2023-03-30 Resource Access Meeting Notes

Time	Item	Who	Description	Goals/Info/notes
5min	Administrivia	Jana Freytag		Monica Arnold meeting_saved_chat.txt meeting_saved_closed_caption.txt
50Min	Open discussion round	All	Topic for discussion - MODAUD-155 - Getting issue details... STATUS (Thomas Trutt , Erin Nettifee ) What are typical use cases for "broad" search log search - e.g., searching by just one thing - a user barcode, an item barcode, a service point? What would the community consider to be acceptable response times for these "broad" searches?

Meeting Notes

Mar 30, 2023

Erin N. JIRA MODAUD-155 (backend module that runs circ log). Slow searching in the circ log with large number of entries. 3 million rows, search by item barcode takes 18 seconds. 7 million rows, search by item barcode takes 50 seconds. What are use cases and reasonable behavior? What are typical use cases for circ log? What would be acceptable response times?
Julie B. Do we say at some point the circ log is too full?
Erin N. Although this is a very good question, it won’t be in scope for this discussion.
Susan K. Order of operation of circ log, the first thing you will do is enter item barcode. Circ log has to process that before other parameters can be entered. If old search is still ongoing, changing to a new barcode does not terminate search. You have to wait until the old search is completed before beginning a new search.
Erin N. Does search begin as soon as enter content?
Cheryl M. You have to click Apply.
Erin N. Why does it say Apply rather than search?
Susan K. There are two Apply buttons, one for barcodes and one for dates.
Erin N. Retention of filter settings is a UX pattern across FOLIO.
Thomas T. Will have more info from Access Services group after 4/19. One use case: searching a barcode to see what most recent transactions were. For example, something is supposed to be picked up by a patron, but it is not at the circ desk. Check the circ log to see where it was checked in at, by who, what date? Also has been used to see if notices were sent out. Is also being used for informal statistics. For example, looking at one location to see traffic to determine service hours. Could be done in LDP or LDlite, but is easier for most staff to use Circ Log.
Erin N. Other use cases for search log?
Cheryl M. Mainly used for problems. Use LDP for stats.
Erin M. Statistics question is different for libraries that have access to LDP compared to those that don’t. Thomas’s example of using circ log for stats on service hours is a perfect example of what you would do with circ log. You don’t want to write SQL for that. There is a feature coming in Orchid where you will be able to do a barcode search in inventory and go right to the item record without having to click three times. On the item you get last returned, but you don’t get much else. Trying to offload some of these stats to inventory isn’t a good solution.
Rebecca P. We often need to know when a User record was updated. This circ log does not show user record updates, would it?
Erin N. In Circ log, below Service point; Loan, Notice, Fee/fine, and Request show those type of events. User record can show last update date. Does not track item history, per se. There is a separate feature for that.
Erin N. What are acceptable response times? If memory serves, we have said previously we don’t want any search to take over 5 seconds. Is that correct?
Cheryl M. I’m not sure if this is right for the circ log. It is a huge dataset. Is not the same as searching for in inventory or search for a particular user. It is not interactive with users. Five seconds may be unrealistic.
Erin W. Probably not handling an emergency when using circ log. This is more something you are doing on your own. So more than 5 seconds would be acceptable.
Erin N. Other thoughts?
Laurence M. Longer search times so far in circ log are not bothersome.
Erin N. What would be an acceptable ceiling? 90 seconds. Would a progress bar be helpful?
Andrea L. An acknowledgement from the system would be useful.
Erin N. Part of the problem now is you don’t know if something is wrong, or if the system is still working.
Rebecca P. The progress bar should include text that indicates the maximum amount of time a search could take. Especially if it is just a spinner as opposed to a true progress bar. New users especially may not know how long they need to wait for results.
Andrea L. 90 seconds now, or 90 seconds in the future when have more data?
Erin N. Archiving log is a legitimate conversation, but Cornell is already having problems now and have been live for 2 years. We shouldn’t need to talk about archiving the circ log until have been live at least 4 years or longer if needed to meet data retention guidelines.
