Wishlist: granular notification preferences

[Benjamin Kalish]

Patrons should be able to set their preferences individually for each type of notification generated by Evergreen and should always be able to opt out.

== CURRENT BEHAVIOR ==
Patrons opt in or out opt of hold notifications using the check boxes found under Notification Preferences. Each checkbox is specific to a notification method (email or SMS). Most other notifications, such as alerts of upcoming due dates, automatic renewals, or overdue items, lack any controls under Notification Preferences. To opt out of these notifications patrons must contact the library and ask to have their email address completely removed from their account which isn't great for the library or the patron.

== DESIRED BEHAVIOR ==
Patrons should be able to opt out of all automated notifications without resorting to removing the email address from their account. On the Notifications Preferences page patrons should be able to elect which notifications they receive and how by checking the appropriate boxes for Email and Text for one or more notification type groups. For example, a consortium might have three notification groups:

                        | Email | Text |
Hold Ready............. | ..☐.. | ..☐.. |
Item Renewed........... | ..☐.. | ..☐.. |
All Other Notifications | ..☐.. | ..☐.. |

Other systems might have more groups giving patrons more granular control or less groups making for a shorter and easier to understand list. The simplest cast would simply be:

                        | Email | Text |
All Notifications...... | ..☐.. | ..☐.. |

though I suspect that most systems, given the ability, will want to give their patrons more choices.

[Mike Rylander (mrylander)]

Hi Benjamin,

While it would take a little work to get the multi-column grid you are looking for (though, not impossible), the system is already built to let you add arbitrary opt-in settings that are patron controlled, attach those to event definitions of your choice, and have those settings consulted when triggering events for those definitions.

For future implementers: I would recommend we look at extending the generic mechanism that exists today rather than creating a whole new bespoke structure.

[Benjamin Kalish (bkalish)]

It occurs to me that we would also want a matching staff interface so that staff could update these preferences for patrons.

[Michele Morgan (mmorgan)]

Bug 1915219 released in 3.7 is relevant to this.

See the information under Circulation New Features - Opt-In Setting for Overdue and Predue Emails in the 3.7 Release Notes:

https://evergreen-ils.org/documentation/release/RELEASE_NOTES_3_7.html#_new_features

Applying the opt-in setting to a group of circulation related action triggers would allow patrons (or staff users in the patron editor) to opt out of that group of notices.

[Benjamin Kalish (bkalish)]

That looks very promising, @mmorgan, though it isn't clear to me from the release notes where these settings can be changed besides the patron registration screen and through SQL access. If these settings can also be changed from patron edit and from My Account then the need for further development on this is greatly decreased, though I do think a general solution like the one proposed above would still be desirable.

[Jennifer Pringle (jpringle-u)]

We've been using the opt-in setting for overdues and pre-dues for a while (branch came from us).

Patrons see the check box in My Account -> Notification Preferences
Staff see the check box in patron registration and patron edit in the User Settings section.

[Jennifer Pringle (jpringle-u)]

I like the idea of more granular options as well.

It would be handy to have a SMS opt out as well. Currently if patrons want to opt out of SMS courtesy notices their SMS details have to be removed from their account which isn't very convenient if they want their default hold ready for pick up notices to be SMS.