Alma
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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.
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1827 results found
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Request letter
We would like to be able to send a user a notification about a request immediately after placing the request. The notice would give basic information about the status of the request. Something along the lines of the "interested in" letter. Running a request report once a day is insufficient for our operations.
144 votes -
Allow cataloguers to choose which names are linked to authority files
Allow cataloguers to choose which names are linked to authority files
This is important because the all on or off automatic linking creates links for unqualified names and catalogers want the option to verify and thus link names in the way it is done in connexion.
This when the authority data is updated - every record attached to it is improved and unqualified or non-established names do not get affected.
143 votes -
Searching for a title with "&" should also search "and" when searching for PO lines and invoices
When searching for a title in any of the Acquisitions (i.e. Order Lines, Invoices, Vendors, Funds, etc.) filters, searching for a title containing "and" should also pull up any results with an ampersand (&) in the title.
e.g. Searching the title "Law and Inequality" will not find the title's PO line unless it is spelled as "Law & Inequality."
143 votes -
Customize the amount of holdings displayed in the brief results
Currently, only 5 holdings are displayed in the "Physical" tab in the brief results list in Alma. For IZs with many libraries, this is not always ideal and many clicks are necessary before getting to the complete list of holdings.
The new sortlibraryby_relevance parameter helps but doesn't solve all issues.
Therefore, we'd like to ask to implement a functionality similar to what can be done for the amount of records to be displayed in the results list (at the moment, one can choose between 10/20/50) so that for example staff users can choose whether they want to see…142 votes -
Ability to schedule manual jobs on a regular basis
At our institution, we have some manual jobs we would like to schedule on a regular basis (daily, weekly, etc.). For example, after we purchase a physical title and a PO line is created in Alma, we run the manual job, change holding information on a logical set. This job updates the holding call number (852 $h and $i) from the bibliographic record and also updates the library and location (852 $b and $c) based on the Library of Congress call number in 852 $h.
We are aware that there is an Alma Jobs API (https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/Working-with-the-Alma-Jobs-API) that could…
140 votesDear Customers,
I'm happy to inform you that the capability to schedule manual jobs is planned to be released in May 2024 Release.
Thanks,
Uri Beladev
Product Manager
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Alma Templates: allow user-by-user customization of default holdings templates
The shared MARC21 holdings templates in Alma offer customization of the template properties, allowing the selection of one template as the default. This customization applies to the entire institution, and not the individual Alma user. Therefore, when we have multiple catalogers working with multiple templates, they all have to conform to one default template. It would be useful to allow each cataloger to set the default template for their workflow.
140 votes -
Add a facultative note to patron when rejecting purchase request
Our proposal is to add a free field text in the popup when rejecting a purchase request. This field would include a note to the user, detailing the reject reason.
This could be used by the library in several ways :
- give the link to the record in Primo for documents already available ;
- give the link to an Open Access version of the document ;
- give details about the book (out of print...).It would make communication more personal
138 votes -
Related holdings displayed only after "direct" holdings in the brief results
Currently, only 5 holdings are displayed in the "Physical" tab in the brief results list in Alma. In many cases holdings and "related" holdings are mixed and displayed without any particular ranking. Especially when many of them are present, it takes many clicks before one can exclude the related holdings and obtain a list of all holdings linked directly to a record.
The "Physical" tab in Alma could be changed like this: all holdings linked directly to the record are displayed first (regardless of the library), and only then come the holdings of related records.138 votes -
Alma collections: Allow to add from network zone
Our Alma consortium shares a common network zone. On the local institution level, we are building Alma collections (not digital/electronic collections). We can add titles from the institution zone, but we can't add titles from the network zone.
This is documented:
Alma Online Help (English) > Resource Management > Inventory > Managing Collections"You can only add titles from your Institution Zone to collections. NZ-managed inventory cannot be added to collections."
This is very bad since many of our e-book packages are managed on the NZ level. So we can't add e-books to our collection and present them together with…
137 votes -
Set up Online Service Order configuration in the NZ and be able to share with the IZ.
We would like to be able to set up Online Service Order in the NZ and share that configuration with the IZ. The goal is push the shared OA e-collections to the bottom of the list so they do not display first in the list.
136 votes -
Analytics Reports for Deleted Purchase Requests
I would like to be able to run Analytics reports on deleted purchase requests. Currently, deleted purchase requests are not available in Analytics. Therefore, we don't want to delete any of our hundreds of purchase requests because we'd lose the ability to generate Analytics reports on them. Having hundreds of old purchase requests accumulate in Alma becomes unwieldy.
136 votes -
Job or tool for extraction of related bibliographic records
We would like the ability to get a hold of or extract the related bibliographic records in bulk based on a set of (other) bib-records.
