DoD Oddities

I was putting together a list of oddities related to DoD, so I figured I should put it up here to see if others are having similar issues. Or if anyone else has run across any unexpected behaviors to be aware of.

1) If you delete every item from a patron’s service queue, KLAS will freeze and then load what appears to be every item in every patrons service queue. This will disappear if you refresh the record (press f5). I will note that the freeze seems to be getting longer as we add more patrons to DoD.

2) When you convert a patron to DoD who has outstanding requests, if that patron is on Autoselect the requests will be interspersed with autoselected titles in the service queue. 5 requests, 1 autoselect from each subject, 5 requests, 1 autoselect from each subject, etc.
a. Same thing applies for List patrons with author preferences.
b. This applies to existing DoD patrons if you add items to their request list instead of the service queue (e.g. when you receive a TBT order form)

3) Books that are in a cancelled order will not be added to the service queue automatically based on author or subject preferences.
a. They can still be added manually by an RA with no errors or exceptions.

4) If you try to make a DoD order using Functions->Service Queue->Create Dup Order (alt+ctrl+D) for a blocked patron, you will get an error message but the order will still be made.
a. Same thing happens with suspended patrons.
b. Basically, nothing in the universe will stop an alt+ctrl+D order from going out.

Thank you for posting these! We'll be watching this thread to see if others are have issues or questions for these as well.

For 2) this is based on your Nightly settings. If you increase the Max Per Function for the PCCRequest Function, you should see the number of requests chosen before KLAS looks at Authors and Subjects increase as well (so long as the patron still has enough requests, of course). If you find that the Fill Queue process is not obeying the Max Per Function, please let us know!

For 3) I believe this is an issue we have spotted as well and are identifying a fix for.

I am bringing the others to the attention of the developers, and again, we'll be interested to hear who else is running into these.

Thanks for the info!

For number 2, is there any good reason not to just crank the Max Per Function for PCCRequest specifically up to 999 if we always want patron requests to be prioritized over everything else? At the same time, knocking that value down to 2 or 3 for PCCSeries would help with the current problem of awkward blocks of books from a series that always seems to be split between two cartridges.

Not that I think this will ever be an issue for us, but how does the Max Per Function interact with the Weight option on a preference? Does Weight cause nightly to look for 1 book x times, or x books 1 time?

With patrons being able to receive more Titles, we expect there to be interest from (non-List Only) patrons in being able to receive a mix of requests, author selections, and subject selections. But you know your patrons better than we do--so by all means, crank it up if you want!

As for the weight, Nightly will try to find that many titles for that subject before moving to the next. So if you have:

• Westerns, weight 1
• Sci Fi, weight 2
• Mystery, weight 1

Nightly will select a Western, two Sci-Fi titles, and then a Mystery. But if it hits either the Max per Function or the Max Titles in Queue after only 1 Sci Fi pick, it'll stop there, and pick back up with a second Sci Fi title the next time it needs to refill the Queue.

There is also the option to Group functions, which adds another layer to this. That starts to get more complicated, but if you wanted (for example) to select a mix of requests and series titles, but to max those out before going on to authors and subjects, we can help you get the Group settings in place to do that.

Hi Sam, I have some information to contribute -

1) If you delete every item from a patron's service queue, KLAS will freeze and then load what appears to be every item in every patrons service queue. This will disappear if you refresh the record (press f5). I will note that the freeze seems to be getting longer as we add more patrons to DoD.


This has been fixed in 7.7.24, you can not remove the last item from a Service Queue without the freeze up. You should be getting this upgrade tomorrow. Also, a remove all items from Service Queue function is being worked on for a future release.

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3) Books that are in a cancelled order will not be added to the service queue automatically based on author or subject preferences.
a. They can still be added manually by an RA with no errors or exceptions.

When canceling an order there is a prompt to put the titles back into the Service Queue. If you opt not to do so, these titles won't be able to be autoselected by nightly and put back into the Service Queue.

In the 7.7.25 release we are making a change so that titles that were not added back to the queue at the time of the order cancelation are eligible to be selected by nightly and put into the Service Queue.

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4) If you try to make a DoD order using Functions->Service Queue->Create Dup Order (alt+ctrl+D) for a blocked patron, you will get an error message but the order will still be made.
a. Same thing happens with suspended patrons.
b. Basically, nothing in the universe will stop an alt+ctrl+D order from going out.

