Preferred Name Not a Display Option on Hold Shelf

[Jennifer Pringle]

Evergreen 3.3.0

In the Hold Shelf columns the User Display Name uses the Primary First, Middle, and Last names. There is currently no column for displaying preferred name.

If staff are phoning users about holds they likely want to use the name the user prefers.

I think either the User Display Name should use preferred name and default back to primary name if there is no preferred name or preferred name should be a separate column and User Display Name should be renamed to something like User Primary Name.

[Jennifer Pringle (jpringle-u)]

Preferred name continues to not be available in the hold shelf columns in 3.7

[Ryan Eby (aadl-ubuntu)]

I'm not sure if there are other locations or side effects but it appears that this data is drawn from wide_hold_data at https://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=Evergreen.git;a=blob;f=Open-ILS/src/perlmods/lib/OpenILS/Application/Storage/Publisher/action.pm;hb=44c451131a1d43cb04bd069fe0b5372073c1f8d3#l2277

We modified our install with the following patch to use the preferred name for display name if it exists (coalesce).

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

Ryan, could you please create a git branch for your patch?

Evergreen-specific instructions are here for configuring git: https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=newdevs:git:install

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

I put Ryan's work into a git branch here (I have not tested it).

https://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/mccanna/lp1838553_hold_shelf_preferred_name

[Gina Monti (gmonti90)]

I, Gina Monti, sign off on this bug.

At first I reported that it didn't work under the 'User Alias or Display Name' column but it does reflect under the 'User Display Name' column. Maybe we should get rid of the 'User Alias or Display Name' column for the sake of clarity? Might be confusing to staff especially if they display different names.

[Jennifer Pringle (jpringle-u)]

I think User Alias or Display Name is still needed on the Hold Shelf so staff can see what aliases are being used, if they use that functionality. It corresponds to the OPAC/Staff Client Holds Alias field in the patron account where staff can set something different from the name the patron uses if they don't want it appearing on a public holds shelf.

[Joan Kranich (jkranich)]

We have some libraries at C/W MARS that use the Alias so I agree with keeping it as a display option.

[Michele Morgan (mmorgan)]

Pushed to master, rel_3_9 and rel_3_8.

I took the liberty of applying the same changes to the 'User Alias or Display Name' field so that the preferred name will also display (if one exists) when the patron has no Alias.

Thanks Ryan, Terran and Gina!

[Jeff Davis (jdavis-sitka)]

I think this bugfix leads to a further problem: any non-null values, *including empty strings*, in the alias and preferred name fields now get displayed in the Hold Shelf grid (and anywhere else that wide_hold_data is used).

So, for example, if you go into the patron editor, add an alias, delete the alias, and click Save, the alias is now an empty string (not null) -- which means the User Alias or Display Name column on the Hold Shelf will always appear blank. This is also true for preferred names and the User Display Name column. The Hold Shelf ought to treat empty strings in these fields as if they were null.

I've opened bug 1996651 about this issue.