More order type options for Additional Orders
We would like more order types to choose from when creating additional orders on a portfolio using the “Additional Order” button. Particularly, Electronic Book - One Time and Electronic Title - One Time.
Currently there are only a limited number of order types available when creating an order via this method. This creates inefficiencies, because using the Additional Order button is the easiest, quickest and neatest way to create an additional order on a portfolio.
An example of where this change would be helpful is when purchasing additional copies of a limited-user ebook. Because we don’t have the option of creating an Electronic Book - One Time order via the Additional Order function, we have to follow an unnecessarily convoluted process to create the order and attach it to the portfolio. Simply adding more “type” options for Additional Order would save us a great deal of time.
To address the need of "Electronic Book - One Time order via the Additional Order function", Alma supports the "Additional Order" purchase type (when creating additional order for PO line type "Electronic" the "License upgrade" option will appear), this will support the flow of purchasing additional copies of a limited-user ebook.
For more information see:
Noam Fass | Alma product team
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Dear community,
After reviewing this idea and all of the comments, we understand that there are two main workflow that you wish to improve:
#1 The additional purchase of more concurrent users to an existing resource.
#2 The addition of portfolios to a an existing collection.>>> Regarding #1:
We believe that such scenario can be resolved by using the PO line type “License upgrade” (see https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/2020/Alma_2020_Release_Notes_Included_Material/Tova_Alma_Scratch_202001#(URM-113509)_License_Upgrade_Purchase_Type_Available_on_Purchase_Orders).
This PO line type was added in January 2020, and meant to reflect a change in the license terms, for example, more concurrent users for a resource. It can be created as an additional PO line, you could also choose the Access model already in the creation phase.Once created, you will see the portfolio in the PO line, mentioning that this PO line is additional to this portfolio (see image1).
Does this workflow answer your needs and requirements?
>>> Regarding #2:
The goal is to be able to purchase an addition of portfolios to a an existing collection, without the need to create a new PO line for that collection, un-link the previous main PO line and re-link the new created PO line.
The following solution is considered:
We would like to offer in the available additional PO line types the following: Electronic Collection – One Time and Electronic Collection – Subscription. When choosing these types as additional orders, the PO line will be created as an additional to the collection. No new inventory (collection) will be created (different behavior than a creation of Electronic Collection – One Time and Electronic Collection – Subscription as a main PO line).
> In the ordered material section, there will be an indication for it being an additional PO line (see image2)
> This order will be sent to vendor (depending on the Acquisition method selected). Users could state in the “Note to vendor” field to which portfolios this order refers.
> It is important to mention that this resource won’t get to the activation task list since the PO line is additional.Does this workflow answer your needs and requirements?
Thank you,
Zohar Shemesh
Alma Acquisition Team -
Lina Nesoviene commented
Just to share my experience - when I want to make an additional order with the same PO Line type (let‘s say, "Electronic Collection - Subscription"), I do this way - I remove the existing PO line from the collection, then create a new PO Line as usual, and finally I add the old PO Line to the collection, as additional. This way I get a few PO Lines with the same order type („Electronic Collection - Subscription“) attached to the same electronic collection.
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Katherine O'Brien commented
Is there any update on this? It has been under review since October 2021
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Lisa Wallis commented
This seems so basic. If you're ordering the same thing again, why wouldn't the same order type be useful? I use this button for new streaming media licenses of the same title. We'd had a license in the past, it expired, but now we need to purchase another license. It's an Electronic Title - One Time ('Title' being our customization)
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Katherine O'Brien commented
Given that (as we have only recently discovered) Alma does not support sending the quantity field to the vendor for electronic EDI orders, this also becomes more pressing. We want to be able to order multiple licenses without creating additional portfolios.
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Katherine O'Brien commented
We also support this idea and the extras mentioned in the comments. This would address a lot of clunky workflow processes and allow things to be tracked in Alma in a way that makes sense
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Sabina Loehrer commented
We support that idea and would like to add that for us the order type "electronic collection - one time" should be available when creating additional orders.
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Ulrikke Greve Olufsen commented
This would make our workflow so much easier! Adding the order type for Electronic Collection - One Time as suggested in the comments would also be great, as we order yearly e-book collections but use the same collection for the portfolios (if there is no yearly collection in the CZ).
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Bertrand Daldy commented
Given the COVID situation, the growth in ordering extra copies of e-books has exploded so any workflow that makes this easier would be highly beneficial. The other method we use is time consuming and can lead to other problems.
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Cathy Murr commented
Is there any news on this? We are still using the clunky order without inventory workflow and it would be so, so simple if we could just create an Electronic Book One Time order from the Additional Order button instead.
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Anonymous commented
I'm throwing my opinion in as well. I'd love to see multiple orders allowed for eresources. You don't always order a resource just one time and the type or order can change. Trying to juggle the system to meet a basic workflow requirement is not desirable. I particularly like the having the option for Standing Order for collections -- we purchase a lot of Front File ebook collections and standing order would be more appropriate than subscription.
Multiple orders for print materials can be done with no problem -- the same order options should be allowed for electronic materials, regardless of whether it is the first or second or third order.
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Andreas commented
I mean, the preferred solution for us would be an increase of Additional order types as described by Katie, but if this is not possible an increase of order types for Orders without inventory (as discribed below) would be great, too.
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Andreas commented
I highly support this case, but also with respect to Electronic Collections: There are several scenarios where more than one "main"-order per Electronic Collection is desirable. E.g., one does not want to generate a new Electronic Collection for every additional purchase from the same respective vendor/provider:
Assume I purchase a customized journal backfile package - consisting of 10 journals - from a publisher. Hence, I make an Electronic Collection, assign the relevant portfolios to it, order it with "Electronic Collection - One Time" and process through the activation workflow. Well, so far I'm ok.
Assume further some months later I purchase another customized journal backfile package from the very same publisher - consisting of 5 journals. I do not want to make an additional Electronic Collection to handle this second purchase - I want to manage it through the previously added Electronic Collection since license terms, publisher/vendor, interface and so on are the same and I don't want two or more Electronic Collections for the journal backfile purchases from one and the same vendor.Now I just cannot make a second order from the original Electronic Collection (just an additional order - which excludes the relevant Purchase types such as "Electronic Collection - One Time").
Order without inventory seems the evident solution, but again the Purchase types are too limited here. Basically, we would need the Purchase types
Electronic Collection – One Time
Electronic Collection – Subscription
Electronic Journal – One Time
Electronic Journal – Subscription
Electronic Book – Standing Order
Electronic Book – Subscription
Electronic Title – One Time
Electronic Title – Standing Order
Electronic Title – Subscriptionfor Order without inventory option!
Regards
Andreas -
Susan Smith commented
I wish I had more than a single vote left for this, we're increasingly having to buy additional ebooks. The current process is a faff, having the option of using 'Additional Order' with Electronic book - one time, as the type would simplify this process.
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Katie Finch commented
It is the second scenario - we are purchasing additional concurrent users for an existing ebook, on the same platform. We want any additional orders to be attached to the original portfolio in this case, and the quickest and easiest way to do this would be to simply create the additional order on the portfolio in the first place (as opposed to creating the POL separately, then linking it to the portfolio as a second step). The lack of available order types prevents us from doing this.
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Hello. Is what you "actually" want here to "duplicate" an existing order? In other words, is the desired action to be able to take an existing order of any status and "duplicate it", thereby creating another order of same type to same library to same vendor, and then order additional inventory?
Or: are you ordering additional concurrent users, as is typically done via a service.
This is not a statement of any development plans but rather an inquiry for additional information.