Purchase Suggestions in Acquisitions
Koha's purchase suggestion functions can help libraries manage suggestions, simplify ordering in Acquisitions, and keep patrons informed of the status of their suggestions. For an overview of the process from start to finish, watch Monday Minutes: Purchase Suggestions.
Creating Purchase Suggestions
The Help Center page Purchase Suggestions in the OPAC and Koha manual discuss purchases suggestions in the OPAC, including the associated system preferences and display options.
Even if purchase suggestions are not enabled in the OPAC, staff can create them from the 'Purchase suggestion' tab in a patron's account or from Acquisitions > Purchase suggestions by clicking the '+ New purchase suggestion' button. Purchase suggestions created in the staff interface can be associated with a patron, but they do not have to be.
Note that the 'Document type' field on the purchase suggestion form is not linked to your item types set in Administration > Item types. Instead, it is populated by the SUGGEST_FORMAT authorized value category in Administration > Authorized values. You will most likely want to add values to this category to reflect the options from which patrons can select.
Add the Google Book API
A patron can add an ISBN to the purchase suggestion form, press the Search Google Book option, and the title and author will be prefilled for the patron making the suggestion. The system preference to enable this feature is OPACSuggestionAutoFill.
Managing Purchase Suggestions
The manual describes how and where staff can manage purchase suggestions, how to accept or reject them (including associated statuses), and how to edit, archive, and delete them.
Notices for Patrons
For purchase suggestions associated with a patron, changing a suggestion's status will automatically email the associated notice if it exists in Tools > Notices and slips.
If your library does not want to send these notices automatically, you will need to delete them from Tools > Notices and slips.
These are the default notices, along with details about how and when they will send:
- ACCEPTED: Sent to patrons if their suggestion is marked as Accepted.
- REJECTED: Sent to patrons if their suggestion is marked as Rejected. This notice will include the reason selected from the 'with this reason' menu, or staff can select 'Other' to type in a reason manually. The options in the menu are set in the SUGGEST authorized value group.
- ORDERED: Sent to patrons if their suggestion is either ordered from the Acquisitions module or manually marked as Ordered from the purchase suggestion management table.
- AVAILABLE: Sent to patrons when their suggestion is received in the Acquisitions module. This notice cannot be manually triggered from the purchase suggestion management table.
Notices for Staff
There are three default notices to assist with purchase management suggestion:
- NEW_SUGGESTION: If you would like a notification sent when new purchase suggestions are created, set the EmailPurchaseSuggestions system preference to send to the library's email address (in Administration > Libraries), the KohaAdminEmailAddress, or a separate EmailAddressForSuggestions.
- NOTIFY_MANAGER: This notice will send to the manager to whom a purchase suggestion is assigned if the 'Notify manager' checkbox is selected.
- TO_PROCESS: If a notice is assigned to a fund, this notice will send to the fund's owner. As this requires the notice_unprocessed_suggestions.pl cron job, please send us a support ticket if you are a ByWater Solutions partner and you would like to enable this functionality.
Placing Holds on Purchase Suggestions
Libraries have the ability to automatically place holds for patrons on their suggested purchases if they order those suggestions through the Acquisitions module. If the system preference PlaceHoldsOnOrdersFromSuggestions is set to "[Do] place a hold when ordering from a suggestion", holds will automatically be placed when the suggestion is ordered if items are created at the time of the order. If your library does not create items until orders are received or until cataloging the record, this function will not work. The system preference will be set to [Do] by default. If you choose to use this function and are sending the ORDERED notice, we recommend modifying the notice to include "A hold has been automatically placed on this item" (or similar) so that patrons know that they've been placed on the holds list.
To see this new feature in action, watch Monday Minutes: Automatic Holds on Purchase Suggestions.
Purchase Suggestion System Configuration
These are the system preferences related to internal use of purchase suggestions. Configuration specific to purchase suggestions in the OPAC are discussed here.
