site, this borrower is linked to the system preference: AnonymousPatron Be sure not to delete this borrower, as this will store reading a history of patrons that have chosen not to check it.

Day 1 with Koha

  1. Holds
  • Migrated holds - any existing waiting holds from your old system will need to be re-checked in on Day 1.
  • After all existing holds have been triggered (checked in)- then run your Holds Awaiting Pickup Report and compare what is on the report and what is on the shelf.

2. Logins

  • Can each staff member log into Koha?
  • Do they need their permissions adjusted?
  • Have one SuperLibrarian on site during go live, to make any permission adjustments.

3. OPAC

  • Login to the OPAC- verify all is working and looks correct.

Prefer a paper form of this checklist?

Printable Version of this Checklist

Read more by Kelly McElligott

Tags training, migrating