Configurable hard coded date for request expiry
We've struggled with users not understanding the purpose of the 'Not needed after' date field in the various request forms linked to Primo VE. This often means we received requests with supplied 'Not needed after' dates of a few days later meaning they're cancelled before even being in transit or picked, particularly on unstaffed weekends. Relabelling the field hasn't helped matters due to users not paying attention to it and thinking it's a 'needed/collect on' mandatory date.
If possible we would like the ability to set a hard coded expiry range for non-processed requests. For example, if a recall request has no 'Not needed by' date and the item is never returned, the request will stay open forever and will need to be manually deleted requiring more routine house keeping work. If we could tell the system to close such requests after X number of days/months it would help managing these requests.
Richard Ellis
shared this idea
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Richard Ellis
commented
Hi Stacey,
We have disabled it in the user facing forms in Primo but there is still the problem of non-fulfilled requests in Alma. If a request is raised and the book never returned say, the request remains open forever and staff have to trudge through the list of open, non-system expired requests to manually close them. It just produces additional burden on staff. We migrated to Alma from Symphony which did have a feature where requests could be set to auto-close after a set period of time so we have noticed the absence of such functionality since going live. -
Stacey van Groll
commented
I know it doesn't match exactly your idea as a premise, but perhaps just disable the field if it is causing so many problems for you?
If it adds no value, there is no point having it, so that is a factor you'd have to consider if it's useful to you at all for some use case.
We decided several years ago to remove it when it was a display field only which was meaningless and only caused staff confusion as to what they should do if it had passed.
We haven't regretted it for a moment.