Alma already now automatically displays related records in "other details". We understand that the links are built based on bibliographic data in the MARC linking fields: 773, 774, 777, 786, 800, 810, 811, and 830 (subfield w,x,z).
An example of a related record is a title within a monographic series. In this case, the bib record for the single monograph has a 830 $w with the MMS-ID/system number of the superordinate bib record.
We would…
135 votes -
Empty User Roles via API
We would like to be able to empty all user roles using an API call. Currently, User_Roles is the only segment that keeps untouched when the API call object does not contain any roles. This makes it necessary to keep at least one role as a parameter and it makes no sense from the API usability as it actually always returns the full user objets including empty roles arrays when we delete all roles from Alma end-point.
135 votes -
Improve Alma Link Resolver’s performance with Pubmed IDs (PMIDs)
Improve Alma Link Resolver’s performance with Pubmed IDs (PMIDs) such that it is as good or better than Serials Solutions’ 360 Link performance with Pubmed IDs. Areas where this is currently a problem include translation of OpenURL data from Pubmed over to Illiad through Alma Linker and Primo, item level linking between Pubmed, Alma Linker and Cochrane Library, and probably many other areas.
134 votes -
Suppress bib record when no active portfolios/services
If a record has zero active services, it should be automatically suppressed in Primo. When we choose to use the CDI records for a collection instead of the CZ records, there is a button to "change to CDI-only full text activation." This suppresses the service, but it does not suppress the bib records. We have to manually run a job on each collection to also suppress the bib records. Most of the time this is fine (even though it's an extra step), but if some of the CZ bib records overlap with other collections, we don't necessarily want to suppress…
133 votes -
BATCH JOB TO CREATE ITEMS
We need a batch job to add items to existing holdings records. During migration we did not realize the importance of having items for display in Primo. One of our locations shows (0 copies, 0 available) when we do have non-circulating copies.
131 votesDear all,
I would like to update you on our plans to support creation of multiple items.
We are looking into adding 2 workflows, to support different needs in libraries:
1. Creating multiple items for a specific holdings record, using item templates.
The "Add item from template" functionality coming in May release will allow automatically filling in the fields of a new item from a template. We are looking into a future enhancement using this feature, to also allow librarians to specify a number of items to add - so that multiple items will be created pre-populated from the template.
This will be an easy, quick way to add multiple copies of a book, etc.
2. Creating multiple items from Excel using a CloudApp
This will work similarly to the existing "Item updater by Excel" CloudApp, allowing the librarian to upload an Excel with item information, but instead of specifying…
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Include Fulfillment Notes when Shipping items in Resource Sharing
It would be nice if pop-up fulfillment notes on an item record were attached to a resource sharing request when an item is shipped, much like the barcode currently does. So if a damaged book has a note saying "Underlining noted," that note would attach to the request record so that the borrowing institution could see it. This would make it easier for the people processing on either end to know whether an item shipped with damage, or a set shipped with a certain amount of items, etc.
130 votes -
Alternative Call Number in Manage Patron Services-Requests
In Manage Patron Services, tab Requests, we can’t display or add Alternative Call Number.
For us is important the visibility of this field due to it’s our location system.
We would like this field to be displayed.Thanks!
129 votes -
Add the ability to add notes to POLs en masse
During some projects, it is necessary to append the same note to a group of POLs (cancellation projects, for instance).
Being able to add a note to a group of POLs en masse (versus adding the note to each POL one by one) would be helpful.
129 votesDear Community,
This is to update you that we plan to enhance the "Update PO Lines Information" job in a future Alma release. We plan to add 19 new fields to this job:
Additional PO line reference field
Cancellation Restriction
Cancellation Restriction Note
Add labels
Remove labels
Create new label
Reclaim interval
Subscription interval
Note to vendorVendor reference number type
Routing during receiving
Binding during receiving
Activation note
Renewal date
Subscription from
Subscription to
Renewal reminder period (days)
Renewal note
Internal noteIn addition, the job form will be divided into sections, allowing to easily locate the required field/s to update.
Please follow up on Alma Release Notes for update on this development.
Best wishes,
Zohar Shemesh
Alma Product Team
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PO line description should represent current bibliographical data
Alma provides insufficient data in PO lines for the task of pulling a list of subscriptions a library has of a specific publisher's titles:
The PO line description contains only bibliographical data from the bib record as it was at the time the PO line was created. Subsequent changes in the publisher data are not updated in the related PO lines.
Even in newly created PO lines, Alma introduces the content of MARC field 264 _1 instead of 264 31 if such a field exists, i.e. it copies the first, not the current publisher’s name into the PO line description.
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128 votes
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