An overview of seen vs. unseen renewals
When a patron renews an item from the OPAC it is considered an unseen renewal, as the item was presumably not physically seen by a staff member at the time of renewing. Renewals that happen from the staff side or at circulation machines are considered seen renewals, as presumably the item was physically seen by a staff member or was physically present at the time of renewing.
It is possible to set Koha to apply different circulation limits for the different type of renewals, i.e. one limit for the amount of seen renewals and another limit for the amount of unseen renewals. If the unseen renewal limit is reached, the patron won't be able to renew the item again from the OPAC, but library staff will be able to renew the item from the staff side. If the seen renewal limit is reached then patrons won't be able to renew the item again in anyway.
Step 1 - Enable unseen renewals
Go to Koha administration > Global system preferences and search for unseen renewals.
This will bring up a system preference of the same name.
To enable unseen renewals ensure the system preference is set to Allow renewals to be recorded as "unseen" by the library, and count against the patrons unseen renewals limit. If the system preference needs to be changed, click Save all Circulation preferences button.
Enabling this system preference will cause a new column to appear in the fine and circulation rules table for unseen renewals.
Step 2 - Setting the seen vs. unseen renewal limits
Go to Koha administration > Patrons and circulation > Circulation and fines rules.
This will open a page with fine and circulation rules table.
Scroll to the right hand side of the table to view columns related to renewals.
There should be two columns, one for Renewals allowed (count) and another for Unseen renewals allowed (count). If the Unseen renewals allowed (count) column is not appearing then unseen renewals have not been enabled on your site.
Renewals allowed (count) controls how many times a staff member can renew an items. Unseen renewals allowed (count) controls how many times a patron can renew an item from the OPAC.
Either create a new circulation rule or edit an existing rule to add a new limit to the amount of seen and unseen renewals a patron category can have for a particular item type and click Save.
In this case of the rules set above, a patron will have a total of 3 renewals available to them and a maximum of 2 of them can be unseen renewals.
For example, if 3 of the renewals are seen renewals, then the patron won't be able to complete any unseen renewals.
Or if the patron uses the two unseen renewals, then they will then only be able to complete one seen renewal, for a total of 3 renewals.
Or if the patron has used 1 unseen renewal and 1 seen renewal, the third renewal could be either a seen or unseen renewal, for a total of 3 renewals.
In practice:
An item has been checked out to this patron based on the rules that were created in the previous step.
This is how that information will appear on the staff side before any renewals have taken place:
And this is how this information will appear on the OPAC:
Patrons can renew items from the OPAC by clicking the box beside Renew and click Renew selected button.
After the item has been renewed patrons will be informed of how many unseen renewals they have left.
This patron is informed that they have 2 renewals remaining overall, but only one unseen renewal left.
When the unseen renewals have been used up the patron will be informed that the item must now be renewed by the library and how many renewals they have left overall.
This is how this information will appear on the staff side
This information indicates that there is 1 renewal left and it must be a seen renewal.
If a staff member renews an item with no unseen renewals left, the unseen renewals will reset to the amount that was available initially based on the fine and circulation rules. If the item has been renewed the amount allowed by the Renewals column (count), then although unseen renewals will be available, the item will not be renewable as it has reached the limit.
When staff is renewing they have the option to mark a renewal as unseen, for example if a patron rang in and requested the item they have been renewed, without actually bringing the item into the library.
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