Patron emailer

Alex Buckley

Slides: https://slides.com/alexbuckley/koha-patron-emailer

Agenda

• Patron emailer basics
• Community patron emailer
• Patron emailer plugin

• How do you know which patrons were emailed?

• Q & A

Patron emailer basics

• Send custom email notices to specific library patrons at a frequency of your choice.

• You define which patrons will receive the custom email notice in a SQL report or CSV file.

• Requires configuration of a SQL report, email notice and some Koha support vendor setup.

Patron emailer basics

Two options:

• Regular custom notices
  • Then setup the community patron emailer cronjob
• One-off custom notices
  • Then set-up the patron emailer plugin

Community patron emailer cronjob

Added to Koha 19.05 in bug 16149

Setup steps

1. Create SQL report - returns the specific patrons who will receive the notice
2. Create notice - the notice that will be sent
3. Request your Koha support vendor schedule the cronjob - this will actually schedule the notice to be sent

Step 1) Create SQL report

1) Staff client > Reports > Create from SQL

2) Query the borrowers table

3) Introduce a WHERE clause - This filters which patron accounts will be returned by the report and therefore be emailed.

Note: Without adding a WHERE clause all library patrons will be emailed.

Example SQL report

Step 2) Create email notice

1) Staff client > Tools > Members and circulation > Notices and slips > New notice

2) Choose the notice module

3) Choose a notice code and name

4) Add content in the 'Email' section using template toolkit syntax

Important note

• The data fields you reference in the notice text MUST match those defined in the SQL report

Template toolkit

• Surround database fields with [% %] instead of << >>:

e.g. [% firstname %] instead of <<firstname>>

• You can display data based on a condition being met:

[% IF categorycode == "PG" %]

 ....

[% ELSIF categorycode == "UG" %]

...

[% END %]

Example email content

Step 3) Schedule the patron emailer cronjob

Request your Koha support vendor schedule the patron emailer cronjob - to actually send the email notices.

Provide the following information:

• Koha SQL report ID
• Koha notice code
• Koha notice module name
• Time and frequency when you would want the patron emailer notices to be sent
• What 'from' email address would you like set

Patron emailer plugin

• Formerly supported by ByWater Solutions

• Now supported by National Library Finland - see here

Setup steps

1. Ask your Koha support vendor to enable Koha plugins
2. Install the Koha patron emailer plugin
3. Create SQL report - returns the specific patrons who will receive the notice
4. Create notice - the notice that will be sent
5. Manually trigger the plugin - sends the email notices

Step 1) Ask your Koha support vendor to enable Koha plugins

Step 2) Install the Koha patron emailer plugin

• Administration > Plugins > Manage plugins > Upload plugin
• Upload the plugin KPZ file: download from here

Step 3) Create SQL report

• As with the community patron emailer, include the same fields in your SQL report as the email notice.

• You can include runtime parameters - a filter you're prompted to fill out when running the SQL report.

Example SQL report

Step 4) Create notice

Step 5) Manually trigger the plugin

Administration > Plugins > Manage plugins > '[KK-fork] Patron Emailer' > Actions > Run tool

Step 5) Manually trigger the plugin

How do you know which patrons were emailed?

SQL report

SELECT cardnumber, firstname, surname, content, time_queued, status
FROM borrowers
LEFT JOIN message_queue USING (borrowernumber)
WHERE letter_code = <<Enter letter code>>

Questions?