Alma
Your feedback matters to us. Help us improve Alma by telling us what you’d like to see using the message areas below. You can also can support something already posted.
We would love to be able to respond to every idea that is submitted, but this is not feasible. We are, however, committed to responding to the most popular ideas—those that have received the most points.
For more information please review our FAQ and guidelines. Thank you.
114 results found
-
'Undo Last Action' option for Resource Sharing requests
Many times, our library staff accidentally choose an unintended Resource Sharing status or scan the wrong barcode when shipping material. They either realize the error too late, or they instantly regret the results of the status change.
Currently, there is no good way to undo this type of unintended error for both partners. Manually changing the status only changes it on your end, not the partner's end, which throws off the entire workflow. This usually forces the partners to create brand new requests in order to finish circulating the material. This is more work for everyone involved and throws off…
28 votes -
Alma RS - Lending - Ship item digitally - email address to be viewable & editable
When Lending requests are shipped via ‘Ship item digitally’ staff cannot see the Borrowing library’s email address.
Below is a specific case with a VDX borrowing library. However the case can be applied to other scenarioes such as when a borrowing library asks to have the request shipped to a different email address.
Case:
When a VDX Borrowing library has the VDX proprietary DocStore enabled and sends a Lending request to an Alma library, the DocStore email address is output in the email request field in Alma RS (docdellibrariesaustralia@vdxhost.com).• Non VDX libraries cannot send digital content to…
24 votes -
RS BORROWING : A misleading error when patron's library card has expired
When trying to receive or send a borrowing request that is already open in alma, but the patron's library card has expired since then,
The message says: NO ITEMS CAN FULFILL THE SUBMITTED REQUEST
There is no way to guess that there is a problem with the patron info.
a better message would be: "there is a problem concerning patron's card"38 votes -
Add Rapid ILL lending categories to Electronic Collections in Alma
Please add a new Rapid ILL lending status field to electronic collections so libraries can indicate the following Rapid ILL lending statuses and more easily create logical sets to automatically send holdings to Rapid:
• LendableInternational: You are able to fill lending requests from any other Rapid libraries around the world. This is typically the Lendable value used for print materials that you want to make available in Rapid.
• LendableCountry: You are able to fill lending requests only from Rapid libraries in your country. This is typically the Lendable value used for electronic materials.
• LocalOnly: You are not…151 votes -
Improvement in Borrowing request search
When searching Borrowing Requests, we would like the ability to make keyword search and to be able to search for barcodes.
This would enable staff to work more efficiently, since they would have the ability to search across indexes, and search specific requests with a barcode.
32 votes -
Allow Fulfillment Network Member (AFN) to lend resources, but not serve as a physical pick-up location for other network members' patrons
Since some institutions have buildings with perpetual restricted access, we have some AFN fulfillment network member libraries that are willing to send their materials to another AFN member library for pick-up, but, for all functional purposes, they are closed to the public. They don't want patrons from the other AFN institutions to visit their library in person, and thus, don't want patrons from another AFN institution to select their library as a pick-up location.
This need has been heightened during the pandemic, with more institutions closed to the public.
We know that turning off all circ desk hold shelves will…
101 votesIt will be possible to set the library with a ‘pickup for guest users’ indication that can be turned off. This will prevent the library from showing up as pickup location on AFN/FN request forms
-
Increase customisation options for the resource sharing request form
User experience testing that we conducted showed that most users prefer to place resource sharing requests via the resource sharing request form in Primo. Users also expressed frustration with some aspects of the form including the format of the fields. They also expected that the Library could add notices relevant to the resource sharing service to this page.
The current options for configuring this form do not allow us to meet the expectations of our users. We would like to have more options for customising the page the form is on and the form itself. Specifically we would like :…
357 votesWe are looking into improvements that can be made to the Primo VE form, such as:
- Add a custom notice or message to the form
- Improve the form fields’ responsiveness to the requested format (book/article and physical/digital)
- Look into ways to enhance the configurability of the look and feel for the form
-
Separate field for borrowing request statuses to display in My Library Account
The borrowing request statuses in Alma are configurable, so that you can change the text that appears for both library staff and the user (in My Library Account).
