Koha 22.11 Enhancement: Ability for Patrons to Cancel Waiting Holds

by Hebah Amin-Headley on May 15, 2023

A Koha enhancement sponsored by ByWater partner Montgomery County Public Libraries would allow cancellation of waiting holds from the OPAC. Bug 22456 introduces this function.

Eligibility for hold cancellation is set in circulation rules, and like other circulation rules, can be configured in patron category/item type combinations.

Like all new features in Koha, the default rule for permitting hold cancellation will be set to no for all patron categories/ all item types, in both the default rule and any branch rules, with libraries opting in if they choose to use it.

Once a patron has initiated a hold cancellation request, the hold will appear in the circulation module's Holds Awaiting Pickup section in a new, third tab for staff to confirm the cancellation and check in the item.

Important note for Early Adopters Using Aspen

Partners using Aspen need to know that developers discovered that hold cancellation requests initiated via API simply cancel the hold without generating the cancellation request step (bug 33573). Current options for Koha/Aspen partners include either not allowing waiting hold cancellations until the bug is fixed, or using a report to identify waiting holds cancelled by patrons. This report in the Koha Reports Wiki can serve as a starting point, with a small modification to replace the line

AND action_logs.interface='cron'

with

AND action_logs.interface='api'

This post will be updated as the bug makes its way through to a fix.