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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3034 results found
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Better management of serial prediction when publication frequency changes
Sometimes providers change a journal’s publication frequency throughout the year. So, the prediction’s pattern selected / elaborated at the beginning of the year doesn’t work anymore in Alma. One part of predictions (date of receipt) will be ok until the change but all other predicted items will be false. Now, we can revise the prediction during the year but we must erase the items already received. We can also leave the prediction defined at the beginning of the year and edit manually the false items from the time of the prediction change.
It would save a lot of time if…
392 votes -
Add an order action in the Purchase Request to “Approve and order from the CZ
Add an order action in the Purchase Request to “Approve and order from the CZ.” Alma would add an alert to the citation and redirect the user to the Community Zone, to the desired portfolio. The operator will only need to click on the "Approve and order from the CZ". Currently the only Action is “Approve and Order” which creates a local portfolio not linked to an E-Collection. It’s cumbersome and time consuming to re-link the POL and portfolio to the correct Community Zone record.
317 votes -
Subdivided LCSH headings should be flipped by Preferred Term Correction
Preferred Term Correction is not flipping all LCSH headings when the authority record changes. If there is an authority record that has a subdivision, it is only flipped by PTC if the heading in the bib has no additional subdivisions. This means there is a significant gap in the PTC process that requires manual attention and handling, which is unsustainable. The PTC process needs to be more thorough.
For example, this LCSH:
$a Germany $x Politics and government $y 19th century
was updated by LC to be:
$a Germany $x Politics and government $y 1789-1900
When the authority record changed,…
314 votes -
Update URL in porfolio when attached bib record's 856 is updated
When the URL in a bib record attached to a portfolio is updated (individually edited, or batch load/overlay of records), there should be a setting to the action so that the URL in an attached portfolio would also be updated and we don't have to remember to manually do this. We have had 2 recent instances, one where we used APIs to update bib records using our old PURL manager to use our new one, only to find that the portfolio URLs also needed to be changed separately, and one where we have a batch of vendor records with changed…
310 votes -
Metadata editor: Enable moving up and down within a field using arrow keys
It would be nice to be able to move up and down within a field using arrow keys in MDE. For example, when a lengthy 505 or 520 MARC field has many lines, the cataloger must now move to the desired line using either mouse or left/right arrow keys, since pressing up/down arrow causes the pointer to move to the previous/next field.
My suggestion is that the pointer should be able to move within the field using up/down arrows and move only to the previous/next field when the pointer is on the first/last line of the field.
Using up/down arrow…
298 votes -
Invalid email address list or failed to be sent notifications
We would like Alma to indicate somewhere (in a report, in the user account or else) if an email was not delivered to a patron or a vendor due to an invalid address. This would help to locate them faster and correct this data.
Otherwise, we would like to have a list by Alma institution of users / vendor accounts with invalid email addresses.Thank you!
285 votes -
Serials: Editing of Description Needed
When opening predicted items, the Description-Field is populated by the data provided in “Next Predicted Item´s information” and displays these data in a certain punctuation-logic. Unfortunately, this logic is not equal to the description- (and punctuation-) logic used in German speaking countries (which is following ZETA-Standard) – and there is no possibility to edit this. Since there has to be a correct description (for sorting etc.), the only way is to open and edit every single item once it is created by prediction pattern. This is causing a lot of unnecessary work to be done manually - we need the…
279 votes -
Allow Linking PO Lines to Electronic Inventory Regardless of Order Record Type
We keep running into road blocks with not being able to hotlink POLines into the POLine fields of either Electronic Collection Records or Portfolio records.
Is there a way that Alma can allow us to add POLines to Electronic inventory no matter what the order type is? This would save us so much time and allow us to use existing order lines for renewals. Right now we are doing a work around to connect order lines with electronic inventory by entering order information in the Portfolio Internal Description field.
266 votes -
Allow Reinstatement of Fines/Fees
Fines are occasionally processed in error or you might need to reinstate a fine payment taken on someone's account. We would like the ability to reinstate fines that have previously been paid or waived.
262 votes -
Add “next year” as an option in serials subscription date range drop down menu for invoice lines.
Many of the invoices we process are for serials subscriptions for the following calendar year. Having “next year” as an option, for invoice line subscription ranges would be quite helpful.
259 votes -
Improve the e-book purchase request workflow
The purchase request workflow needs to be improved for acqusition of electronic resources.
