Offline circulation firefox plugin
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Offline Circulation Firefox Plugin
DISCLAIMER: this tool is not available for Koha 3.6, it will be in 3.8
This new offline circulation tool is based on a Firefox plugin. It has many improvements over the previous offline circulation tool:
- no specific/large installation required, it's just a Firefox plugin, you'll download at https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/koct/ (french) or https://addons.mozilla.org/en/firefox/addon/koct/ (english)
- when an update of KOCT is available, it will be updated automatically as any Firefox plugin
- if you have more than one computer using offline circulation , the improvement will be very useful: do offline circulation, upload all files to Koha once the network is back, then from Koha, apply all changes in sequence based on their timestamp. If a patron has checked-out a book at desk A, then checked it in at desk B one hour later, you won't face the problem of having check-in applied before check-out, resulting in the book being checked-out in Koha.
- Source code is available on koha-community git contrib repository http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=contrib/global.git;a=summary
The plugin
A status bar button is added to Firefox status bar. The main window appears when you click it.
When you launch the plugin, it can warn you about existing entries in your local SQLite database:
If you check the "I want to delete rows" option and click "OK", everything will be removed. You should only do this if you are sure all previous transactions have been sent to Koha.
The last tab is for settings. (The authentication process will certainly change.)
The two first tabs contains controls to input data. (a third tab will be added for payments).
The "log tab" shows the pending operations. It is also the place to commit changes when network connectivity is back. Users will be able to delete some entries before committing:
When you click on the "Commit to Koha" button, the plugin will send data to Koha using AJAX:
<file> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <offlinecirculation branchcode="ARCH" apply="false"> <operation action="issue" timestamp="2009-09-16 15:07:48" cardnumber="6" barcode="23987396" /> <operation action="return" timestamp="2009-09-16 15:07:53" barcode="09820983698" /> </offlinecirculation> </file>
The data is sent in a specific temporary table on Koha. The check-ins and checkouts are not validated until you've confirmed them in the staff client (see below)
You can also discard everything by clicking "Clear". The option "Apply directly" will directly apply your changes to Koha and should not be used usually.
On Koha side
A librarian can access pending circulation operations in the staff client under Circulation -> Offline Circulation. He or she has the option to delete erroneous operations and to process valid ones. The operations will be applied sequentially without regard to where they were made. The order is defined by a timestamp. Thus, a book checked-out at desk A and checked-in at desk B will always be processed correctly, independently from the order you upload the operations from each location to Koha.
See also
Troubleshooting
When you "upload" by clicking on "commit to Koha", the column "Status" should change from "local" to "Added". If it stays "local", it probably means your parameters are not set properly. It also seems that the first time you set the parameters you have to restart Firefox to have them be taken in account.
If you're still getting "local" and are sure of your parameters, you should look at Koha log file (or ask your administrator to do it for you).
