[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Newbie - Circulation reports question - overdues and fines

[Walz, Jennifer]

Josh,

Thanks!   I will look into that...

Jennifer
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Jennifer Walz, MLS - Sys Admin
Kinlaw Library -  Asbury University
One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390
859-858-3511 ext. 2269
jlwalz at asbury.edu

From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Josh Stompro
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 11:05 AM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Newbie - Circulation reports question - overdues and fines

Hello Jennifer, the place you want to look is the Action Alerts subsystem.  That is where you enable different actions that happen for different triggering events such as items being on the holdshelf, items being overdue, etc.  It is very flexible which also means it is complicated.

There are two different areas to look at.

The Action Triggers setup - http://docs.evergreen-ils.org/2.6/_action_triggers.html

There is a script that needs to be run on the server to process the triggers.  http://docs.evergreen-ils.org/2.6/_processing_action_triggers.html

I'm linking to the 2.6 docs since those docs are not in the 2.5 version of the documentation, so there may be differences.

It is possible to run the triggers on customizable schedules.  You would just run the action_trigger_runner.pl script on a specific schedule and use the -granularity flag, which you also set for those events that you want on a certain schedule.  So you could have a granularity settings of "monwedfri" for your overdue's, and then setup the script to run only on Mon, Wed and Fridays using cron, and using the -granularity=monwedfri flag so only those triggers are processed.

I'm sure you can run and create a report based on what actions are processed since that data is also available in the patron record.

The notice output is set by editing a template in the trigger event, I don't think there is any support for multiple languages right now though... Maybe you could use a statistical category from the patron record in the template to pick what version of output you want.. sorry I don't know enough about it yet to say.

On my test 2.6 system there are 52 default Trigger Event Definitions, the interface is a little annoying in that it doesn't tell you how many there are, you just have to use the "Next" link to see each page of 15 at a time.  There are already triggers setup to show overdues that just need to be enabled.  I'm not sure which ones handle fines and other charges.

Hopefully this will get you started.

Josh

From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org<mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org> [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Walz, Jennifer
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:44 PM
To: open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org<mailto:open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Newbie - Circulation reports question - overdues and fines

All -

Ok.  I am brand spanking new and sorry for the newbie questions.   We are just starting with Evergreen 2.5 and we have all the parameters and conditions set (at least we think so!).   We are an academic institution.    I just don't know at this point how to run overdue and fine notices.  Is there something we need to set to make them go?   Or is there a report we have to create and then run on a schedule?     Start me from scratch with instructions as this system is totally new to me.   We are coming from Sirsi/Dynix.

  We would like them to run on a schedule and the notice itself be sent to each student by email.  Is that possible?   How do we set that up?

  And then we need a report that is generated from the same output so that we can check what was sent.  Is that possible?  How is that done?

Is it also possible to have separate notices going out on alternating days?   Like fines on M,W,F and overdues on T,TH??    What about bills?  Are they also generated separately or together with other notices?    Can you set how many notices go to each patron and escalate them to higher kinds of notices?

  Is there a way to change the notice language?   The format of the notice itself?

  Are there canned reports out there that I can get from others to use?   Where can I get them from?  Certainly every single library has a generic report for this right?  Something like - show me all patrons that have books out and are overdue by 1 day.      Or show me all patrons that have a fine exceeding x amount.

Yeah.  These are very basic questions but NONE of the documentation says ANYTHING about any of this.    I'm afraid I need details and specifics.  Examples of how this works someplace would also be very nice.

Thanks for all the help and pointing me in the right direction!

Jennifer
--------------------------------------------------
Jennifer Walz, MLS - Sys Admin
Kinlaw Library -  Asbury University
One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390
859-858-3511 ext. 2269
jlwalz at asbury.edu<mailto:jlwalz at asbury.edu>

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