[Koha] Patron permissions questions

[Nicole Engard]

Additional info on permissions can be found here:

https://sites.google.com/a/liblime.com/koha-manual/Home/Table-of-Contents/Patrons/patrons-permissions

But you do not have to set permissions for patrons - and shouldn't
unless that patron happens to be a volunteer at the library - which is
why you have the ability to set permissions for any patron type - I
think :)

---

Nicole C. Engard
Open Source Evangelist, LibLime
(888) Koha ILS (564-2457) ext. 714
nce at liblime.com
AIM/Y!/Skype: nengard

http://liblime.com
http://blogs.liblime.com/open-sesame/



2009/5/1 Jesse <pianohacker at gmail.com>:
>
>
> 2009/5/1 Agnes Rivers-Moore <arm at hanover.ca>
>>
>> Hello all
>>
>> I work with a few libraries testing Koha, and a question has come up
>> about setting permissions for "patrons".
>>
>> As I understood this, permissions are for staff accounts only, to
>> control their use of the staff client modules, based on their login. I
>> see in the list of permissions that there is one flag (permissions) to
>> set user permissions, and another (staffaccess) to modify permissions
>> for staff users, and this confuses me as they seem to be the same.
>
>
> NOTE: I'm assuming you're using 3.0
>
> staffaccess controls whether you can delete staff members, change their
> passwords, or change the permissions for staff users. Note, however, that
> Koha's definition of a staff user is one that is in a category that has the
> type Staff. Koha has a hierarchy of types; for instance, under the
> Professional type, you might have Professor and Teacher's Aide categories.
>
>> It has been noticed that the permissions screen exists for all patron
>> types, and I have had some confused questions about whether staff have
>> to check the "Borrow books" permission before anything can be checked
>> out to a new patron, and why we need a "staff" type at all if any patron
>> can be set to use the staff client.
>> I can see their point, so I am wondering:
>>
>> Has anyone used permissions for patrons who are not on staff, and if so
>> what for?
>>
>> Could this screen be set not to appear except for specific patron types,
>> e.g. "Staff" (even for superlibrarians)?
>>
>> Thank you all,
>> Agnes
>>
>> --
>>
>> Agnes Rivers-Moore
>> Assistant Librarian
>> Hanover Public Library
>
> I think the main uses for the Staff patron type are statistical tracking
> (you might want to omit staff checkouts or consider them differently) and
> different issuing rules. For example, you might not want to charge your
> staff fines on their checked out books, or allow them to check out more
> books. Also, the category of a patron is much more visible than which
> permissions they have. There might be other ways in which Koha specially
> treats staff patrons that I'm not aware of, though.
>
> You _could_ customize the toolbar so that the Set Permissions menu item only
> appeared for certain categories, but it would take some coding.
>
> --
> Jesse Weaver
>
> _______________________________________________
> Koha mailing list
> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
>
>