How to place a hold from the OPAC

This document will outline how to enable the option for patrons to place holds once they are logged into the OPAC.

Please note, there are a variety of options for determining which items patrons can place on hold and under what circumstances. This document assumes that these decisions have already been made and is intended only to show how to enable the holds option to be extended to the OPAC side.

 If you have specific questions related to the overall holds set up on your own site, please contact Interleaf Technology directly.

How to enable holds on the OPAC

Go to Koha administration > Global System Preference and search for OPACHoldRequests.

This will bring up a system preference of the same name.

For the holds to be enabled on the OPAC ensure the system preference is set to Allow patrons to place holds on items from the OPAC and click Save all OPAC preferences.

This will cause the Place hold option to appear on the OPAC side.

If a patron isn't checked in and they click on the Place hold option they will be prompted to log into the OPAC.

Once a patron has logged in, if they click on the option to place a hold they will be brought to a new page where they can complete the reservation process. The options on this screen will vary depending on how the holds process is set up in the library.

To place a hold, click the Confirm hold button.

How will a hold appear on the patron account?

Once a hold is placed the patron will be able to view the hold on the summary of their account. 

From this point they will be able to interact with the hold in several ways. 

They will have the option to Suspend the hold. If there are multiple holds on their account, they will be able to suspend one, some or all of them. As long as a hold is suspended, it will not be registered by the tools on the staff side which identify holds that need to be filled. Suspended holds can then be resumed by the patron from the same place.

It will be possible to cancel a hold, so the patron is no longer waiting to get a copy of the item. 

If the recall plugin is enabled on the site, they may have the option of recalling a checked out item so it will fulfill the hold, however, this will only be available for item level holds.

Version	Date	Detail	Author
1.0	10/02/22	Doc. Created	Holly Cooper

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