Please note that offline circulation requires set up before the system goes offline. If this set up has not been completed before the system becomes unavailable then offline circulation will not be usable. 

Initial set up

Enable the function on Koha with System Preferences

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

Ensure this is set to Enable offline circulation on regular circulation computers.

Option 1 - Using a browser based address to record circulation information

Go to Circulation > Offline circulation > Built-in offline circulation interface.

Bookmark this page so you will be able to access it when the site is offline as this is the page you will be completing any offline circulation activity on. 

Step 1.1- Preparing the system for offline circulation

If there has been no synchronisation completed on your site all entries will be marked as (never).

If the offline circulation tool has been used previously you will see a summary of the last time the information on the site was synched with your computer.

To synchronise the information on your site site with your device hit the Download records button.

This will cause the system to take a local copy of the relevant circulation information on your site. This may take some time as the various pages are parsed:

Once the files have been synched with your computer the summary will reflect the change.

This synchronisation process should be done regularly in case of any unexpected loss of access, preferably every day so the data is up to date. 

Step 1.2-Offline circulation using the offline circulation web address

It is a good idea to make a note of this addresses as well as relying on the Bookmark in case the cached is cleared or the site needs to be accessed from a console without a Bookmark. 

This link will have a format similar to: http://your-koha-staff-client-url/cgi-bin/koha/circ/offline.pl where your-koha-staff-client-url, is the url or site address of your usual Koha system. 

Once you have accessed the offline circulation page, select the circulation action required. 

For offline checkouts click on the Check out link.

This will open a new page with the checkout tab selected on the context sensitive search bar. The checkout screen will look similar to how it does when the server is online.

It may be useful to point out here that this patron information is drawn from the data you synchronised earlier. This means if a patron has been added since the last synchronisation they will not be available to checkout when the system if offline. 

Input the item barcode into the check out box.

Once the date has been set hit Check Out. 

Once the checkout is complete the new checkout will be listed below the checkout box.  The system will give a message if it does not recognise the barcode.

When checking an item in using Offline Circulation, hit the checkin link:

This will open a new page with a box for inputting item barcodes. 

Scan or type the barcode into the Enter item barcode box and hit Submit.

Once the barcode has been submitted a grey box will appear below the Check in box confirming the item information of the item that has been checked back in. 

Step 1.3- Uploading offline circulation actions when the system is back online

Hit Upload transactions.

This will upload all circulation actions that occurred while the system was offline and add them to the pending offline circulation actions. 

Please note that uploading these transactions will not by itself update the information on your live site. In order to do this the circulation actions must be added from the pending offline circulation actions area. 

Pending offline circulation actions can be accessed in two places. The first is on the synchronise page.

The second is in the offline circulation tool page:

The pending offline circulation actions page will contain a table of all circulation actions that have been added from the Upload transactions function. 

This table will contain the date and time an action was performed and a description of the action itself.

For Check-ins only the item barcode will be recorded. 

For Checkouts the item barcode and the patron card number will be recorded. 

From here offline circulation actions can be processed (added to the live data) or deleted (removed from the system entirely). The entire table can be added at once or specific actions can be selected and processed or deleted as needed. 

The left most column are checkboxes to select the action. To process all circulation actions at once, click Check all and then click Process.

To process only some of the actions, click in the checkboxes of the specific actions and then hit Process.

There is also the option to delete circulation information. To use this feature select the actions to be deleted and hit Delete.

Option 2- Offline circulation using the desktop tool

Step 2.1- Download Offline Circulation Tool for browser

Go to Circulation > Offline circulation > Get desktop application.

This will take you to a new site called Github. 

Download KohaOfflineCirculation_Installer_1_3.exe

Complete set up process for this file on the computer that will be doing circulation when you are offline. Once this has been completed you will be able to access an application called Koha offline circulation on your computer. 

The issues page, for completing checkouts, looks like this:

Returns page:

History page:

2.2 Using the offline circulation desktop tool

When checking an item out to a patron go to the Issues tab and scan or type the borrower cardnumber into the Borrower Cardnumber box. 

Hit Accept. 

This will automatically focus the cursor into the Item Barcode box. Scan the item barcode into the Item Barcode box and hit +Add Item. 

If there are multiple items to be scanned for the same patron repeat the barcode scanning process. 

A list of barcodes that have been scanned to the selected borrower will appear in the Previously Scanned Barcodes. 

Once all the barcodes for the specific patron have been scanned hit OK at the bottom of the screen. This will create or update the offline circulation file. The first time you hit OK you will be asked to save a file. Remember where on the computer the file has been saved. You can rename the file to something intuitive, for example the time and date the file has been created.

When completing checkins with the desktop application go to the Returns page and scan or type the barcode into the Item Barcode box and then hit +Add item. 

A record of all scanned barcodes will appear in the Previously Scanned Barcodes box. 

When all barcodes in a session have been checked back in click OK. 

This will save the returns to the session file. 

Every time you hit OK the offline file will be updated with the circulation information. 

To view the history of transactions that have happened on the tool go to the history tab. 

Step 2.2 Uploading the file when the site is back online

When you are back online go to Circulation > Offline circulation > Upload offline circulation file (.koc).

This will take you to a new page where you need to select the file created by the offline circulation tool from your computer. 

Once you have uploaded the file you will be given a choice of adding the file to the offline circulation queue or applying the changes directly to your catalogue. 

By sending the updates to the queue you will be given a table of circulation actions recorded in the file. At this point you can choose to Check all and Process which will send through the circulation information from offline circulation and update your live data. You could also check a selection of the circulation actions and process them or delete a selection of the circulation actions. 

Generating a patron file to use with offline circulation tool

When the file is emailed out to an address of your choosing, download it to your computer. In the offline circulation tool go to Settings > Select Borrowers DB file and find the borrower file you downloaded previously. Enabling this in the tool will allow you to view basic patron information as you checkout.