Automatic Item Modification By Age

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

  1. Go to Cataloging > Automatic item modifications by age. 
  2. Click on the ‘Add rules’ button to create rules.
  3. 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.
  4. First, add the age in days at which the item will update (Age)
    1. example: 180 days
  5. Next, add what criteria is needed to trigger the update (Conditions)
    1. items.itemtype = NEW
  6. Finally, what changes are made when the script runs (Substitutions)
    1. items.itemtype = BOOKS
  7. Click the ‘Add this rule’ link and then add additional rules or you can click the ‘Submit these rules’ button to save your changes.
Notes
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

The most common way this tool is used is to move items from a "NEW" item type or shelving location to another after a set amount of time. Moving an item from just one NEW field to a regular field is easy, as shown above. 

It gets tricky when there is only a single NEW field, but items need to move to several permanent itypes or locations. There must be a way to "tell" Koha what the final field should be. 

This can be done 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, a NEW shelving location holds all items on display, including items that will eventually be shelved in different parts of the library. The shelving location for these items should change from NEW to the item's permanent location after 90 days. 

Rather than creating separate NEW shelving locations to match each permanent location, catalogers can 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.
Info
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.

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