Purging Cash History and return of old Lost items

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 18.01

Description:
We have new state requirements to erase all cash history older than 5 years. So far in testing the best way we are seeing is SQL (similar to KB 4097).

For items that have not been returned, the loans still appear on the patron's record. If the patron were to return the book, they would get a credit since all of their cash history is gone. How can we avoid this?

Also, is there somehow we can delete the patrons too?

Resolution:
As described in KB 3862, the pc_cir_handle_lost program requires that there be a matching z31 (cash) record in order for a credit to be produced for a returned Lost item.

If the z31 has been deleted, it will not find a match and no credit will be produced.

Thus, the problem you envision will not occur.

In regard to deletion of patrons, p_cir_23 is the deletion job. It has Override check boxes, one of which is "Debts". Thus, you could run p_cir_23 with the Override Debts option for all patrons who have been expired for at least xxx days.

The Help says: "Note that Z31 records are not really deleted, but rather the patron ID is scrubbed from all relevant record fields. If the cash transactions are not closed (in which case deleting the patron is possible only with the override flag), their status will be changed to 'Waived'. This way cash reports remain accurate even if a patron is deleted.
"Note that a patron that has loans or outstanding ILL requests can not be deleted."

Since p_cir_23 will not delete patrons with loans -- and since Lost items do still have a z36 loan record -- it seems that it may be best to use SQL transfer these loans to a pseudopatron. (Note: the site had a problem with the display for this pseudopatron timing out due to the large number of loans which were moved to it. Contact jerry.specht@exlibrisgroup.com if you see this problem.)

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013