Thomas T. Response expectations will vary depending on the job. Would expect a 5-10 second response when looking for a specific barcode. But a query to show everything checked out for a specific location over a three-year period would expect a longer response time.
Erin N. Are people OK with a 90 second maximum? Or do we want a lower number. Although it isn’t like we can negotiate these things.
Rebecca P. Let’s give them a much lower number and settle for the best they can do. I love the idea of 10 seconds.
Erin N. I don’t think 10 seconds is reasonable.
Rebecca P. 90 seconds is way out there. It seems as if it isn’t reliable if it goes this long. Progress bar is absolutely essential.
Erin N. 30 seconds seems to be consensus.
Jana F. Training of employees is a part of the expectation.
Erin N. At Duke Circ log is seen as where you can get information but can’t really break anything. So access to Circ log will be broadly available. Do not see harm in student having access. May be able to use it to help a patron. But this creates a training problem. Never will have high level of competency for some student staff.
Erin N. Feedback will be taken back to Volaris. Do not expect this to get this fixed quickly.
Jana F. Any other topics?
Susan K. Last returned date in the item record. Didn’t realize this immediately. The item browse is not easy to see anything. Has there been a discussion about the field display. In Aleph last check-in date was easily found.
Erin N. There has been tons of discussion about inventory UI. The issue is resources to do the work.
Thomas T. Charlotte led a group to discuss redesign. (JIRA: https://folio-org.atlassian.net/browse/UIIN-25). It has now been a year or a year and a half so will probably need to revisit.
Erin N. Browse may not have been included in the original discussions since it is relatively new.
Andrea L. This was a point of conversation at the WOLFcon in DC.
Susan K. Was there ever a discussion about a direct link to the Circ log from the item record? That is a use case we use all the time. I have this item and I want to see what happened to it.
Erin N. That’s a good idea.
Thomas T. That is not a suggestion that has been made before. Mainly was a different way of view inventory, holdings, and item records – a tree view. Also when on instance record being able to move to various holdings records more quickly and searching for notes. The circ log may not have existed yet.
Erin N. Where would you put the link?
Susan K. FOLIO is instance oriented. Aleph was more item oriented. From a circ perspective you rarely have to leave item view. Can move from one item to another. We very rarely need to look at instance.
Thomas T. Perhaps put link in Action menu. Or, down near the bottom in Circulation history.
Erin N. Putting in the Actions menu allows for easier control by permissions. We can put a Jira in for it but would need a discussion about where it would go. Would need to talk to Charlotte as well.
Jana F. This could cause a problem for European libraries with GDPR.
Erin N. That’s where you would want to have permission controls.
Kara H. New topic: Have a book currently checked out but am not seeing any checkout data. Feel like have seen this before. Anyone else had this issue?
Erin N. The loan definitely exists?
Kara H. Yes, it is currently checked out.
Erin N. Did the loan happen right as you were bringing the system up?
Kara H. No, it just happened a couple of weeks ago.
Mark A. Is there any other data missing. We had a time where we were missing data for 2 or 3 days. Hosting provide was able to recover data.
Thomas T. What hosting provider?
Kara H. Ebsco
Mark A. We (Missouri State University) are as well.
Thomas T. Had an issue after upgrade to Nolana that none of the notices were showing up in the circ log except for those from 2002. Nothing new was showing up. Ebsco was able to pull them back in. Also notices were not going out. AWS did an update on Kafka which messed up some things in FOLIO. Ebsco had to fix this as well. This released a bunch of notices. File a ticket with your hosting provider.
Kara H. Putting dates in the log is showing nothing in March. I will put in ticket.
Thomas T. When in doubt, always file a ticket with hosting.
Jana F. Any other questions?
Thomas T. Anonymization of loan requests (originally an R1, then R4, now a priority again). Noticed a lot of institutions had this as an R1. I know there is no PO for requests. I’m not sure if everyone wants this done?
