Automatic Item Modification By Age
The Automatic Item Modification by Age tool allows librarians to update item specific fields when an item reaches a certain age.
Setting up a rule
- Go to Cataloging > Automatic item modifications by age.
- Click on the ‘Add rules’ button to create rules.
- If you have rules already, there will be a button that reads ‘Edit rules’. To create a new rule click the ‘Edit rules’ button at the top of the page.
- First, add the age in days at which the item will update (Age)
- example: 180 days
- Next, add what criteria is needed to trigger the update (Conditions)
- items.itemtype = NEW
- Finally, what changes are made when the script runs (Substitutions)
- items.itemtype = BOOKS
- Click the ‘Add this rule’ link and then add additional rules or you can click the ‘Submit these rules’ button to save your changes.
Note: The cronjob calculates matches for age as "greater than or equal to," so "180" will affect any matches with an "age" of 180 days or more.
Setting Up "New" Conversions
If you want to move items from a "NEW" item type or shelving location to another after a set amount of time, this tool is a great way to do that. Moving an item from just one NEW field to a regular field is easy, as shown above.
It gets tricky if you have only a single NEW field, but items need to move to several permanent itypes or locations. We have to find a way to "tell" Koha what the final field should be.
We could do this by creating multiple NEW fields like NEWJUV, NEWDVD, NEWBOOK, and then matching to the corresponding permanent fields of JUV, DVD, and BOOK... but this can get overwhelming and many libraries don't want multiple NEW fields.
One way around this is to set up multiple conditions for a rule so that it's looking at multiple parts of an item record to decide the permanent change.
For example, there's a NEW shelving location holding all of our display items, including items that will eventually be shelved in different parts of the library. We want the shelving location to automatically change from NEW to the item's permanent location after 90 days.
Rather than creating separate NEW shelving locations to match each permanent location, we can instead have catalogers add the final location code into the item's nonpublic notes field, then set up the automatic item modification rules to look at both the shelving location AND the nonpublic notes to determine the final location.
In the first rule of the screenshot, Koha is checking first for the item's date accessioned age of 90 days or more. Then it checks to see whether it has the NEW shelving location and it has JUVENILE in the nonpublic notes field. If it does, Koha will move it to the JUVENILE shelving location.
Staff Permissions
Staff need the items_batchmod permission to access this tool
Cronjob
The Automatic item modifications by age requires a cronjob to run nightly. It will update items based on the list of rules set forth in the Automatic item modifications by age tool.
Script: misc/cronjobs/automatic_item_modification_by_age.pl
Please submit a ticket with ByWater Solutions or contact your support provider to enable the cronjob.
Related Articles
Shelving locations in Koha
Shelving locations in Koha tell the user where an item physically lives in the library. There are several options in Koha to control the shelving locations as materials move through cataloging and circulation. Add a Shelving Location Administrative ...Managing Patron Accounts
Koha has many options and tools for managing patron accounts. Customize the Patron Registration Form Libraries can customize which patron fields display on the form, which fields are mandatory and which fields are collapsed within the patron detail ...Item Search
If you’re responsible for Collection Development but SQL and creating custom reports feels intimidating and out of reach, Item Search is the powerful little tool you need. Item Search builds an SQL report in the background with no need to know SQL. ...Fast Add Cataloging
Within the Cataloging module, an option to utilize the Fast Add option appears. Fast Add cataloging is useful in a few ways. Many libraries use Fast Add for their ILL process. Academic Libraries may use Fast Add when adding in faculty-owned material ...Batch Item Modification
The Batch Item Modification tool can be found in the Cataloging module. This tool allows libraries to make batch edits to item holding data in a quick and easy way. There are a few ways that a library can use this tool. It can be used either directly ...