Koha Question of the Week: What does the system preference AllowcheckoutNotes do?

by Kelly McElligott on Jan 27, 2023

Each Friday, we will bring you a new Koha Question of the Week. We will select real questions that we receive and share the answers with you!

Question: What does the system preference AllowcheckoutNotes do?

Answer: This system preference will allow patrons to add notes to an item they have currently checked out. This note will be sent to the Koha Staff Interface as well as emailed to the KohaAdminEmail address, the library's email address (set up in the system preference KohaAdminEmail or a branch email in the Libraries Module will receive an email. This email notice is called, CHECKOUT_NOTE. This by default will include the patron's name, the title of the book, and the note that was sent. This notice like all notices in Koha can be customized.

Steps

Steps:

1. The library would set system preference: allowcheckoutnotes to allow.
2. When a patron is logged into their account in the OPAC- there is now a new column visible to the patron on the items they have checked out.

3. Staff will see this note at the bottom of the staff interface.

Additional Resources

We break this down in a Monday Minutes tutorial video, which can be found here:

Monday Minutes: Utilizing the Checkout Note Feature

Aspen Integration

For libraries using Koha and Aspen Discovery as their Discovery Layer, this does not work currently. If you are interested in using this with Aspen and Koha, please reach out to us at ByWater Solutions.