How to enable self-registration for patrons on the OPAC
It is possible to allow people to self register for accounts on the OPAC by enabling the self registration form. This document will walk through the basic steps for enabling this function.
Find the System Preferences
Go to Koha administration > Global System Preferences and search for self registration.
This will bring up a variety of system preferences which relate to the self registration process. The two system preferences to enable self registration are PatronSelfRegistration and PatronSelfRegistrationDefaultCategory.
PatronSelfRegistration must be set to allow.
PatronSelfRegistrationDefaultCategory must be set to a default patron category that will be offered to patrons on the self-registration form.
There are several other system preferences under Koha Administration > Global System Preferences > OPAC > Self Registration which can be set to alter how the patron self registration form functions and appears. These functionalities will be addressed in future FAQs.
Finding a Patron Category for PatronSelfRegistrationDefaultCategory System Preference
It is good practice to create a custom patron category to be used for self registered patrons rather than a standard patron category. This is because many sites will at some point use the clean up database script which, amongst other things, will remove any unverified self registered patrons from the site. If this happens any information about the self registered patrons will be removed, even if they have been using the site for an extended period of time. Select the preferred patron category from the dropdown menu in the PatronSelfRegistrationDefaultCategory system preference and click Save all OPAC preferences. If a preferred category doesn't exist, a new one will need to be created.
Detailed instructions for viewing existing patron categories on your site and adding new ones, please check our support page or contact Interleaf Technology directly.
Appearance on the OPAC
Once the system preference PatronSelfRegistration has been set to allow and the PatronSelfRegistrationDefaultCategory has been filled in a line will appear under the login box on the OPAC, Create an Account.
Clicking the Create an account link will bring users to a new page on the library site with the Patron Self Registration Form, which should look something like this:
This is a partial sample of the form and as Koha includes system preferences to add, remove or make fields mandatory, individual forms may vary from site to site.
To complete self-registration the user needs to fill in the form and save it off.
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