Currently, you can either approve or reject a purchase request. An approval automatically creates a POL and a standalone portfolio based in the Purchase Request BIB record. Both outcomes are unfortunate when working with e-books. An e-book will usually be ordered on the vendor site (e.g., the ProQuest portal) rather than through an Alma POL. It should be possible to select whether a POL is created. More importantly, we'd like the option, upon approval, to select and activeate a title from among CZ collections instead of having…257 votes -
Batch deleting PO's
There is currently no system job to delete PO's. These have to be done manually using the Acquisitions>Purchase Order>Delete PO function individually in ALMA.
We have 1000's of old orders migrated from our legacy system that are no longer required. We also now only keep 7 years worth of orders in line with current financial practice and so would like to be able to set a job to batch delete at rollover into the new fiscal period.
233 votes -
Add IdRef for Linked data Enrichment
Bibliographic information is currently enriched with URIs from several sources, mainly English language files (LCSH, LCNAMES, MeSH...See : https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/integrations/linked_data/ ).
Libraries who work with other authorities can't get benefit from these linked data enrichments. In order to improve cataloging support and to avoid local developments for discovery usage, it would be great to add the French authority file IdRef (https://www.idref.fr/) URIs to the list of enrichment possibilities. IdRef is the authority file used by academic and research institutions in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, and is integrated in Alma CZ in both Marc21 (originating system IdRef) and Unimarc (originating…232 votes -
Suggestions for Normalization Rules (NR) functions
Hello,
Please see the attached file.
We would appreciate it if the suggested Normalization Rules functions would be developed in Alma.Thanks
221 votesDear all,
We are looking into this idea, and it includes several enhancement requests with varying complexity. Could you please provide a prioritized list, so we can better asses these requests according to complexity and priority (alternatively, you might consider opening dedicated ideas - like in Hanoch Roniger's comment below - to gauge the need in the community for each feature)?
Thanks!
Lili
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Manage Item Returns: Send one Return Receipt Letter for all returned items per user
Returning items via "Manage Item Returns" generates one Return Receipt Letter per returned item. This means if one user returns several items he will get several e-mails, one for each item. This is annoying for users. The problem arises especially when the drop box for returns is used and the staff scans in lots of unsorted returned items from different users.
Scanned-in returns should be collected in a cache and allocated to the users who loaned them. After pressing "Exit" and closing the scan-in-session one return receipt per user containing all returns belonging to this user should be send.
Thanks…
220 votes -
Add Data Type category for the Title Report in COUNTER 5 section of analytics
The Master Title Report of COUNTER 5 includes ebook and journal titles. It is difficult to use this master report in analytics without having a data type or section type option to differentiate between which titles are journals and which are ebooks. The master title report is useless in analytics without this option. Please add the data type or section type category from the COUNTER 5 Master Title Report into the Analytics Usage Report.
218 votes -
Prevent change of due-date when the item is under the recalled status.
Or have an alert message of some kind when the due date is being changed.
Because when the due date is changed, the recalled item reverts back to its initial status making it difficult to determine if there are requests placed on the item.216 votes -
Allow configuration of quick cataloguing form required fields
We currently only use the quick cataloguing form at circulation desks to create quick records to loan items found on the shelves but not found on Alma. The items are loaned and then the work order routes them to the cataloguing team on return. All these items already have call numbers so we'd like the call number field to be a required field in the quick cataloguing form. Sometimes returned items are incorrectly returned to the shelves and if the quick catalogue record does not include the call number they are often impossible to track down.
215 votes -
Overriding and/or deleting a continuous POL at the item level
As a cataloger at a large research library, we frequently receive gap-fill purchases of periodical issues from third-party vendors or as gifts from donors—including for subscriptions that are still open.
We know that we can associate a POL at the holding level, but this is undesirable for these situations where we need to trace the POL/method-of-acquisition to an individual item. Also, if you change a continuous POL at the item level, Alma changes the POL for every item attached to that same holding.
Often we have many items purchased with different (or no) POLs—subscription, firm order, gift—together on one holding,…
213 votes -
Receiving workbench - more functionality
Receiving workbench should be the most logical place to have an Open Expected Items button when you run out of predicted items. An option to withdraw expected items on the receiving workbench should also be available if during receipt the receiving operator becomes aware that an issue will not be published.
211 votes
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