[Koha] Adding schools as branches to a public library Koha install

[Scott Owen]

Please note: this is all  "As I understand it"........(in ver 2.2.29 
win32).......

After getting Koha to use LDAP as an authentication mechanism, (this 
requires some editing of the Auth.pm in 2.2.9...I am unsure about 3.0), 
when a user logs into the Koha front end (Opac), their LDAP specific 
information is pulled from the source (in my case eDirectory) and used 
to populate fields in the Koha database.
  This should be a 1 way (read only) transaction, and you should not be 
able to update any LDAP/eDirectory info from the Koha 
interface.....however, every time a user logs into Koha, it should cause 
an update of their information. So if information is changed in LDAP, it 
should pull over and update the Koha user information on the users next 
login.

At the end of the modifications required in the auth.pm you will find a 
section like this:

my %borrower;
        $borrower{cardnumber} = $userid;
        $borrower{firstname} = $memberhash{cn}; # MANDATORY FIELD
        $borrower{surname} = $memberhash{sn}; # MANDATORY FIELD
        $borrower{initials} = 
substr($borrower{firstname},0,1).substr($borrower{surname},0,1)."  "; # 
MANDATORY FIELD
        $borrower{streetaddress} = $memberhash{postalAddress}." "; # 
MANDATORY FIELD
        $borrower{city} = $memberhash{l}." "; # MANDATORY FIELD
        $borrower{phone} = $memberhash{telephoneNumber}." "; # MANDATORY 
FIELD
        $borrower{branchcode} = "PINE"; # MANDATORY FIELD
        #$borrower{emailaddress} = $memberhash{mail};
        #$borrower{categorycode} = $memberhash{employeeType};

on the left of the = is the Koha specific database field, on the right, 
your LDAP attribute.
These mappings can also be hard coded (as I did on the branchcode line).

To add attributes to NDS accounts (homeroom, class1, class2, teacher, 
etc....) and map those attributes to LDAP requires a fair amount of 
knowledge regarding NDS/LDAP and could require some time on the Novell 
developer web site....with that said..........
in a nutshell:
1. Create NDS Attributes, assign them to the correct classes.
2. Create LDAP Attributes.
3. Map those two attributes together.
4. Add data.
5. Bulk modify the attributes for your users (from your SIS?)
6. Add the appropriate lines to the auth.pm (as shown above) to pull the 
data into the correct Koha fields.

Steps 1 and 2 are the hard part......if someone knows of an easy way to 
do those....I'd love to hear it....

Because of my relatively small size (2,500 student) I should be able to 
get away with entering the homeroom, teacher, etc.. data into existing 
unused NDS and LDAP attributes...ie: "Fax Number" (not to many of my 
students have fax numbers....) and then just rename the output fields 
for reporting and such.

Good luck.
-S



  David Schuster wrote:
> With 3.0 we are able to add attributes as needed.  So we are actually loading
> the entire student schedule into the borrower record so the librarians at
> Secondary can choose what class they want to send overdues to or period
> etc...
>
> I'm still fuzzy on how LDAP is going to control borrower records.  When you
> type in the student ID at CKO wouldn't it have to pull data in order to
> track it?  LDAP doesn't have any homeroom/class information or even Grade in
> our district so it is pretty much just an authentication piece.
>
> Let me know how your edirectory goes as we also use Novell and I'm not ready
> to go down that path right now.  So we are loading ll 54,000 students.  I
> hope to setup an automated process of loading borrowers say weekly.
>
>
> Scott Owen wrote:
>   
>> My .02
>> (using Koha 2.2.9 on Win32...)
>>
>> -- I agree with the shared catalog....that way students can borrow books 
>> from any school in the district.
>>
>> --if they are a  school of any size....they probably already have a 
>> directory (LDAP/Active Directory/eDirectory)....might be easier to 
>> connect to their existing student directory rather that deal with the 
>> bother of importing/updating etc etc ect....
>> I made an initial mistake and imported students in to the Koha 
>> database...shouldn't have done that.....over this next summer, I will be 
>> removing them and setting up Koha to authenticate users via Novell's 
>> eDirectory (LDAP).
>>
>> --We add the home room teacher, and grade level to the student data (we 
>> are a small district so it's all we really need) using the sort1 and 
>> sort2 entries. 
>>
>> -- For custom reports (overdue report that shows home room teacher and 
>> grade ) , I added PHP to the server, and use a PHP class to query the 
>> MySQL database and present XML formated output, I then use stylesheets 
>> to output the XML in browser readable PHP. This pretty much allows me to 
>> generate any report imaginable.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> David Schuster wrote:
>>     
>>> From a school perspective our whole purpose in a shared catalog was to
>>> borrow
>>> and see each others materials.  So we turned independant branches OFF. 
>>> I'm
>>> looking forward to the granularity of security options to lock users out
>>> of
>>> the MARC record!
>>>
>>> You may need to add some attributes for schools - homerooms, grade etc.
>>> to
>>> run overdues.  If they use student ID's you can probably load them right
>>> into the cardnumber field or create another attribute for barcode.
>>>
>>> We're going through the migration process with 67 schools to go live in
>>> January!  Should be interesting!
>>>
>>> David Schuster
>>>
>>> Tim McMahon - West Liberty Public Library wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> I was thinking about that.  I had to turn that off a while back to get 
>>>> returns to work, but returns seem to be working with 
>>>> IndependantBranches=ON now.  Thanks
>>>>
>>>> Paul POULAIN wrote:
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>>>> Tim McMahon a écrit :
>>>>>       
>>>>>           
>>>>>> We're checking into the idea of adding the school district to a Koha 3 
>>>>>> install.  We were thinking of adding each school as a branch.  We let 
>>>>>> Koha assign our patron barcodes and use our own item barcodes.  The 
>>>>>> schools buy their item barcodes and use student numbers.  There 
>>>>>> shouldn't be any overlap in our numbering systems.  I'm looking for
>>>>>> any 
>>>>>> tips on settings, importing items and patrons, things to look out for
>>>>>> or 
>>>>>> anything else that would be helpful in a situation like this.
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>             
>>>>> you already have IndependantBranches=ON, haven't you ? Otherwise, you 
>>>>> should investigate this option ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>>       
>>>>>           
>>>> -- 
>>>> Tim McMahon
>>>> Technical Services
>>>> West Liberty Public Library
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>>>> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
>>>> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>>   
>>>       
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>
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