Monday Minutes: Item Bookings

by Kelly McElligott on Jun 10, 2024

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie walk through this summer upgrade's new feature, Item Bookings. This feature will allow libraries to book items in advance for book groups, events, and more!

Item Booking Process

This process will allow an item to be bookable:

1) Use a record with at least one item attached

2) Go to the 'Items' tab for that record

3) Mark at least one item as 'Bookable' using the new select box under Priority.

4) Note that a new 'Place booking' button should appear in the menu toolbar with the items tab

5) Choose to ‘Place Booking’

6. Choose a patron, pickup location, the item itself, and the time frame on which this item is ‘booked’

7) Once complete, note the new 'Bookings' page available from the left menu

8) Clicking the patron's name on the booking will bring staff to the patron's detail page with the 'bookings' tab showing the same information.

9) If the dates need to change for existing Bookings, this can be done from the Bookings Page on the item.

Circulation

For items before their booked time frame can still circulate as normal. However, when an item is booked during what would be a regular checkout period for an item, staff will get a pop-up box to inform of the revised circulation date due to the booking. By default, Koha will make the due date 1 day before the date of the item booking.

Permissions

A new permission for staff has been added with the Check Out Check In Items permissions called, "Manage item bookings (manage_bookings)".

Staff will need this permission to place bookings on items.

Report

Here is the report we shared during the tutorial video that libraries can use:

SELECT booking_id, start_date, end_date, branches.branchname as branchname, biblio.title as title, items.barcode as barcode,
items.itemcallnumber as callnumber, borrowers.surname as surname, borrowers.firstname as firstname
FROM bookings
JOIN borrowers ON patron_id=borrowernumber
JOIN biblio ON biblio_id=biblionumber
JOIN items ON item_id = itemnumber
JOIN branches ON pickup_library_id = branches.branchcode
WHERE start_date BETWEEN <<Bookings starting between|date>> AND <<And|date>>