max holds enhancements

More robust functionality is needed with setting hold maximums. To add to the issue description – while we can restrict holds per single permission group per single circulation modifier, there are multiple unmet needs for max holds configuration. Desired functionality includes adding the ability to: (1) set a maximum number of holds per a set of circ modifiers for a single permission group (hold limit sets – similar to circulation limit sets as suggested) – ex: apply one max for multiple audiovisual types and (2) set a patron threshold for maximum number of holds allowed similar to patron checkout threshold – ex: Juvenile patrons limited to 25 holds

Confirmed in 3.3

Many locations want to be able to set a max holds, so any improvement to this would be welcomed.

It is not good if a customer can place 50 holds on DVDs, but then when they come to get them, that is the first time they learn they can only borrow 10 DVDs. It can lead to customer confusion.

Confirmed it's still an issue in 3.9.2.

Confirmed still an issue in 3.11

We have actually been hitting this more and more lately. Especially if a library has a low limit on one circulation modifier. For instance, if they have a limit of 10 on books and 5 on DVD, once the patron gets to a total of 5 holds, it will block any more DVDs even if the 5 holds are on books or audiobooks.

Captured from listserv discussion - "This is something that we also run into regularly and is an annoyance for staff.

I think the ideal behavior for us would be:

If there's a limit on a circmod, a patron hits the max holds on that circmod and can't place more holds for that circmod, but they're not restricted in the number of holds they can place for other circmods until they hit any limits in place for those circmods.

So the ability to set:
org unit -> permission group -> circmod -> hold limit

But with an inheritance structure where these could also be set if values not provided for one of the fields, with more specificity winning (do we then get into weighting?):
org unit -> permission group -> hold limit
org unit -> circmod -> hold limit"

In addition to what's been described we would also like to be able to have max holds limits based on selection depths.

Our use case is that libraries usually allow more holds to be filled by local copies (local holds with selection depth of 3 in our setup), but fewer holds filled by other libraries' items (ILL holds with selection depth of 2). (Selection depths are based on our consortium and will be different numbers depending on a consortium's org tree.)

When implementing this limit, we think it is preferable to make the two limits separate, e.g. 5 ILL holds + 10 local holds.

There could be selection depth and circ modifier specific limits, e.g. 2 ILL holds on DVD within the total 5 ILL holds or 5 local holds on DVD within the total 10 local holds.

Meta holds also add a wrinkle to this. How to handle a meta hold which has individual records/items that have different circ modifiers in relation to this.

We already run into the fact that you can have a meta hold and a title level hold on the same record when we don't allow duplicate holds normally.

Josh

Equinox will be working on this under contract with PaILS.

Andrea, is this project still in progress? Asking for a friend.

PaILS funded this spec: https://yeti.equinoxoli.org/dev/public/techspecs/maxholds.pdf but there is no current contract for the work.

Happy to requote for ECDI if you'd like.