[Koha-devel] Autorenewals renewing an item then sending a renew failure email the next day

Fri Nov 30 00:35:35 CET 2018

Thanks for your feedback, Holger. 

Do you currently use autorenewals? I think you might be misunderstanding how
it works?

The precedence of "on hold > too many > too soon" is illogical for
autorenewal in my mind. When the autorenewal daily cronjob runs, it will
only send email alerts for "too many" and "on hold". The most common outcome
of the script should be "too soon" as it's during the normal loan period
before the due date, so it really should be the first check. If it's not
"too soon", then you try to process a renewal. The next step would be
checking if you have any renewals left. If not, then it's "too many". If you
do have renewals left, then you move to the next check, which would be
checking for holds. The logical precedence would be "too soon > too many >
on hold". 

"A patron might decide to return that book earlier if they know someone else
is waiting instead of just knowing that it won't be renewed anymore". That
seems to be a corruption/bleeding of scope for an autorenewal script. If you
want to notify patrons when someone places a hold on their loan so that they
can decide to return it out of courtesy, I'd recommend making adding a
different feature for that (and probably integrate it with recalls which
could optionally shorten the due date of the on loan item so the patron has
to return it earlier for the person who put the hold on it - recalls is a
common feature in other established ILS/LMS systems). 

"And knowing that the book won't be renewed anymore is more useful
information than just knowing that it's too early right now". Firstly, they
don't currently know that it's too early, as email notifications don't go
out for "too soon". Secondly, I have patrons returning their books when they
get the "can't autorenew because there is a hold", because they think that
their book has been recalled even though Koha thinks they actually have
several weeks left, because their loan was in fact successfully autorenewed
the day before they got the "on hold" email notification. 

At this point, librarians are getting annoyed at Koha for misleading
patrons, and I'm advising librarians to not use the autorenewal function as
a result. 

My options are as follows:

1)      Continue warning people that this feature doesn't work as they
expect, which doesn't look good for Koha

2)      Patch the script via the Koha community workflow, which is ideal for
developers and librarians

3)      Patch the script locally, which is far from ideal, but will make
librarians happy

I've been extremely busy, but it is my intention to submit a patch for this.
If there is enough disagreement about the order of steps, perhaps it would
be best to make the order of steps configurable. It wouldn't be a difficult
thing to do. 

David Cook

Systems Librarian

Prosentient Systems

72/330 Wattle St

Ultimo, NSW 2007

Australia

Office: 02 9212 0899

Direct: 02 8005 0595

From: koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org
[mailto:koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org] On Behalf Of Holger
Meissner
Sent: Friday, 30 November 2018 1:29 AM
To: koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Autorenewals renewing an item then sending a renew
failure email the next day

Thanks for the explanation, David.

> Yes, I would like to get the "too soon" error message instead of the "on
reserve" error message if both apply.

I'd rather not. If patrons only know it's too early they will expect a
renewal. Which won't happen, because of the hold we already know about. Why
not tell them right away?

I would agree if holds were canceled most of the time, but in my estimate
they aren't.

> Koha shouldn't do anything until the threshold for autorenewal (e.g.
September 15 2018), because the item's status is on loan.

How would you implement something like that? The autorenew cronjob can't do
nothing. It has to try and renew everything every time it runs.

> In other words, autorenewal should be treated the exact same as manual
renewal. If Person A manually renews Book A on September 1

> 2018 making a new due date of September 15 2018 and Person B puts a hold
on Book A on September 2 2018, nothing would happen

> until Person A tried to manually renew Book A on September 15 2018. At
that point, Koha would say they can't renew because of a hold. 

I believe they are treated equally, i.e. nothing prevents Person A from
manually trying to renew again on September 2. And in that case they will
see the hold.

> Currently, people are getting emails telling them they can't autorenew
their book on September 2 2018 because someone has

> placed a hold, but this is a misleading email, because on September 1 2018
their book was autorenewed until September 15 2018. The email is illogical.

I'm probably missing something but I don't see what's illogical or
misleading about it.

