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<p>Dear community,<br>
<br>
We submitted a patch recently that would benefit many. It solves
two old bug put on hold for a while (Move calculation code out of
C4::Calendar) and (hourly loans doesn't know when library closed).
If you a have a bit of time ahead of you to help us get it
upstreamed. It will be much appreciated!<br>
<br>
When I read again the description from bugzilla, I felt that an
overview of the work and its benefits will help you get involved.
<br>
<b><br>
</b><u><b>Short version</b></u> :<br>
<br>
The communinity and some of our clients noticed two issues :<br>
<br>
1. Hour loans doesn't know when a library is closed<br>
2. We have performance issues when checking in overdue book or
managing overdue fines.<br>
<br>
We identified that both issues are related to the way Koha does
date calculation. To improve and fix these issues, we developped a
new calendar with a couple of new features.<br>
<br>
<u>The benefits of this new calendar are</u> :<br>
<br>
1. management of the libraries opening hours (new feature).<br>
2. performance improvement when circulating items and managing
fines. In particular, when checking in overdue book or managing
overdue fines.<br>
3. help to setup holidays/closed days from one year to another
(new feature)<br>
<br>
To acheive this, we redesigned the calendar database table and
rewrote part of the code in charge of the date calculation. We
used this work to move part of the code and separate what's in
charge of the calendar and what's used to do the calculation.<br>
<br>
This way, we solved two bugzilla issues opened a long time ago : <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=11211">https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=11211</a>
(Move calculation code out of C4::Calendar) (opened by Jesse
Weaver on the 2013-11-06)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=8133">https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=8133</a>
(hourly loans doesn't know when library closed) (opended by Nicole
C. Engard on the 2012-05-21)<br>
<br>
For now, BZ 11211 blocked BZ 8133.<br>
<br>
All features from the old calendar is available in the new
calendar.<br>
<br>
The new calendar passed all the unit tests.<br>
<br>
The patch for the new calendar is here :
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=17015">https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=17015</a><br>
<u><b><br>
</b></u><u><b>Long version</b></u> :<br>
<br>
The calendar's database table contains only rules to set whether
the library is closed or not. If Koha needs a date or a range of
date (was the library closed that day? how long is this book
overdue? etc.), it has to be calculated using these rules.
Depending on the type of transactions, how Koha does the
calculation is not always efficient. For example, a return of
overdue books can take as long as many seconds (for 2 months old
overdues for example). We redesigned the calendar table to be able
to give Koha the information it needs to do the calculation in a
more efficient way.<br>
<br>
In the calendar's new table, we don't store rules anymore. Each
day from the calendar is now stored (an entry for each day). For
each day, we can indicate if the library is open or closed. We
took this redesign opportunity to add the library opening hours as
well. That way, Koha gets straight the information it needs to
determine if the library is open or not, it can take into
consideration the opening hours (good for hour loans and the date
range calculation is simplified by using the information stored in
the database. No need to calculate it based on different rules
anymore.<br>
<br>
Among the patches we submitted, we have a script to benchmark
checkin and checkout transactions. The benchmark of checkin is
more indicative of the performance improvement. Here is an example
of collected statistics. When an item is returned the day the
checkout expires, the calculation time decreased of 22% (for 100
checkins, the calculation time drops from 52.2s to 40.7s). When an
item is 2 months overdue and returned, the calculation time
decreased of 70% (for 100 checkins, the calculation time drops
from 154s to 46.6s).<br>
<br>
<u>How does the new calendar work</u> ?<br>
<br>
Before the first use, a script will populate the new calendar
table with on entry for each day of the year. This script can
retreive your actual setting to keep track of your old set up. It
also creates all the entries for future years. The basic set up
would be : the library wants to have a 1 year overview of the
calendar so they can set it up in advance. The script creates
every entry in the table to be able to set up the calendar 1 year
in advance.<br>
<br>
Then, another script will be scheduled to run every day. This
script will add a new entry for every day spent. In this manner,
Koha keeps a 1 year advance overview at all time. <br>
<br>
The advantage of this last script is to help the koha admin to set
up the calendar in advance. Each time the script will add a new
entry (a new day), it will check one year in the past how the same
day was set up to try to determine if the library should be closed
or not :<br>
<br>
- If the date is a unique holiday : the script will not keep it
for the new entry.<br>
- If the date is a repeatable holiday : the script will keep it.
(For example, a library closed every saturday)<br>
- If the day type was "floatting" (it's a new type of holiday) :
the new entry status is "needs confirmation". Thus, when setting
up the calendar, I have two options : <br>
1. I know it's a repeatable holiday every year or very week, I
choose the date type 'repeatable'. When the script add a new
entry, it keeps the holiday.<br>
2. I want to check the holiday every year to adjust the settings
(for example, Easter stat holiday), I choose the new date type
"floatting". Then, when the script add a new entry, it doesn't
assume the library is closed but change the date status to "needs
confirmation". Then I will be able to overview these "need
confirmation" holidays and set them up when I get the information.<br>
<br>
The script manage the opening hours as well. It checks the
previous week settings instead of the previous year.<br>
<br>
The other new feature to help setting up the calendar is in the
way Koha can create holidays between two dates. When creating this
range of dates, you can :<br>
<br>
- either use a specific day and copy its settings to all the dates
in the range.<br>
- or use a range of dates and copy the settings of each day to
each day of the new range.<br>
<br>
Besides that, the calendar keeps all its actual features.<br>
<br>
The patch for the new calendar is here :
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=17015">https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=17015</a><br>
<br>
Thank you very much!<br>
</p>
François<br>
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