Monday Minutes: Acquisition Vendor Record

by Jessie Zairo on Nov 20, 2023

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie talk about 2 enhancements you will see in 23.05 within the vendor record in Acquisitions. Staff now have the ability to track an alias for a vendor name and can manage vendor portals or interfaces to keep track of login credentials and notes.

Creating Aliases for a Vendor

Bug 33103 Add vendor aliases in Koha release 23.05 or later, allows staff to create aliases for a vendor. The aliases field can be used for a former name, nickname, or different spellings of the name. Once staff add the alias, it will display on the vendor detail page. Additionally, staff can search by alias when starting their acquisitions workflow.

1. Navigate to the Acquisitions Module and Search for vendor
2. Click Edit Vendor
3. Notice and Alias field under vendor type
4. Add the alias and click the +Add
5. Add as many alias' as needed
6. Click save

Create Interfaces for Vendors

Bug 33104 adds the ability to create interfaces for vendors.
An interface can be described or tracked for vendor website, ordering platform, or support portal that you use to manage orders or gather statistics from the vendor or organization.

Within this new feature, staff can track usernames and passwords, that will be encrypted for storage, but can be decrypted and made visible in the staff interface.

This enhancement also introduces a new authorized values category, VENDOR_INTERFACE_TYPE, to define the type of interface. Staff will be able to create multiple entries within one vendor record.

1. Navigate to the Acquisitions Module and Search for vendor
2. Click Edit Vendor
3. Scroll down to Interfaces
4. Click +Add another interface
5. Enter Information for the following (no fields are required)
   1. Name - name of interface
   2. Type - driven from authorized value VENDOR_INTERFACE_TYPE
   3. URI - the login URL of the interface
   4. Login - username
   5. Password - password to login
   6. Account Email - email if needed
   7. Notes - add any additional information
6. Click Save.

Additional Resources

Explore more of our Acquisitions videos and tutorials!

Excited for the new upgrade? Checkout the Koha 23.05: Upgrades Hub.