Suspend/Freeze/Pause a Patron Request

Current situation or problem:
Sometimes, patrons are in line for items but want to pause their place in a request queue - perhaps they're going on vacation or a research trip, and they don't want to miss out on the item if their turn for it happens and they're not on campus.

This feature is written to capture the development needs for a "pause request" feature for FOLIO.

In scope

• Addition of a new request status that indicates a request is in a paused state - "Open - Paused" has been suggested
• The ability to pause both an item-level request and a title-level request
• The ability to set an end date for the pause period

Out of scope

Use case(s)

• A professor is waiting for an item but is about to leave for a two-month research trip; he's 5th in line out of 10; he pauses the request at that point, specifies an end date for the pause. When he returns, and after the end date expires, his request becomes active again. There are now 8 people in line for the item; he is still at position 5.
• A library is going to be closed for several weeks. There are a number of requests waiting in Open status for pickup at a service point at that library. Rather than cancelling the requests, the library chooses to pause them so that they cannot be filled while the pickup service point is closed.

Proposed solution/stories

• Slack discussion: https://folio-project.slack.com/archives/C3G05TF3R/p1644007439857309
• Possible approach
  • Add a new request status - "Open - Paused"
  • Add an date field - "Pause until" - on the request.
  • Create an API to pause a request
    • When request is paused, set change request status to "Open-Paused"
    • Set date field "Pause until" to appropriate date
  • Create an API to unpause a request
    • When request is unpaused, change request status to "Open - Not Yet Filled"
      • If an item is available, trigger process to fill request
      • Remove "Pause until" date
  • Change request queue management processes to handle paused requests - item-level
    • When a request is filled and queue numbers change, introduce logic to recognize a paused request and "skip" it when moving items up in line
  • Change request queue management processes to handle paused requests - title-level

Links to additional info

Questions

• Should it be required to specify a "pause until" date or could you infinitely pause a request?
• What should happen if a patron is at the end of a request queue (say they are 5 out of 5) and the item keeps circulating while their request is paused? E.g., if their request wasn't paused, they'd start moving up the line to get the book. If they keep moving up the line and are eventually #1, but still paused, but what should happen?