- PurgeSuggestionsOlderThan: This allows Koha to automatically purge accepted and rejected suggestions after X days, which can help keep your suggestions table a manageable size without having to manually archive or delete. This system preference requires the purge_suggestions.pl cron job, so if your library would like to start using it, send us a support ticket.
- PlaceHoldsOnOrdersFromSuggestions: This will automatically place holds for patrons when their suggestions are ordered.
- EmailPurchaseSuggestions and EmailAddressForSuggestions: This will automatically send an email when a new purchase suggestion is made to the library's email address (in Administration > Libraries), the KohaAdminEmailAddress, or a separate EmailAddressForSuggestions.
- FallbackToSMSIfNoEmail: The notices described above send by email only. This system preference allows your library to send via SMS if the patron does not have an email address in their account.
In addition to the crons discussed above, archive_purchase_suggestions.pl is available to automatically archive purchase suggestions once they have been in a given status for a specified time frame. For instance, the cron could be set to archive suggestions in the ORDERED status after 1 year, or the REJECTED status after 6 weeks. If you are a ByWater Solutions partner, please send a support ticket if you would like to enable this automated process.
Statuses
A library can create additional Suggestion Statuses. The Authorized Value category is called SUGGEST_STATUS
Click Add to create a new value for this option. Koha has the other purchase suggestion statuses built in, such as pending, accepted, and rejected, so those will not be seen in this category. Creating a new authorized value has rules, this code can not be more than 10 characters, should be in all caps, and also have no spaces or special characters. I am creating an ILL status. If a library would like to mark this purchase suggestion as something that will be ordered via ILL than this status will come in handy.
After this new status has been created, it will be visible on the Purchase Suggestion page and can be chosen as an optional status.
Taking this one step further, we can create a notice to correspond with this status, so a patron will get a different notice when this status is chosen during the purchase suggestion process.
Notices
This can also be tied to Notices! This means, that a library can create a new status for the purchase suggestion process and also have Koha send out a notice to correspond with it.
In Notices, if you create a new notice where module=suggestions and the letter_code= your custom status (from the authorized value code you created for the status. Then Koha will generate the notice when a suggestion goes to that status.
Cronjob
Three cron jobs work with the Purchase Suggestions:
Purge_Suggestions - The system preference PurgeSuggestionsOlderThan can also be used to define the number of days used in the script. If using the system preference, don’t use the ‘days’ parameter. Example: [30] Sets purgation of suggestions for those older than 30 days. The number of days is based on the ‘managed on’ date of the suggestion
Archive_Purchase_Suggestions - Koha can automatically mark specific suggestions archived:
For example, if a library wanted suggestions that had been rejected (after a specific timeframe, like a week) to be archived, the cron can be added like this:
perl misc/cronjobs/archive_purchase_suggestions.pl
--age-date-field=rejecteddate --age=weeks:1
Another way a library could have the cron automatically archive a suggestion if after a year it was still in the 'ordered' status, the cron could do this:
perl misc/cronjobs/archive_purchase_suggestions.pl
--age-date-field=suggesteddate --age=years:1 --status=ORDERED
Notice_unprocessed_suggestions - If a purchase suggestion has been assigned to a fund for acquisition purposes, this can trigger a notice to be sent to the staff fund owner to inform them that there is a suggestion ready for them to manage. The cron job, notice_unprocessed_suggestions will send the notice TO_PROCESS.
If you are a partner and would like to activate either of these crons, please reach out to us in our ticketing system and we would be happy to set them up for you!
Purchase Suggestions in the OPAC
The OPAC section of the Koha manual describes how patrons can make purchase suggestions, where in the OPAC suggestions are visible, and a selection of the system preferences for OPAC suggestion customization in Purchase suggestions. Note that the information in this article is specific to the Koha OPAC.
Libraries who wish to allow patrons to submit purchase suggestions through the OPAC can set the system preference Suggestion to "[Enable] purchase suggestions in the OPAC."
