Koha 21.11: New Options for Cron Jobs

by Sara Brown on Jun 7, 2022

21.11 adds enhancements to the cleanup_database.pl and membership_expiry.pl cron jobs that make both more useful!

New options for action logs in cleanup_database.pl

Bug 18631 - cleanup_database.pl should take an option for modules in action_logs

Instead of an all-or-nothing approach to keeping log data, libraries will now be able to choose whether to include or exclude specific logs when running cleanup_database.pl. It can be configured to either keep specific logs and clean all others, or clean only specific logs and leave others untouched. The options are:

--log-modules: including this in the cron will clean only the named logs and leave others as is

--preserve-log: including this in the cron will preserve only the named logs and clean all the others

For instance, in a system with action logs for Holds, Patrons, and Circulation enabled:

Adding --log-modules=PATRONS will clean only the Patrons logs. Holds and Circulation will keep their data.

Alternately, adding --preserve-log=HOLDS will keep only the Holds logs. Patrons and Circulation will both be cleaned.

Enhanced claims returned functionality

Bug 25429 - cleanup_database.pl should remove resolved claims returned after X days

This adds a new system preference called CleanUpDatabaseReturnClaims: “Remove resolved return claims older than [X] days.” As it indicates, this will remove claims showing in green (resolved) on patrons' accounts after the number of days your library chooses to set.

Not only will this will reduce the amount of potentially unnecessary information kept by your library, but it will be especially helpful if your library is using the system preference ClaimReturnedWarningThreshold to put a note on patrons’ accounts when they have over your stated “threshold” number of claims. Since the “threshold” counts both resolved and unresolved claims, the ability to easily remove resolved claims will make that warning much more meaningful!

More granular membership_expiry.pl options

Bug 28456 - Add option to use a WHERE statement in membership_expiry.pl cronjob

This enhancement allows for WHERE statements in the membership_expiry.pl cron job to give libraries more control over who receives emails about soon-to-expire cards. In conjunction with the system preference MembershipExipryDaysNotice, Koha allows libraries to send patrons a notification when their accounts are close to expiration. However, since it is a global system preference, there hasn't been a way to limit these notifications to certain patron categories, for instance, or only to patrons belonging to one library out of five in a system or consortium. Now, however, the feature is much more flexible!

WHERE statements can be based on any field in the borrowers table. For instance, a consortium of six libraries where only two libraries want to send the notice could add a statement limiting to patrons whose branchcode matches those two libraries. Or a library that wants to send the notice to all patron categories except self-registered patrons could exclude patrons with the categorycode 'SELF’.

This added flexibility and customization will allow many more libraries to take advantage of this feature!

How do I get started?

To incorporate any of these options into your existing cleanup_datebase.pl or membership_expiry.pl cron jobs, or to set the crons up for the first time, please send us a ticket!

More 21.11:
Koha 21.11: Upgrade Hub
Koha 21.11: Release Notes