Circulation

How to configure offline circulation utilities?

Koha allows for you to continue circulation actions while offline by using any one of three utilities.

13.1 Offline Circulation in Koha

If the AllowOfflineCirculation preference is set to 'Enable' the library staff can continue to perform circulation actions within Koha when the system is offline. You will want to visit http://your-koha-staff-client-url/cgi-bin/koha/circ/offline.pl at least once while online and bookmark that page. That is the page you will go to when you are offline.

Important

The offline interface uses HTML LocalStorage, which depending on the browser and user setting, is limited to 2.5MB or 5MB per domain. This means that larger systems will not be able to synchronize their data and are recommended to use either the Firefox or Windows application for offline circulation.

13.1.1 Setup

Before the first time the system goes offline go to Circulation and choose 'Built-in offline circulation interface'

And synchronize your data on every circulation computer by clicking the 'Synchronize' link on the right of the screen.

Important

This will allow you download a local copy of your patrons and circulation data. Click the 'Download records' link at the top of the page to synchronize your data.

Once your data is downloaded you will see the dates your data was last synced to the right of each data set.

This should be done regularly in preparation for any unexpected connection losses.

13.1.2 Circulating

When your system goes offline visit the Offline Circulation page (http://your-koha-staff-client-url/cgi-bin/koha/circ/offline.pl) in Koha and click 'Check out' or 'Check in' to perform offline actions.

Checking out is done by searching for the patron by barcode or name at the top of the 'Check out' screen. After selecting a patron you will be presented with the synced patron info, including fines and check outs.

Scan the barcode of the item you would like to check out and enter a due date. If you don't enter a due date Koha will prompt you for one.

Once the item is checked out it will appear below the patron's info.

13.1.3 Koha Offline Uploading

Once the system is back online visit the Synchronize page on the Offline Circulation module and click 'Upload transactions'

After the files are uploaded you can click 'View pending offline circulation actions' on the right.

After clicking 'View pending offline circulation actions' you will be brought to a summary of all of the actions you loaded in to Koha in your *.koc file.

Once all of the logs from all of the circulation computers are loaded you will be able to check them all or select just those you want to process into Koha.
Click on the Process button and Koha will record every stored transaction one by one. For each transaction, the status will change to:
- "Success." if the transaction was processed correctly
- "Borrower not found." if the borrower card number is incorrect
- "Item not found." if the item barcode is wrong
- "Item not issued." if you checked in an available item

Once finished you will have a summary of all of your transactions