Monday Minutes: Authorized Values

by Jessie Zairo on Aug 31, 2020

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie will talk to you about Authorized Values in Koha and how they work. Authorized values can be used in several areas of Koha. They are what generally populate dropdown menus in Koha. Your system has pre-defined values that your library uses like LOST, Collection Codes, Shelving Locations, Not For Loan Values.

Setting Authorized Categories Up

1. Navigate to More > Administration > Basic parameters > Authorized Values
2. By clicking ‘New category’ you can add your own authorized value category to control data that is entered into Koha.
3. By clicking ‘New authorized value for …’ you can add your own value to an existing authorized category in Koha.
4. Limit your Category to 10 characters (something short to make it clear what the category is for)
5. When adding a new category you’re asked to create at least one authorized value
6. Enter a code for your Authorized value into the ‘Authorized value’ field
   1. The authorized value is limited to 80 characters and cannot have spaces or special characters other than underscores and hyphens in it.
7. If you would like to limit this authorized value category to only specific libraries you can choose them from the ‘Branches limitation’ menu. To have it show for all libraries just choose ‘All branches’ at the top of the list.
8. Click ‘Save'
9. Your new category and value will appear on the list of Authorized values

Setting Up Authorized Values for Category

1. Navigate to More > Administration > Basic parameters > Authorized Values
2. By clicking ‘New authorized value for …’ you can add your own value to an existing authorized category in Koha.
3. You can click on add
4. Enter a code for your Authorized value into the ‘Authorized value’ field
   The authorized value is limited to 80 characters and cannot have spaces or special characters other than underscores and hyphens in it.
5. If you would like to limit this authorized value category to only specific libraries you can choose them from the ‘Branches limitation’ menu. To have it show for all libraries just choose ‘All branches’ at the top of the list.
6. Click ‘Save'
7. Your new value will appear on the list of Authorized values for category ......

Tips for Authorized Value

• Make sure if you are deleting an authorized value, you confirm there are no item records using that value first
• Run an item search in Koha to check first.
• Then perform a batch modification of those items to the new or existing value in your system.
• Then you can go back and delete the value.