by Andrew Fuerste-Henry on May 6, 2020
Koha version 19.11 expands the functionality around guarantor/guarantee relationships by allowing a guarantor to see and pay their guarantee's fines via the OPAC.
System preferences
To use these features, you first have to enable one or both of these system preferences:
- AllowStaffToSetFinesVisibilityForGuarantor - Lets staff set a guarantee to show their fines on their guarantor's account.
- AllowPatronToSetFinesVisibilityForGuarantor - Lets a guarantee set themselves to show their fines on their guarantor's account.
All patrons default to not letting their guarantor see their fines, so if you don't change either of these system preferences none of your guarantors will see their guarantee's fines.
Changing the guarantee's account
Whether you're changing this in the staff client or via the OPAC, this is always defined in the guarantee's account. On the staff side, this setting is grouped with the controls to set a guarantor.
On the OPAC, these controls are in the Privacy tab with reading history settings.
On the guarantor account
Once the guarantee is set to allow it, the guarantor will see their fines when logged into the OPAC. The guarantee fines will show in their own tab on the Summary tab.
Each guarantee's charges will show as their own table on the Charges tab.
If you've enabled online payment through PayPal or another method that accepts payment via the OPAC, your guarantor will not be able to pay their guarantee's fees just as they pay their own.
Read more by Andrew Fuerste-Henry