Koha Question of the Week: What does “Critical field missing” mean?

by Valerie Burnett on Dec 27, 2024

Each Friday, we will bring you a new Koha Question of the Week. We will select real questions that we receive and share the answers with you!

Question: What does “Critical field missing” mean?

When importing patron data, the required fields are:

• categorycode

• branchcode

• surname

The error message “Critical field missing” indicates one of the required fields is missing or wrong.

If you are seeing this error but you’ve provided categorycode, branchcode, and surname, check that:

• All categorycodes and branchcodes are presented exactly as they are defined in your database.

  • Example: Your code is “MAIN” but the description is “Main Branch”. The patron import form must read “MAIN”

  • Need to look up your branch codes? Check the “Koha Administration” page under “Libraries”.

  • Need to look up your category codes? Check the “Koha Administration” page under “Patron categories”

  • The codes are usually defined in all one word, no special characters, all uppercase letters

• The headers in your spreadsheet match the format expected. Any variation will cause the “Critical field missing” error

  • Field heading must be all lowercase

  • No spaces or special characters

  • Example: “branchcode”. Not “Branchcode”. Not “branch code”. Not “branch”. Not “branchcode.”