However, we would like the ability to have a separate field where the status can be configured for the user which affects the display in My Library Account only. This is because we would like to provide detail in these statuses for our staff, that our users do not need to see.
For example, for the borrowing request status 'Request sent to partner' you may want to retain this status for library…
43 votes -
Resource Sharing Electronic Locate for Borrowing article requests
A borrowing article request is stopped for local ownership when the library has an electronic database that may have coverage for the journal.
Currently, the borrowing locate local ownership check does not check the year, volume, or issue in the article request to determine if the library has access to this specific year in the database. The borrowing locate does not check for embargo status.
Because the citation year is not checked for local ownership, requests are stopped from being automatically sent to lending libraries that have the article. Library staff must spend time checking if their library has access…
65 votes -
When a patron renews in Primo an item from other institution borrowed by the resource sharing library should create a "Task requiring your..
When a patron renews in Primo an item from other institution borrowed by the resource sharing library the staff does not get a message of this request. The only thing is that the borrowing request changes its status to "Mediated Patron Renewal"
58 votes -
Resource Sharing Claims - Sending Additional Claims and Sending Claim Letter Manually
It should be possible to configure the automatic Claims job to send additional Claims every X number of days, until the status of the request is updated to Received.
In the meantime, it should be possible to send additional Claim letters manually (and not as a General Message).
21 votes -
Claiming Resource Sharing Borrowing Requests by Format Type
The new Automatic Claim feature does not differentiate between Format Types when adding "Time to Claim (days)" in the Partner record. For example, it should be possible to write 2 days for Digital requests and 5 days for Physical requests.
21 votes -
Adding User Type field
It will be great if the User Type field could appear once you click to see the requester details in a borrowing request in Resource Sharing and in Fulfillment once you click to see who holds a loaned book (Screenshots attached).
36 votes -
Use preferred email from Partner record for shipping digital Lending Requests
Often the Requester Email in a Lending Request is not the email that we can ship a digital item to (or sometimes the Requester Email is empty). Instead, the email address we use is from the preferred email address in the Partner record. We would like configuration to be made available so institutions could choose to use the preferred email address from the Partner record in Alma when shipping digitally instead of the Requester Email address that comes with the Lending Request.
37 votes -
Fulfillment Configuration Utility for resource sharing
I would like Fulfillment Configuration Utility to also work for Resource Sharing. Or a separate service for RS.
It is invaluable in troubleshooting.
This service could be a light in the dark cave that is RS.
18 votes -
Create resource sharing integration with DOCLINE
Create integration for borrowing and lending requests to be pushed/pulled to/from DOCLINE.
See https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/37290289-alma-to-docline-oai-pmh-integration for holdings integration to DOCLINE.
53 votes -
Ability to view ISO messages in Lending requests
We would like the ability to view the original XML/ISO messages sent between lender and requester in our Lending requests. There is information we need that doesn’t display in requests when they come into our system.
Examples include:
*Copyright declaration: we need this for copyright compliance reporting purposes
*Maximum cost: if this doesn’t display, we have to confirm that the requesting library accepts our charges if the cost is going to be over the standard charge
*Expiry date: the request status changes to Expired if this date is passed, and the request moves on in the rota
*Need by date:…
77 votes -
Add preferred address to Resource Sharing Shipping Slip Letter
I suggest that preferred shipping information be added to notificationdata/partnershippinginfolist/partnershippinginfo in the xml of this letter. Currently all registered partner addresses are added to the XML with no indication of which is the preferred address.
As a result the true shipping address cannot be deduced from the XML, which leads to a manual address lookup before shipping.
21 votes -
Make the email that is generated when an ILLiad resource sharing partner exports a request to a third party customizable
Unfortunately, ILLiad's email import feature does not always import emails generated by Alma properly. This happens mainly when there is a copyright symbol in the requested item's publication date. Giving us the ability to remove the publication date field from the email generated by Alma would help us manage this issue until OCLC and Atlas Systems can find a proper fix.
19 votes -
Email notification to ISO Partners about Overdue Items
We would like for the Borrowing Library to receive an email notification (in addition to the patron) when an item is Overdue.
Since Dec. 2018 this option is available for NCIP Partners, but not for ISO Partners12 votes
- Don't see your idea?