Skip to end of banner
Go to start of banner

2022-05-16 Resource Access Meeting Notes

Skip to end of metadata
Go to start of metadata

You are viewing an old version of this page. View the current version.

Compare with Current View Page History

« Previous Version 12 Current »



Date


Recordings

Find all recordings here: https://recordings.openlibraryfoundation.org/folio/resource-access-sig/

Zoom

https://zoom.us/j/337279319 (pw: folio-lsp)

Attendees

Elizabeth Chenette 

Thomas Trutt 

David Bottorff 

Mark Canney 

Andrea Loigman 

Andy Horbal 

julie.bickle 

Monica Arnold 

lisa perchermeier 

Laurence Mini 

Holly Mistlebauer 

Pamela Pfeiffer 

Erin Weller 

Brooks Travis 

Laszlo Jakusovszky 

Susan Kimball 

Marie Widigson 

Joanne Leary 

Cornelia Awenius 

Kimie Kester 

mey 

Christiane 

Jana Freytag 

Discussion Items:

TimeItemWhoDescriptionGoals/Info/notes
5minAdministrivia


Note taker: 

Laurence Mini 


meeting_saved_chat.txt

meeting_saved_closed_caption.txt

35 MinRefund processHolly Mistlebauer 


20 Min

The pros and cons of logic branching and advanced conditioning in notice and slip tempates

julie.bickle 
  • UICIRC-462 - Add the preferred name token to the list of patron notice tokens Draft
  • UXPROD-2435 - Anonymous request identifier for staff slips and notices Draft
  • UXPROD-3224 - Add token "Today's date" to staff slips + formating options Draft

I want to present a fews options with their pros and cons:

These requests are essentially logic branching.
/+/ Customers get more control on what they can add to the template.
/+/ "Only" one big development cycle.
/-/ This is similar to writing code: the template editor will become much more complex. Are you ready for that?
https://handlebarsjs.com/guide/builtin-helpers.html#if
https://docs.celigo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045564992-Handlebar-expressions-for-date-and-time-format-codes
/-/ Is there a solution that can cover all our use cases? à Are there more cases of “computation” needed?


Work around = For every case, created a new token, e.g. "either FirstName or PreferredName", where the branching is hard-coded.
/+/ Writing templates doesn't get more complicated.
/-/ Each token needs to go through the whole development cycle.
/-/ The list of tokens could get very long... and the documentation must be meticulously maintained. à Would it really get that long?

One important question = how long does it take to develop? Could e.g. "Prefered name" be made available sooner, but still have the new template engine later? → Yes! If we can agree on the hard-code, developing a single token sooner would be faster. These are not either/or options.


Meeting Notes

Holly gave an explanation on how refunding of fees/fines currently works. See slideshow (note old specification included starting at slide 16). SIG members found the current system under-developed and potentially confusing, especially to student workers staffing the circulation desk. Issues with the current system include: credit amount not showing as negative amount; no way to tell if a fee/fine has been transferred to the bursar or not; no way to cancel a fee/fine as an error if there has been any activity on the fee/fine; two-step process involved in first refunding and then waiving a fee/fine in order to close it. Holly agreed that the current implementation is under-developed; it was a thin-thread solution intended to be temporary but a lack of expressed urgency from institutions has delayed development. Various SIG members pointed to the way OLE and Aleph handle fees/fines refunding as a model for FOLIO to look to. It was agreed that Jana will form a subgroup that will recommend how best to proceed. See also 

Provide option to cancel a fee/fine at the time a manual refund is enteredUse fee/fine refund to pay other fees/fines, Notify Bursar (and other transfer accounts) of refunded fees/finesAllow "No fees/fines shall be refunded if a lost item is returned more than" to be determined by a fixed date.


Julie discussed enhancement options for patron notices and staff slips. Three types of fields where "computing" could be helpful would be: use preferred name when exists, otherwise use first name (UICIRC-462); Anonymous ID tokens for patron requesters (UXPROD-2435); Having a token for current date, and being able to do current date + e.g. 7 days when printing hold slip (UXPROD-3224). Julie has consulted with the dev team. Two (not mutually exclusive) options are: i) Allowing logic branching in template design, such as exists in Handlebar; ii) Creating hard-coded tokens as needed such as e.g. a "preferred name or first name" token which would insert the preferred name if it had a value, otherwise first name would be inserted. 

The advantages of allowing logic branching / calculated values in the template creation UI include greater control, and better capacity to handle future needs. Disadvantage is that creating the template becomes more complex – will the the library staff creating the templates have a harder time? Also this solution would require considerable time to implement.

Advantages of the hard-coded token approach include simpler template creation, and shorter development time (to do an individual token). Disadvantages include risk of a 'token explosion' that becomes unwieldy to use, and less adaptability to solve future needs.

Other useful 'calculated tokens' mentioned were: Total of all fees/fines (if fee/fine notices are developed to allow multiple fee/fines per notice); and having contact information on fee/fine notices based on the location of the lost (or overdue, etc.) item.

Julie asked that we think about best approach, and let her know our thoughts. Julie suggested that a combination of some hard-coded tokens such as the "preferred name or first name" token to solve current issues with logic-branching enhancement to template creation added at a later date could be a pragmatic solution.





  • No labels