Edit Patron Notes

[Dawn Dale]

Under patrons note, add "Edit This Note". Currently there is only "add" new note or "Delete This Note". Sometimes we just need to update reference info by phone or minor detail, so edit would be nice.

[Jason Etheridge (phasefx)]

I think long term we should deprecate notes in favor of message/penalties. The only thing they can't do at the moment that notes can is present information to the patron in the OPAC.

[Dawn Dale (ddale)]

Jason,

That works. I didn't associate notes with the message/penalties. We will begin using notes there instead of the notes fields. One more question, will the notes field as it is now continue or will it be removed from future versions of EG?

Thanks, Dawn

[Jason Etheridge (phasefx)]

Well, it's an open question. I know of no-one that plans to change how things behave now, but I would advocate for this:

1) implement a "patron_visible" flag on message/penalties and expose such messages in the OPAC like we do for public notes
2) as part of an upgrade script, migrate all patron notes to message/penalties
3) remove the old patron note functionality

[Dawn Dale (ddale)]

That sounds like a good plan to me. As long as current notes are migrated to messages/penalties or we have enough warning to make adjustments before they current notes field is removed, we can work with it. Thanks!

[Jason Etheridge (phasefx)]

Just to be clear, that's what I'd be in favor of. I don't have the
tuits to actually do it. :-) Providing an Edit this Note would be
much easier for someone to pick up.

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

Our development committee had considered a similar project a few months ago to consolidate the patron alerts and messages. Our approach was to consolidate most of the staff-generated messages into the notes and add the ability for notes to generate an alert message. We got to the point of writing development requirements - http://masslnc.cwmars.org/node/2767 - but ultimately decided to pursue other projects. It may be something we revisit in the next year.

Jason, we had also discussed the idea of consolidating all of these functions in the messages/penalties. I think several circ people were surprised that these messages could be used for anything other than system-generated messages/penalties and therefore were hesitant to apply a message there. If we ultimately were to move everything to messages/penalties, I wonder if a change in language would make it a little more approachable for staff. Maybe just by replacing "Apply Standing Penalty/Message" with "Apply Note/Alert".

Also, by default, I think the message is only visible at the branch or system level? In most cases, our staff want notes to be visible at the consortium level, so I think we might want to provide an out-of-the box note/alert that can be seen at the consortium level.

[Jason Etheridge (phasefx)]

Kathy, those sound like sane tweaks to me (stock penalties for staff use for different org depths and the label change).

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

Now that we have moved to the web client, MassLNC is taking another look at funding a project that consolidates the messages, notes and alerts into one entity. We have changed our approach a bit, and are now looking at folding everything into the current message/penalty infrastructure as Jason recommended up above.

We have preliminary requirements posted at http://masslnc.org/node/3403.

In addition to consolidating the interfaces, the requirements add some user interface changes for adding a note. Rather than asking the user to start by selecting a note/penalty type, the user would select the main options (publicly-visible, alert, block, display depth) at the time the note is added. We felt like this would be a bit more intuitive for staff. The ability to select a specific note or penalty tis stilype l available for sites that want to configure some canned note configurations for their staff.

The project also adds a link between publicly-visible notes and their corresponding Message Center messages.

We would love to get feedback on these requirements before we send them out to potential vendors for quotes.

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

Marking this one Won't Fix due to the work near completion at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1846354