Setup
Once Suggestion is set to [Enable], you will want to decide on/set the following:
- If your library allows patrons to make purchase suggestions anonymously, set the system preference AnonSuggestions to "[Allow] patrons that aren't logged in to make purchase suggestions." If this is set to [Don't allow], patrons must be logged in to their accounts in order to make purchase suggestions.
- If your library wishes to exclude specific patron categories from making purchase suggestions via the OPAC, configure the system preference SuggestionPatronCategoryExceptions to select those categories. If you use this system preference, you will also want to have AnonSuggestions set to [Don't allow].
- If you wish to limit the number of open (pending) suggestions that a patron can have at one time, set MaxOpenSuggestions.
- To limit patrons to X suggestions over a Y day period, regardless of the suggestions' status, set MaxTotalSuggestions and NumberOfSuggestionDays.
- Choose the fields that should be mandatory for purchase suggestions with the system preference OPACSuggestionMandatoryFields, and the fields that should be hidden from the purchase suggestion form with OPACSuggestionUnwantedFields.
- To modify the list of reasons from which patrons can select as the reason for their suggestion, visit the OPAC_SUG authorized value category in Administration > Authorized values.
- Update the 'Document type' from which patrons can select in the SUGGEST_FORMAT authorized value category in Administration > Authorized values.
Be aware that the system preferences OPACSuggestionMandatoryFields and OPACSuggestionUnwantedFields refer to 'item type' as a field that can be made mandatory or hidden. However, this is misleading: they are referring to the 'Document type' field on the purchase suggestion form, which is not linked to your item types set in Administration > Item types. Instead, it is populated by the SUGGEST_FORMAT authorized value category in Administration > Authorized values.
Note: that MaxOpenSuggestions and MaxTotalSuggestions only apply to purchase suggestions made via the OPAC. Purchase suggestions made in the staff interface linked to a patron's account do not count toward these totals.
Branch Specific Instructions
A branch can create custom instructions using the News Tool in Koha. When creating a new entry select the option is called "OpacSuggestionInstructions"
- Create New Entry
- Choose OpacSuggestionsInstructions
- Pick which branch this text should appear on.
- Create a title (required)
- Pick a publication date/expiration date if desired.
- Appear in Position option is also optional, but if you have multiple OpacSuggestions this is useful to determine which appears first in the OPAC.
An added benefit to this News Tool option, for example, if a library is not accepting Purchase Suggestions for a time period, this text can have a start and end date so library staff does not have to remember to remove the text after the date.
OPAC View
When a patron logs in at the branch which has created a customized text, they will see this text on the purchase suggestion form.
Purchase Suggestions in Patron Accounts
Once patrons have made purchase suggestions (unless made anonymously), they will populate a table in the 'Purchase suggestions' tab in their OPAC accounts. The Status column of the table will update when suggestions are accepted, rejected (including the reason), ordered, and received. Once a title is ordered, it will become a clickable link in the purchase suggestion table so that patrons can place a hold (if not done automatically) or view the bib.
Note that suggestions linked to a patron but made from the staff interface will not appear in the patron's OPAC account.
Patrons can delete purchase suggestions from their account in the OPAC. This will also delete it from the purchase suggestion management table in Acquisitions, even if it has been reviewed and its status changed. If the title has been ordered, the deletion does not affect the basket/order even though the title will no longer appear in the purchase suggestion management table.
Tutorial Video
How Do We Limit the Formats People Can Suggest we Purchase?
Like many places in Koha where menu selections are set, purchase suggestion formats are an authorized value. In Administration, the authorized value category is SUGGEST_FORMAT.
This is what populates the drop-down menu patrons see when submitting a purchase suggestion from the OPAC, assuming a library has not hidden that field via the OPACSuggestionUnwantedFields system preference. (Conversely, that can also be made mandatory via the OPACSuggestionMandatoryFields.)
If a library at one point was accepting purchase suggestions for a format they are no longer collecting or will be soliciting suggestions for in a different avenue (like purchase requests going directly through an eBook platform), that option can be deleted from the SUGGEST_FORMAT authorized values list so it is no longer an option for patrons.
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