In the release of KLAS you are using, creating an order using the Create Order from Service Queue function would automatically assign the Duplication Order after creating it. This was done to help accommodate walk in patrons but we did run into situations as you outlined where this was not the desired outcome. Currently, if a mail card was created for an inactive or blocked patron and then printed and scanned in Scribe the order would be put into an error state and the cartridge would not be duplicated. The error would indicate that the patron was blocked/inactive.

The good news is that in 7.7.24 orders created using Create Duplication Order from Service Queue will not be assigned automatically. We added a Print option to the Orders tab to handle the immediate assignment and printing of a Duplication Order.

All very positive news! Thank you!

I could use some clarification on the new "Print" button on the Orders tab. From playing around with it briefly, it seems to work in a fundamentally different way from both the "Functions->Mailing Cards" feature we would use for walk-ins in the bad old days and the Ctrl+Shift+D function.

F->MC opens the Mailing Cards box with the patrons information pre-filled, but it doesn't actually create a batch until you hit print, at which point it grabs every assigned book for that patron.

The "Print" button, on the other hand, creates a 1-book Dup Order batch with just the order you have highlighted (even if that order is in a '' other non -"Order Pending" status). This means if we have a walk-in patron with 3 cartridges, and we use the "Print" button, we need to create 3 batches and run through the process 3 times.

Maybe we can move/duplicate the "Print" button on the "Create Dup Order From Service Queue" popup as an alternative to "process"?

in 7.7.24 orders created using Create Duplication Order from Service Queue will not be assigned automatically.

Does this mean that using Ctrl+Shift+D on the service queue no longer creates an order that absolutely, positively, 100% will go out in the next morning's batch? Because honestly, that's most of what I use that feature for. (Well, that and creating orders of a non-standard size). Ideally, I'd like the ability to choose if an order I'm creating will override Cutoff or Shipment limitations. If the only way to do that going forward is with the Print button I can definitely do that, I'll just need to adjust.

Yes, the new Print button is a little different from the Functions > Mailing Cards feature. The main difference is an invisible one--it assigns the order, actually generating the mail card, rather than just locating a card that already exists.

If you have a walk-in patron who has three cartridges with them, you can use the "Single PCC Mode" (aka Walk-in Mode) instead of printing new mailing cards. Scan the Single PCC barcode instead of a mail card barcode, and then plug a cartridge into the scribe. Repeat for the next two cartridges. For each one, Scribe will check it in, and then go looking for an order to replace it with. If you have manually-created Duplication Orders waiting, even if they haven't been assigned yet by using the Print button, the Scribe will find and use those.

And yes, that means that manually-created orders are no longer guaranteed to go out in the next batch. It sounds like that's a downside for you (Sorry about that!) but the feature overriding the cutoff was causing problems for other libraries. In particular, the Scribe should be giving you an error message if you try to check out an order over the patron's cutoff...

I will take your idea of adding the Print button to the Create Dup Order from SQ screen to the developers--I can see that being a time-saver! Also, if you are wanting to be able to check out items over the patron's cutoff, I can ask them to consider an "assign" option as well, so that it would go into the regular Duplication mailcard batch.

Some speculation on that...
If providing all of these options, perhaps we could use checkbox options for "Assign & Print Mailcard" or "Assign to Standard Batch" right before the process button? Or would it be better to have separate buttons, something like: Process; ASG & Print; ASG to Batch; Cancel. Would either of these options sound preferable to you?

As you use the new workflow for Orders created from Queue, please keep in touch as to whether you find it a net benefit, a pain, or neutral... and if you continue to see a need for additional options on the Create Dup Order screen!

I think this will be a better system in the long run. It was definitely a frustration that I couldn't create a Dup Order of a non-standard size (without messing around in Quick Request) without overriding limits.

I hadn't thought about the Walk-In mode and how that will interact; I can see how that workflow will be very easy and straightforward. (Incidentally, can we get the Walk-In mode barcode emailed to us?) Unfortunately, many of our "walk-in" patrons are more accurately described as "call-ahead" patrons, but in those cases we have time to do things manually.

I think in my ideal world, the Orders tab would have separate buttons:
* Print Selected Order
* Print All Pending Orders
The "Create Duplication Orders" window would have check boxes for:
* Override account limits
* Print Immediately

It's hard to say though, without actually having the options to test, what the best implementation would be. Generally, the more tools you can give me to handle special circumstances, the happier I'll be. But I'm sure other libraries have their own thoughts on what they want standard operations to be and how many exceptions they want to make for patrons. And don't worry, I'll keep in touch as DoD options continue to expand and improve!

Sounds good to me! I'll pass along your thoughts on this.

The Walk-in Mode barcode is included on the Scribe Barcodes download on the Duplication Info page.