Potential Copies for suspended holds is inaccurate and can be misleading

[Michele Morgan]

When a hold is suspended, targeting for the hold is also suspended. This means that Potential Copies for the hold, which counts rows in the hold_copy_map, gets frozen with the value it had when the hold was suspended.

Here are two use cases:

1. A patron places a hold on a title with 10 available copies, and suspends it at the time of placement. The hold targeter will not run on this hold, so Potential Copies will display 0 and will remain 0 until the hold is activated.

2. A second patron places a hold on the same title, but decides to suspend it shortly after. For this patron Potential Copies will display as 10 and will not change until the hold is activated.

Holdable copies added or removed over time will also never be reflected in the Potential Copies value of these suspended holds.

IMO, an actual number shouldn't display for Potential Copies unless it is accurate. I'd lean toward Potential Copies for suspended holds always displaying and accurate count, but I'd also be open to something other than a number displaying there so as not to mislead staff or patrons viewing the hold.

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

May be a duplicate of bug #1744341

[Michele Morgan (mmorgan)]

Thanks for catching that, Bill, I'll mark it as a duplicate and add my comments there.