[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Curbside pickup in Evergreen

[Mike Rylander]

Hi all,

This is a followup to LP bug
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1879983 to give a bit more
technical information on our plans for curbside-facilitating
interfaces in Evergreen.

First, the main goals are to get something out that the most libraries
possible can use, does not impose any extra work which does not
facilitate curbside pickup, is invisible to libraries that do not
provide curbside pickup, and has a very low risk of data-impacting
bugs.  To that end, we are designing this so that it does not shove
itself into existing workflows or require existing data structures to
be made aware of it.

The initial implementation consists of a single new database table and
a set of business logic that will help staff organize their physical
work around the expected arrival times of patrons.  A new
Action/Trigger reactor and example event definition for use on the
"hold.available" hook will be available to begin the curbside process
when the first hold at a location becomes available for pickup for
each patron.  A new hook, "hold.offer_curbside", will be available to
prompt patrons to choose an appointment time per pickup library,
though where appropriate the existing hold.available notification can
serve this purpose as well.  A second new hook,
"hold.confirm_curbside", and example definition will confirm the
appointment via email or SMS, or both with multiple event definitions,
and can provide a "check in" link or other "check in" instructions to
the patron.  Both self-check-in and staff-check-in ("call the library
when you arrive," etc) will be supported.

Staff will be able to decide the size of each appointment window
(default is every 15 minutes) and the number of appointments that
should be allowed in each window (default is 10).

Code will be available to allow patrons to request an appointment for
themselves, but a staff interface will also exist to allow
appointments to be scheduled for patrons that cannot or do not want to
do it themselves.  From there, a set of interfaces will assist staff
with each step in the curbside process, starting at the point that a
patron has requested an appointment.

 * Create appointment for patron: the aforementioned staff interface
that can be used to create an appointment for a patron, rather than
having the patron select an appointment themselves.  Once an
appointment is created, but before the hold-ready items are staged,
the appointment will show up on the next interface.

 * To be staged: a list of appointments, with patron name and
ready-item list, that have been requested, for which items on the
local holds shelf need to be gathered and staged for delivery.  This
interface looks two appointment-window-intervals into the future for
upcoming appointments, and displays all appointments from that time
back that need to be staged.  This interface could be set up as a
"dashboard" on a centrally located computer to display work needing to
be done, but will be usable on tablet-sized devices for staff working
to stage appointment item batches.  Once marked "staged" an
appointment will fall off this list and move to the next.  The staging
staff ID will be recorded, along with the staging time.

 * Staged awaiting arrival: a list of appointments, with patron name
and item count, that are ready to be delivered to the patron for which
the patron has not yet arrived.  This interface can be used by staff
to mark a particular patron as "arrived" if the library does not want
to use patron self-check-in.  Once marked "staged" an appointment will
fall off this list and move to the next.  Staff will be able to mark
the appointment "arrived & delivered" to complete the curbside process
immediately, if that is the local workflow desired.  In this case, the
appointment will be moved to the final "Delivered today" interface.
The delivering staff ID will be recorded, along with the delivery
time.

 * Patron has arrived: a list of appointments for which the patron has
checked themselves in as arrived, or staff have marked as arrived.
This interface can be used as a dashboard on a centrally located
workstation to show the appointment item batches that need to be
delivered to the patron waiting outside.  Staff will be able to mark
the appointment batch as "delivered" from this interface.  Once marked
"delivered" an appointment will fall off this list and move to the
next.  The delivering staff ID will be recorded, along with the
delivery time.

 * Delivered today: a list of appointments that have been marked
delivered today.

All interfaces will have links to the patron holds or checkouts
interfaces, as appropriate, to facilitate any adjustments that need to
be made.  All appointment batches will be assumed to contains all
ready-for-pickup hold items, so staff will need to adjust holds that
cannot be be found on the hold shelf (or otherwise) at any point
before marking an appointment as delivered.  When an appointment is
marked delivered all hold-ready items are checked out to the patron as
the delivering staff member using open-ils.circ.checkout.full.override
so that all override-able events are ignored.

To simplify configuration and code in this initial version,
appointment offers will be generated for open hours as defined in the
hours of operation table.  This means that appointment times will
align with the library details page where patrons can see open hours,
and is meant to match the definition of "open" as "when the library
will be interacting with patrons".  Libraries should adjust their
hours of operation to match when curbside pickup will be available
before enabling the feature.  Library closed dates are currently not
taken into account, so the feature should be enabled on the day that a
library wants to start offering the service, if they want to make use
of patron-scheduled appointments.

It's all entirely optional, and is meant to support and streamline
nearly any staff procedure already in place.

In addition to the normal software documentation that describes
features and settings, we also intend to provide a few basic workflow
descriptions to help staff make the most of the feature within the
constraints that the physical space may require.

We welcome questions and feedback, as always, but we won't be spending
much time on details of specific workflows beyond making sure that
physical processes can be supported and we don't make something
libraries are already doing significantly harder or impossible. We
want to get this out ASAP!

--
Mike Rylander
 | Research and Development Manager
 | Equinox Open Library Initiative
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at equinoxinitiative.org
 | web:  http://equinoxinitiative.org