[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Loading MARC Order records in acquisitions

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

Several of our libraries are looking forward to using the "Loading MARC
Order Records" function in Evergreen as it provides a fast and easy way to
get their orders into the system. However, they've found that they need to
develop several workarounds to load these records. After looking closely at
the process over the past week, I have identified three issues, which I
consider to be bugs, that, if fixed, could greatly improve this workflow.
All three bugs have been submitted to Launchpad, but I wanted to bring
attention to them here to see if there might be some easy fixes for these
problems.

Uploaded Purchase Orders can't be activated
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/865552 - It looks like the wrong
database values are being inserted when the "Create Purchase Order" and the
"Activate Purchase Order" checkboxes are selected. If this could be fixed
and the correct values were inserted, it would be a big timesaver since
staff could skip the step of adding these titles to a selection list.

Order record loads fail when there is a null value in a holdings subfield
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/924952 - If a library includes a
subfield for notes in the setup for a provider, it is likely that this
subfield will often be null. However, this null field leads to a failed
import. I tried a similar upload in Vandelay and found that it does support
null subfields, so I'm guessing the acquisitions error is a bug rather than
expected behavior.

Order record loads fail when copy locations are owned by OUs
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/924930 - Some of our multibranch
libraries find they cannot load order records for multiple branches because
the copy locations are owned by the branch, not the system. We're looking at
a couple of workarounds for this (removing copy locations entirely from the
order and adding them at a later step is one of them), but we would love to
be able to upload these records regardless of who owns a particular copy
location.

Thanks!
Kathy

-------------------------------------------------------------
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 756-0172
(508) 755-3721 (fax)
klussier at masslnc.org
IM: kmlussier (AOL & Yahoo)
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier