Monday Minutes: Ability for Patrons to Delete Their Messages in the OPAC

by Kelly McElligott on Oct 30, 2023

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie show a new feature for Koha OPAC users. This feature allows patrons to delete their own messages from the OPAC. This feature, Bug 12029, was created to give the patron the empowerment to remove their own messages as opposed to staff having to remove it for them.

Patron Messages on the OPAC

Staff can create a message specific to the patron through the staff interface, this message will display on both the staff side and the Koha OPAC for the patron to see when they log in.

An OPAC Message will be time-stamped and also indicate which library branch left the message. An OPAC message can be created from the Patron Account - there is an option for "Add a Message".

Patrons will see an indication that there is a message on the OPAC Summary from the main page of the OPAC. Also, from the patron's account summary, they will see the notes and messages appear.

Now, if a patron would like to delete this message, they can! There is a "Dismiss' option under the message which will allow patrons to delete any messages from their account in the OPAC.

Note:

At this time, this feature only works on the Koha OPAC, patron messages currently can not be deleted in Aspen Discovery by patrons.

Staff Side to OPAC Messages

When a message has been 'read' by the patron, this date will be reflected in the message as well. A new field in the patron messages table will be stored with that 'date read' time stamp, this field is called, patron_read_date.

Although this message has been removed from the patron's account, this message will still be on the staff side and can be manually removed by staff.

Ability to Edit Messages

Another fun enhancement that we showcased during this Monday Minutes, was the ability to edit existing messages! This feature, bug 21699, was introduced so staff could edit messages without having to delete an existing message to add more information or to add another message to include more information. This edit option will appear with the message:

Check out the 23.05 Upgrade Hub

To find out about more upcoming and exciting things coming in 23.05, go check out the 23.05 Upgrade Hub. Upgrade Webinar registration is also included in this blog post!

Koha 23.05: Upgrades Hub