2023-06-05 Resource Access Meeting Notes

Could I please have a session to thrash this topic out again: Multiple fee/fine actions in a single notice, in particular: When staff is in the fee/fine section of the User/Patron.

I have potential solutions, but I don't acutally have user stories.
→ Generally, what do you want to achieve with informing the patron about the actions on their fee/fines?

→ What improvement does bundling them achieve?

Possible solutions:

Per 1 button (e.g. charge, pay, etc.) - all the currently ticked open fee/fines are bundled. (Staff perspective)
A shopping cart check-out: all actions taken in that session are bundled, i.e. receipt. (Patron perspective)
"Here are all your open fees/fines"
1. Button to send this in the user UI?
2. Recurring? If so, what frequency + when to stop?

Requirements I already know of:

Different templates per action
Leave the check-box to choose whether to send the notice or not.

Meeting Notes

The deadline for submitting WOLFCon topics has been extended to June 19. Please add any topics you would like to see (you do not need to be responsible for presenting, etc.) to WOLFCon23 topics. We will vote on which to submit next week. Julie B. is going to WOLFCon and is happy to help out with moderating or organizing. It would be good for the RA SIG to have a presenting presence at WOLFCon. Possibly a general RA SIG meeting to discuss the work of the SIG, plus one talk in a specific area would be enough.

An Implementers topic might be helpful, esp. for those new to FOLIO, these talks have been well received before, but will depend on finding implementers interested in giving the talk. RA Gaps talk works well in in-person interactive setting. Jana mentioned having a test-related "hack-a-thon" as a possibility, would require careful preparation work.

Julie is preparing for writing tickets regarding bundling fee/fine notices. The devs have suggested different ways this could be done. Julie is looking for feedback on what we would like to see happen when fee/fines are acted upon. Julie asked whether we really want to bundle notices vs. sending a summary of open charges or what actions have been already completed. Looking for feedback on when libraries would like notices bundled and when separate notices would be preferred.

There are different ways to bundle notices: bundling by session (similar to checkout notices); having all notices packed together and sent out overnight; bundling by action - e.g. if select and pay 3 fees/fines with one action, that's one notice, and then if pay 2 other fees/fines in a second action there will be a second notice.

A complicating factor is how to deal with bundling when the different notices may have different templates.

David mentioned aged-to-lost as a clear case for preferring bundled notices. Also when paying for lost items, then the email serves the purpose of a receipt for the patron. David pointed out that different libraries may have different desires in whether notices are bundled or not. One action = one notice might be easiest to implement. But David mentioned use case for having one notice for multiple actions, such as when a fee/fine is partially waived and partially paid – this is an argument for bundling by session and using a button similar to the 'End session' button in Checkout. Thomas agreed that it is common to, e.g. forgive $50 of a fee/fine and accept payment for the remaining $50. Would be nice to have this in one email, but how should this be managed if have separate templates for waiving and paying? Julie said there has been talk about 'nesting' templates, which should be possible in the current system. Thomas said Moustache should allow multi-actions of different types to be combined into one notice, at the cost of adding complexity.

David said a nice feature would be the ability to send a notice to a patron saying "You owe a total of $58.00" e.g. Julie said that at present there are no tokens for the "outstanding balance" or "selected fees/fines balance" and wondered if it would be helpful to prioritize making tokens for these available.

Beth pointed out that it is common practice for different staff to handle fee/fine appeals vs the staff who actually process or collect payment. Also mentioned that different types of fees/fines, such as for equipment, are treated differently from other types. Beth said waive notices function like a receipt for the patron.

There was a debate on whether circ rules matter with regard to handling fees/fines. Feeling was that circ rules should handle billing of items, but after the fee/fine is billed then actions on the fee/fine should be handled by fee/fine owner. Manual fee/fines should also be handled by owner. Julie pointed out that the fee/fine owner method of manual fees/fines does have a lot of flexibility in assigning notices, with the ability to have default pay/charge notices that can be overridden by specific notices for the different manual fees/fines. Fee/fine owner can be used to prevent, for ex., the Law Library from accepting payment for a Music Library fee/fine.

David like the idea of having a generic "You have paid for __" template that could be overridden by a specific template for certain types of payments, like paying for a damaged book.

Thomas suggested the possibility of having a generic action window that would allow stacking, for example, paying 25 and waiving 25 of a fee/fine into a single action. David had concerns this would add complexity.

Julie liked the idea of thinking about fee/fine notices as receipts. Julie will look into the possibility of having multiple actions combined on one notice, which makes a case for the session-based approach. Julie will get back to the SIG with the various scenarios and options. Please contact Julie with any further ideas on this topic.