/
Implementers' Guide to Circulation Configuration

Implementers' Guide to Circulation Configuration

Background

How To Configure Circulation Settings From Scratch

Prerequisites:

  • Material Types, Loan Types, Patron Groups, Locations, and Service Points have been configured (usually as part of loading Inventory and Users)

 

  1. In settings under Calendar, set up Calendars for all service points

    • Add open hours

    • Add any exceptions

  2. In Settings under Circulation:

    1. Configure any Fixed due date schedules

    2. Configure any Patron Notice templates (can use placeholders if needed)

    3. Configure all Policies

      • Loan policies

      • Overdue fine policies

      • Lost item fee policies

      • Patron notice policies

      • Request policies

    4. Write Circulation Rules

    5. Under Circulation>Other settings, review Patron id(s) for checkout scanning, session timeout settings, and other misc configurations

    6. Configure Staff Slips (at a minimum, add the name of the slip to each template so it's clear what is printing)

    7. Under Loan anonymization, decide on anonymization settings. If you are anonymizing loans in FOLIO, remember to consider metadb anonymization settings when configured.

    8. Review and add Request cancellation reasons

    9. Decide if you will use TLR and configure under Title level requests

    10. DO NOT TURN ON Print hold requests. This will cause FOLIO to crash until the most recent bug is fixed.

  3. Check that Localization (timezone) is correct in Settings under Tenant

  4. Under Users in the Fees/Fines section:

    1. Under Owners, create at least one fee/fine owner. Make sure ALL service points are represented by a fee/fine owner. See https://docs.folio.org/docs/settings/settings_users/settings_users/#settings--users--owners for definitions and details.

    2. Under Manual charges, configure any manual fees/fine types

    3. Under Waive reasons add any allowed waive reasons

    4. Under Payment methods add any allowed payment methods

    5. Under Refund reasons add any allowed refund reasons

    6. Under Comment required set whether or not comments are required for various actions

    7. Configure Transfer accounts and Transfer criteria if needed. (Typically not needed, see https://docs.folio.org/docs/settings/settings_users/settings_users/#settings--users--transfer-accounts )

  5. Under Users in the Patron Blocks section:

    1. Configure Conditions for patron blocks

    2. Configure Limits for patron blocks.

    3. Create any needed Templates for user manual blocks

 

Testing Circulation Rules

Libraries test circulation rules using two main strategies:

  • Manual testing (actually checking things in and out in a test system)

  • API-assisted testing.

It is advisable to do at least some manual testing before going live.

Manual Testing

Manual testing involves checking real items out to real patrons.

For examples of testing templates, see:

API-based Testing

Some libraries test circulation rules via API. The relevant endpoints are available here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/foliodocs/api/mod-circulation/r/circulation-rules.html

It is possible to script this such that it is automated. See https://github.com/enettifee/folio-scripts/blob/main/resource-access/loan-tester.py for an example.