Checkout of Existing Precat Item Should Respect Attached Values, (Dummy Title, Author, etc)

[John Amundson]

This may be considered a duplicate of bug #1485077, but as that bug seemed to evolve in the comments, I'm creating a new one. (For those with the power, feel free to mark this as duplicate if you see fit).

When checking out an item that doesn't exist in the catalog, you are prompted to create a precat item and continue the checkout.

Sometimes a precat item already exists, (for example as a temp ILL item - bug #1161625), and staff will want to check the item out again. However, on checkout, the user is always prompted with the "barcode xxx was mis-scanned or is a non-cataloged item" pop-up and is asked to fill in "dummy" variables for the item.

The workaround in the XUL client was to not enter any information on this screen. If this was done, the existing information was used. However, in the web client, you are forced to fill out at least some of the information.

If only "blanks" are entered, the checkout does not happen, and if actual information is entered, this will override the information already existing on the copy record.

There should be a way to maintain the dummy variables used if the precat copy already exists.

[Jason Etheridge (phasefx)]

For some background, this was originally intended as a disincentive for relying on the pre-cat functionality vs actually cataloging an item. Whether it's a good idea or not...

[Elaine Hardy (ehardy)]

I think it is still a good idea and would not want a precat to continually be available. For ILL items, perhaps we need a different solution than precats?