Usage of guarantors

The library may want to establish that young patrons are assigned guarantors. One purpose is to be able to send notifications to guarantors rather than to young patrons. The guarantor may be made responsible for bills in cases of outstanding loans or damages.

The configuration of guarantors consists of one setting for the age group used for young patrons and a couple of rule settings.

Note:
You must mark the age group for young patrons with Guarantor for rule settings regarding guarantors to have an effect.

Enabling use of guarantors

A common way to handle young patrons at the library is to use different age groups, for example Adult and Child, where the age limit for children is set to for example 15. Age groups are created under Configuration/Patrons/Age groups.

To enable guarantor usage for an age group for young patrons, check Guarantor for this age group.

This setting enables that a guarantor field is displayed when creating a young patron. In this case, it is optional to enter a guarantor.

Making guarantor association mandatory

In addition to the guarantor setting for the age group, a rule has to be set if you want to make it mandatory to enter a guarantor for patrons from the selected age group. The guarantor cannot belong to the age group that requires a guarantor.

Go to the Configuration section in the main menu. The top menu Settings opens.
Under Circulation and notifications, click Rules.
Select the Patron control rule type and the Guarantor required rule.
Click Add rule.
Give the rule a descriptive name, such as Guarantor required. Consider if the correct organisation is already selected or if you need to change it, and if any other settings need to be made.
Select the age group used for young patrons.
Select Yes for When above, then, and click Save.

You find your new rule in the overview at the bottom of the window.

This setting makes it mandatory to either connect a young patron to an adult patron that is registered in Quria or to enter a guarantor name when creating a young patron.

When you edit a patron with a guarantor, you can remove the guarantor connection. In this case, a warning will be displayed for the account and in the Scan items window.

Addressing notifications to guarantors

In addition to the guarantor setting for the age group, rules can be set up in order to send notifications about reservations, overdue warnings or overdue reminders to the guarantor instead of to young patrons.

The example below describes modification of the Enable overdue reminder rule, but the configuration is the same for Enable overdue warning and Enable reservation notice, as well as for bills for overdue reminders/debt reminders.

Go to the Configuration section in the main menu. The top menu Settings opens.
Under Circulation and notifications, click Rules.
Select the Circulation control rule type and the Enable overdue reminder rule.
Select the existing rule in the rule overview at the bottom of the page, or add a new rule.
Under Extra settings for the rule, select Guarantor as recipient of notifications, and click Save.

Depending on how the guarantor has been entered for the young patron, there are three different options for how notifications will be sent to guarantors:

The young patron is connected to an adult patron that is registered in Quria: notifications will be sent to the name and contact details registered for the guarantor.
A guarantor name has been added: notifications will be sent to the name of the guarantor but to the contact details registered for the young patron.
No guarantor is associated: notifications will be sent to the contact details registered for the young patron, but with the addition “To the guarantor of”.