Group Penalty Thresholds block circulation transactions for users who exceed maximum check out limits, number of overdue items, or fines. Settings for your library are visible under Administration → Local Administration→ Group Penalty Thresholds. There are four penalties in use now.

Accounts that meet or exceed penalty thresholds display an alert message when opened and require staff overrides for blocked transactions.

Group Penalty Thresholds may be set up on different levels in terms of patron profiles and libraries. Penalties on more specific levels of profile and/or library take precedence. This allows you to set up penalties on a higher level of profile, e.g. Public Library Patrons, and/or library, e.g. system instead of branch, for most profiles and/or branches to share. If there are rules applied to lower level profiles, e.g. PL Juvenile or a branch, you just need to set them up for these specific profile/branch.

There are a set of penalties on Sitka level for all patrons. These rules will be applied if your library does not have your own rules.

Creating local penalty thresholds

Local System Administrators can created local penalty thresholds. Go to Administration → Local Administration → Group Penalty Threshold. Click New Penalty Threshold. Choose or enter the appropriate value for each field. Click Save.

Editing local penalty thresholds

Double clicking a penalty on the list will open it in editing mode. Edit, then save.

Deleting local penalty thresholds

Select the checkbox in front of the penalty you wish to delete, and click Delete Selected.