Monday Minutes: Patron Restrictions

by Jessie Zairo on Aug 1, 2022

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie talk about patron restrictions.

Manual Restrictions

If you would like to restrict a patron from the library you can add a manual restriction. Staff can enter in a date and/or the note related to the restriction. This will populate at the top of the patron's account with the restricted message.

Overdue/notice status triggers

Restrictions can also be automatically set with the Overdue/notice status triggers. This restriction will prevent a patron from checking items out because of their overdue items. This will put a notice on the patron’s record at checkout informing staff that the patron cannot check out due to overdue items.

There is a system preference that ties into this restriction. Koha can automatically remove that restriction with AutoRemoveOverduesRestrictions. This preference lets you define whether Koha will automatically remove that restriction once the overdue items in question are returned or not.

Set this feature up in Tools --> Overdue notice/status triggers

System Preference

The system preference CumulativeRestrictionPeriods controls whether or not restriction periods should be served concurrently or consecutively.

• If set to ‘Don’t cumulate’, the patron will be restricted only for the longest period. (For example, if a patron has a restriction of 10 days and another restriction of 15 days, they will be restricted for 15 days.)
• If set to ‘Cumulate’, the patron will be restricted for the sum of all the restriction period. (For example, if a patron has a restriction of 10 days and another restriction of 15 days, they will be restricted for 25 days.)

The system preference RestrictionBlockRenewing affects all forms of renewals made from the staff interface and the automatic renewals cron job.

The system preference OnSiteCheckoutsForce lets the staff override any restrictions a patron might have and check out items for use within the library. The OnSiteCheckouts preference must first be set to ‘Enable’ for this preference to be considered.