Monday Minutes: Patron Customizations and Enhancements

by Jessie Zairo on Jan 6, 2025

In this week's Monday Minutes, Nick and Jessie show off some of the patron customizations and enhancements in 24.11.

Patron Administration

• Bug 23486 - TrackLastPatronActivityTriggers should have an option for patron creation
• Bug 33462 - Force password change for new patrons entered by staff

Patron Tools

• Bug 27123 - Add messages to batch patron modification28633
  

Patron Management

• Bug 28633 - Add a preferred name field to patrons
• Bug 36454 - Provide indication if a patron is expired or restricted on patron search autocomplete

Administration

System Preferences

TrackLastPatronActivityTriggers now includes an option for Creating a patron

1. Navigate to Administration --> System Preferences
   
2. Type in TrackLastPatronActivityTriggers in the search box
3. Select the dropdown menu to include Creating a patron
4. Click Save all patron's preferences

ForcePasswordResetWhenSetByStaff is a new system preference that enables the ability to force or don't force a staff created patron account to reset its password after its first OPAC login.

1. Navigate to Administration --> System Preferences
2. Type in ForcePasswordResetWhenSetByStaff
3. Default is don't force.

Patron Management

Preferred Name

Staff will now have the option to enter a preferred name on the Patron Details page. This will also be available in the OPAC.

If you have the system preference PatronAutoComplete turned on when staff search for a patron, they will now see 2 new enhancements in the search alerting them to the status of the patron.

1. Expired Status
2. Restricted Status

Enabling PatronAutoComplete, will try to guess the patron being entered while typing a patron search for circulation or patron search. It will only return the first 10 results at a time.

1. Navigate to Administration --> System preferences
2. Search for PatronAutoComplete. Set to Try.
3. Save all Circulation preferences.

Patron Tools

Messages have been added to Batch patron modification. Staff can now apply a staff or OPAC note or remove ALL messages from a patron's account.

1. Navigate to Tools --> Batch Patron Modification
2. Attach a file, enter card numbers, borrowernumber, or select a patron list.
3. Notice a new section for Message: under OPAC note.
4. Staff can add a message to select the checkbox to the right of the field to remove ALL messages.
5. Click save.

Koha Manual: Batch Patron Modification

Additional Resources

Koha 24.11 Release Notes

Monday Minutes: 24.11 Preview

The Koha Community Announces 24.11 Release

Koha 24.11 Upgrades Hub