Monday Minutes: Licensing in the ERM Module

by Jessie Zairo on Sep 4, 2023

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie dive into the second component of the ERM Module, Licensing. The Licensing module in Koha's ERM helps a library organize their information about resource licensing to ensure they are complying with their agreements.

Creating a License

Within the new ERM module, Licenses will appear on the side left menu.

To create a new License, click "Create New"

There are some required fields when creating a new license:

• License Name - the name of the license
• Description - free text field to expand on the license
• Type- This dropdown identifies the type of license. The default is (local, national, consortial, or alliance. These can be customized in the 'ERM_LICENSE_TYPE' authorized value. (Read More)
• Status - this dropdown will notify the user of the status, the default is (active, expired, in negotiation, not yet active, or rejected). The options in this dropdown can be customized in the 'ERM_LICENSE_STATUS' authorized value. (Read More)

Staff can also utilize the other fields:

• Vendors - This will pull from your list in the acquisitions module
• Users (staff can connect a librarian, staff member, or subject liaison who is involved in managing the license).
  1. click + add new user
  2. Enter the name in the search field or browse by last name to select a staff member.
  3. Click the actions button to select to add the user to the license.
     1. Under the role dropdown, you can add information about how they will work with the agreement. Staff can define the 'Role' dropdown in the ERM_USER_ROLES authorized value. (Read More)
  4. You can add multiple users by clicking on +Add new user
• Documents - upload the license document to Koha.
  1. Click Add new document
  2. select a file by clicking Choose file
  3. options for entering additional information include
     1. physical location - free text field
     2. URL - free text field
     3. Notes - free text field

Finally, click submit when finished to save the License.

Searching for Licenses

Staff can search within the licenses table by using the search box. This works just like you would search when you are receiving items in acquisitions (for example). This search will filter licenses by the text or phrase when staff starts typing into the search box.

In addition, staff can use the Table columns to filter results. The second row of the agreement table contains text search boxes and dropdown fields. Staff can choose any of the dropdowns to activate the columns filtering. For example, by selecting the Type, staff can select national, consortial, local, or alliance to identify the type of license they are looking for. Alternatively, they could use the description search under the description column to identify a license.

Additional Resources

Koha ERM Module

Koha ERM Module - Agreements

Koha ERM Module - eHoldings