Issuing items
Use this section to issue an item NOW or in the FUTURE i.e. for an advance booking of a loan.
Loans are issued from the Loans database in Calm, by selecting Issue from the button strip with the relevant record on screen. There are two ways of adding an item to the Loans database to be issued:
From Loans Menu, Issue Loans on the Archive menu.
From a record in the Catalogue database; selecting Issue Loan from the button strip.
On Issue, a loan number is given. This is needed when returning the item.
Definition of Lead Days
Lead Days is the notice required (in number of days) to produce an item, for example, if it is kept in an out store.
Adding an item to the Loans database from the Loans menu
Select Loans Menu, Issue Loans and a dialogue box prompts you to search for the item to be issued. If your search retrieves more than one record, you can select the correct one by browsing through the overview of retrieved records and then clicking OK.
If the correct Item has not been retrieved in your search, you can choose to Cancel or Retry.
You can only issue a single Item, not a Collection or branch of a tree.
If you do not have an OrderStatus field on your Catalogue record or it is empty, you will warned at this point and asked to confirm if you wish to continue with the issue. CalmView requires an entry in this field for document ordering, but Calm does not need it for loans.
A second dialogue box is displayed asking you to identify the Borrower (user). This searches the separate User database, and therefore anyone using this service needs to be entered in the User database first.
You will be prompted to enter the reason/usage for the loan and where it should be delivered to.
An issue date box is displayed and prompts for the date the loan will start. The default is set as today's date.
Remember to include any lead days, (recorded on the item's Catalogue record), when you are determining a suitable start date for a loan. If the item has lead days, closed dates will need to be taken into account as well. For example, someone wishes to withdraw an item tomorrow, which is a Friday, the item has 2 lead days but the office is closed on Saturday and Sunday, so the item will not be available until Tuesday, this would need to be reflected in the issue date of the loan.
If you change this default issue date, Calm will check that this is not a "closed date" for example Sunday (you can set these in Administration Menu, Parameters Menu, Loan Parameters) and that the date has not already passed. Once a valid date has been entered you are prompted to enter a Return Date.
The Return Date you enter will need to be after the Issue Date.
Calm will then check for conflicting loans i.e. it will look for other loans for this item on the days you are requesting. If conflicting loans exist, the process will be aborted.
If there are no conflicting loans, the record will be stored in the Loans database. This record can be searched for, retrieved and issued when required. (All loans due for issue today are shown in the Today's Loans option from the Loans Menu).
You are then prompted to enter another Item. You can choose either to identify another Item and Borrower as above, or click on Cancel.
Adding an item to the Loans database from a Catalogue record
On a record in the Catalogue database,
an
button
is available from the button strip, and allows this particular item to be stored
in the Loans database and subsequently
loaned. You can only issue a single Item, not a Collection or branch of a tree,
if this item has children (below it in the tree) they will not be issued.
When the Issue Loan button is clicked, the procedure is the same as from the Loans Menu, as described above.
Issuing from a Loans record
First, add the loan details to the Loans database either from the Loans Menu
or the Catalogue record, as described above.
From the Archive, Loans menu, choose 'Today's Loans' or 'Search' to find the loan you wish to issue.
With the relevant loan record on screen, press
in the side button strip. Confirm issue of this item. (You can stop the
confirmation message appearing by checking the 'Don't ask again this session.'
box on this dialogue). The item will now be issued, the time issued is
automatically added to the loan record.