I think on hold > too many > too early is good precedence, because of the
information they give. A patron might decide to return that book earlier if
they know someone else is waiting, instead of just knowing that it won't be
renewed anymore. And knowing that the book won't be renewed anymore is more
useful information than just knowing that it's too early right now, even if
all three apply at the same time.

Regards,

Holger

Von: David Cook <dcook at prosentient.com.au <mailto:dcook at prosentient.com.au>
> 
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 28. November 2018 01:24
An: Holger Meissner <Holger.Meissner at hs-gesundheit.de
<mailto:Holger.Meissner at hs-gesundheit.de> >;
koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
<mailto:koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org> 
Betreff: RE: [Koha-devel] Autorenewals renewing an item then sending a renew
failure email the next day

Hi Holger,

Nope, I don't want to change autorenewal being stopped when a hold is
placed. 

Yes, I would like to get the "too soon" error message instead of the "on
reserve" error message if both apply. 

Here's my reasoning:

1)      Book A is due on September 1 2018

2)      Book A is autorenewed until September 15 2018

3)      Person B places a hold on Book A

4)      Koha shouldn't do anything until the threshold for autorenewal (e.g.
September 15 2018), because the item's status is on loan. 

In other words, autorenewal should be treated the exact same as manual
renewal. If Person A manually renews Book A on September 1 2018 making a new
due date of September 15 2018 and Person B puts a hold on Book A on
September 2 2018, nothing would happen until Person A tried to manually
renew Book A on September 15 2018. At that point, Koha would say they can't
renew because of a hold. 

Currently, people are getting emails telling them they can't autorenew their
book on September 2 2018 because someone has placed a hold, but this is a
misleading email, because on September 1 2018 their book was autorenewed
until September 15 2018. The email is illogical. 

It shouldn't be trying to autorenew because it's "too soon". Only when it's
otherwise renewable should we be checking for holds. 

David Cook

Systems Librarian

Prosentient Systems

72/330 Wattle St

Ultimo, NSW 2007

Australia

Office: 02 9212 0899

Direct: 02 8005 0595

From: Holger Meissner [ <mailto:Holger.Meissner at hs-gesundheit.de>
mailto:Holger.Meissner at hs-gesundheit.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, 28 November 2018 4:37 AM
To: David Cook < <mailto:dcook at prosentient.com.au>
dcook at prosentient.com.au>;  <mailto:koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org>
koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
Subject: AW: [Koha-devel] Autorenewals renewing an item then sending a renew
failure email the next day

Hi David,

could you expand on this? It's intentional that autorenewal stops when a
hold is placed. Do you want to change this behaviour?

Or would you like to get the "too soon" error message instead of the "on
reserve" error message if both apply? Or a new message informing you about
both?

What's the benefit of checking whether it's too early first?

Regards,

Holger

Von: koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org
<mailto:koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org>
<koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org
<mailto:koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org> > Im Auftrag von David
Cook
Gesendet: Freitag, 16. November 2018 05:58
An:  <mailto:koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org>
koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
Betreff: [Koha-devel] Autorenewals renewing an item then sending a renew
failure email the next day

Hi all,

I've found a case where autorenewals will renew an item one day (e.g.
Monday) and the next day (e.g. Tuesday) it will say that a hold has been
found and that it can't renew the item. (Someone must've put a hold on the
item between the two cronjob runs.)

It seems to me this is a bug in how C4::Circulation::CanBookBeRenewed is
written. 

The first check it makes is for holds and if it finds a hold it returns an
error. 

However, if you're using autorenewals, you should first check to see if it's
too early to even bother renewing. 

I'm just emailing here to see if anyone else is having this issue, or if
anyone knows if there is already a Bugzilla issue open for it. It seems like
there are a lot of autorenewal Bugzilla issues but I couldn't find anything.
Figure asking first lessens the need for someone to mark one as a duplicate
later.

David Cook

Systems Librarian

Prosentient Systems

72/330 Wattle St

Ultimo, NSW 2007

Australia

Office: 02 9212 0899

Direct: 02 8005 0595

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