Patron searches give 500 error

Problem statement: The following error message when searching for patron names.

Something went wrong when loading the table.
500: Internal Server Error. 
Month out of range.
Month out of range.
Month out of range.
Month out of range.

Reason: The date_renewed column has some proper dates, some NULLs and some 0000-00-00.

Solution: Uupdate borrowers set date_renewed = NULL where date_renewed = '0000-00-00'. Enter into the MariaDB and apply the following commands,

sudo mysql -uroot -p

use koha_library;

UPDATE borrowers

SET date_renewed = NULL;

Idea courtesy: Mahesh Palamuttath

Reference

https://irc.koha-community.org/koha/2023-04-26#i_2483964

Blood group list using patron attribute types

Patron attributes help define custom fields (e.g. blood group, Course name (BSc, BA) etc.) with patron details.

1. Enable Patron Attributes from Global System Preferences

Administration  System preferences > Patrons > ExtendedPatronAttributes > Enable

2. Create an Authorized Value for the blood group

Send an account expiration notice when a patron's card expire

Reminder about membership expiry is very helpful for library users to settle the library account. Here are the steps to enable email reminders to library users the number of days in advance.

1. Prepare the notice template

Visit Tools > Notices & slips, search and find MEMBERSHIP_EXPIRY notice.

2. Set how many days in advance notice to send

Koha Administration > Global system preferences, search for MembershipExpiryDaysNotice

Enter how many days in advance the notice to send. Save the settings.

Note: Need to configure the mail system with Koha to work this feature.

Patron card creation

You can create cards for library users with the help of Patron Card creator facility. With this facility libraries can create patron cards and print in good quality A4 size paper.

Step-1 Upload library logo

Tools › Patron card creator › Manage images

Upload logo image of your library/organisation and give name (e.g. logo) for the image. Choose a small image for logo (e.g. 100x100 pixel).

Step-1 Create a new layout

Tools > Patron card creator > New > New Layout
See the screenshot below and fill the same values in new layout fields.
In "Image 1" section select logo image to display in library card.
Click on the screen shot to enlarge view.

Step-2 Create new template

Tools > Patron card creator > New > Card Template
See the screenshot below and fill the same values in New Layout fields.

Step-3 Create Patron cards

Tools > Patron Cart creator > New Batch
Select and add users. Select Layout and Template. For further details visit Koha documentation.

gThumb Image Viewer: a good tool for patron image resizing

Start of every academic year librarians are busy with admission process of new students. They have to process (resize) user images to upload in Koha. Small image size is ideal for upload to Koha. Big images make your database fat. gThumb Image viewer is a useful tool for resize patron images.

Installation
Open Applications > Accessories > Terminal and execute following command,

sudo apt-get install gthumb

gThumb can be open from Applications > Graphics

How process images
Put images in a folder and open gThumb.

 

Select all images and goto Tools > Image Resize

Give new image size,

It ask for saving file one by one

Lot of other tools are also available for the same purpose.

Converseen
Phatch