Susan K. We aren’t doing this yet and won’t until we figure out everything with billing. Did try in testing. Could see person that requested in the Circ log, so is useless.
Erin N. Is UXPROD-1041. Back in 2021 feedback was wait on TLR. TLR is consuming resources. Until there is a dev team and PO or until TLR simmers down, it probably won’t move forward. At Duke we aren’t planning on anonymization.
Thomas T. Looking to APIs to see if we can do it ourselves.
Thomas T. Just started up our Bursar report. Credits still do not work, so can’t get credit reports out of it. When did charges, it only grabbed half the fines.
Erin N. Wasn’t this built especially for Cornell? Probably need to wait for Alabama.
Thomas T. Getting an internal mandate that it needs to be running now. Are beginning to lose fines. Manually using an outside system to get things to work.
Thomas T. Transfer system was written for Cornell, but it isn’t working. There were some specs missing when it was written.
Rebecca P. Who did the work?
Erin N. An EPAM team. Cornell paid for it. That team is no longer part of the project.
Thomas T. Was not the dev team’s fault. Was a lot of IT turnover a lot of the specs passed along were not there.
Jana F. User custom fields are deletable in Orchid and in bugfest, so maybe inability to delete these is a Nolana bug.
Erin N. Check your Chrome version. Part of problems with calendar when moving to Nolana was different versions of Chrome. There was a problem with the time picker.
Julie B. Is the rule of thumb to have the latest version of Chrome?
Erin N. Yes. Although have to monitor because Chrome does not tell you what version you are on.
Jana F. Any other questions?
Thomas T. I have a question for Erin that others may be interest in. Has the work been completed surrounding the two sets of permissions that are used to assign permissions?
Erin N. No. Still waiting for action from me. It will come up again seen because this will be a priority for Library of Congress.
Thomas T. I only ask because Erin N. knows everything. Her brain is like the FOLIO wiki. (As an aside, the notetaker heartily concurs with Thomas’s assessment.)
Remeka B. Does anyone know when Nolana hotfix #1 will drop?
Julie B. The answer is that there is currently no release date scheduled.
Erin N. There are discussions to change from hot fixes to service patches. The EPAM teams want to move to a model where specific fixes can be released rather than waiting for a larger release. There have been some contentious discussions about this. We can go to the Product Owner channel and ask about this.
Jana F. Should I as SIG convener ask about this? Will probably mention at next meeting.
Susan K. What is getting fixed in HF #1.
Erin N. The biggest thing is some calendar fixes. There were issues with the initial Nolana migration. Most hosting providers have already taken care of this, so do not need to wait for HF #1.
Susan K. I did not realize that circulation uses the service point selected by the user, not the service point of the item’s location. The other thing I recognized when multiple tabs opened with different service points, things could get confused. Although this is more an issue with testing than when in production. If troubleshooting the new calendar, be careful how you test. Must be mindful of service point. All calendars are moved that have ever existed, even in not visible in existing UI.
Erin N. Can be purged. The calendar upgrade is a very good upgrade.
Thomas T. Short term loans were not working for us in dryrun environment. They were not rolling over to the next day. The other weird issue, if an item fell on the first day of the calendar, the system returned an error. This has been patched.
Rameka B. TAMU is self-hosted. Are waiting for hotfix since do not have hosting provider. Calendar works for a couple of people, but not for another.
Erin N. TAMU was at forefront of finding some of these calendar issues. I would not delay upgrading based on one person.
Rameka B. Is it stable?
Erin N. It is very stable.
Cheryl M. Has had to open in FOLIO Firefox in order to edit calendar.
Erin N. If you have problems you can’t figure out, come back here and we can open a JIRA.
Thomas T. At Cornell, telling people if they are going to work in the calendar to use Firefox. That seems to have solved most of the issues. We haven’t had any issues in Nolana and have had it since the first week of March.
Jana F. Will schedule another open round next Thursday. Bring your questions next week.