Monday Minutes: Offline Circulation Tool

by Jessie Zairo on Jul 12, 2021

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie will walk through using the Koha Offline Circulation Tool that was created by Kyle Hall for Windows. The offline circulation tool for Windows will generate a KOC (koha offline circulation) file that you can upload into Koha once your system comes back up. This tool works great for those without access to the internet.

You can download the program to install on your circulation stations/computer at: https://github.com/bywatersolutions/koha-offline-circulation.

Steps to setting up the office circ tool

1. Go to GitHub and download the link referenced above.
2. Save it to your computer and run the program.
3. The Koha Offline Circulation Icon will appear on your desktop- double click this to open the program.
4. On the left-hand side, there are three tabs available: issues, returns, history.
5. Select a borrowers DB file
   1. if ByWater is hosting you, we can set up an automatic generation of this file
6. Set default KOC file path
   1. where your file will download

Issues / Checkouts

1. To begin, you must scan in a patron’s barcode and hit accept.
2. Below the Borrower card number area, there is the Item Barcode area- here you will scan in the item that the borrower is checking out.
3. Hit Add items after each scan of a barcode. At the end of the transaction with the patron, click OK.
4. The first transaction when you use the offline tool, you will be prompted to save the file.
5. After you save this file, it will allow you to continue with the next patron in the checkout process. Any subsequent transactions will be saved to this file.

Returns

1. Scan in a barcode under the Returns tab and hit enter.
2. This will store all the previously scanned barcodes.

History

Here is where all the transactions that have been performed during the time this program was open will be stored. When you close out for the day- make sure you save the file. The next day, the first transaction will again need to be saved, but this history will show everything that has happened during the time it was opened.

If you are using a borrower file :

• Once you open the Koha Offline Circulation, go to Settings
• Choose- Select Borrowers DB file and retrieve it from your computer.
• Then proceed with transactions. When you scan a barcode of a patron, their details will populate on the right-hand side.
• The rest of the process is the same as above.
• Once your internet has been restored:
• Open up your Koha Staff Client

• Go into the Circulation Module
• Choose to “Upload offline circulation file (.koc)
• Here you will be prompted to choose the file you saved during your offline circulation process and upload it.

If you have multiple files, you can choose to “add to offline circulation queue” or “apply directly”

Apply directly will process the transactions and show all the transactions that happened during the file process.