We are disappointed with the technical support service provided by Ex Libris. We strongly believe that Ex Libris should provide customers with more effective, prompt and interactive service.

There should be an option to call or chat online in real time with a support person who has a sound understanding of the product in question. This would be in line with all system vendors we have previously dealt with.

We appreciate that there will be some issues that are designated as bugs or enhancements and will require more in depth investigation. However, a direct call/chat option with a properly trained support analyst would quickly and efficiently separate these issues from more general product queries. We are aware that there are many call-logging options used widely by other companies, such as FastCall, TenFold and RingDNA, which can be used to allow customer calls/chats to be registered directly in Salesforce. We believe that Ex Libris should implement this improvement as soon as possible.

Please vote to show your support for this idea and feel free to add comments relating to your experience of this issue.

We would like to have the possibility to include access information in the data that are published from Alma to Primo for Alma-D records (per representation).
Use case:
At this moment, we make the digitized content of all institutions searchable in the views of all institutions of the network.
This is can be very useful for items that are freely available, including digitized heritage.
However, it is inconvenient and confusing for items with restricted access, when the content can only be viewed by users of the institution.
Yet the availability indication for these items is "Online access", because we cannot make the difference between public and restricted items as this information is not published to Primo.

We would like to make the freely available digital materials searchable in all views of the network but items with restricted access only within the view of the institution.
If the information about the restricted access is in the published XML, we can use this in the normalization rules to assign the relevant search scopes.

For those of us working with continuing resources:

When viewing a list of physical items, the sort routine defaults to Library/Location. The items do not appear in any particular order when the results are loaded. Often I change the sort routine to Description or Receiving Date to view the most recent serial items and order them chronologically for viewing.

It would be nice if the sort routine "sticks" so that every time I open a list of items, the sort mechanism will stay on Description (not default back to Library/Location)

This would be especially helpful when managing items in the Receiving module "Received Items List," as we constantly must sort by Description to make sure no serial issues have been missed, and that the most recent issue has been received.

This is very helpful when checking PO lines in the Claims list. From the PO line details page, I click under Ordered Items>View Items. The List of Items sort routine often "sticks" here so that every time I View Items, they are automatically sorted by my previous choice (Description, Receiving Date, etc). This is the only instance I have seen the sort routine stick!

Please, Alma, remember my sorting preferences!

Because all norm rules can be edited by all staff with cataloger roles, there is great room for erroneous changes for rules that are applied to batch jobs. For example, the norm rule that is applied to records being brought in from Z39.50 targets can be edited by any staff member. A single error in the rule can break the z39.50 import process for all staff until the source of the error is identified. Likewise, if we have a rule applied to import profiles and a staff member inadvertently changes it and we load 50,000 records, that could cause huge data corruption. There needs to be a way to secure a norm rule to administrators such that normal staff with cataloger roles cannot change them.

Alma authority control does not handle cases where the bib heading is linked to an authority via a cross-reference, but the preferred and non-preferred terms are in different fields, e.g. preferred term is in authority field 130 and cross-reference in authority is in 410.

Alma should be able to handle this scenario. Currently when the bib heading matches the authority cross-reference, Alma won't correct these and instead puts them on this report: Preferred Term Correction - Bib Heading found no authorized term.

Example bib heading that Alma won't correct:

110/2_ $$a Allied and Associated Powers (1914-1920). $$t Treaties, etc. $$g Germany, $$d 1919 June 28.

The authority record that this heading links to (via its cross-reference)

130/_0 $$a Treaty of Versailles $$d (1919 June 28)
410/2_$$a Allied and Associated Powers (1914-1920). $$t Treaties, etc. $$g Germany, $$d 1919 June 28

The bib heading in 110 links to the authority via the cross-reference in the 410, but because the preferred term in the authority is in 130 (and not 110), Alma will not flip the heading.

Collaborative collecting agreements are becoming increasingly critical for libraries in managing collections and access across institutions. Formal agreements require libraries to commit to hold specific items. Currently, there is no way to mark this in records unless in free text notes, and no system checks in place for items to prevent accidental weeding of items that libraries have committed to retain. This idea outlines system functionality to ensure that libraries can safely manage committed collections.

• Two new fields in Alma Items: a Committed to Retain check box and a Retention note free text field (minimum of 200 characters)

• A system check that does not allow withdraw (delete) of items in batch, via api, or via the user interface for items with the Committed to Retain toggle set to yes, but instead presents an error noting that the item is Committed to Retain.

• Ability to update these fields manually through the user interface, update in batch via inventory batch job, and update via the item API

• Addition of the Committed to Retain value and Retention note to analytics to allow for collection analysis

My libraries circulate various pieces of equipment from microphones, to musical instruments, to 3D printers, to lockers, and the current physical material type table does not suffice without adding a slew of item policies or location codes, which is messy and makes the resulting analytics more painful than it should be.

Ex Libris support states that "The [physical material type] codes cannot be changed, because Development needs them for statistics across libraries." However individual libraries will have items that they need to distinguish between either for fulfillment rule purposes or our own statistics.

I would like there to be about 15 generic material types added to this table that will allow libraries a bit of flexibility in dealing with this category. Similar to how Primo has blank PNX fields that can be used to create additional facets, etc. that best fit the needs of the library and its users.

The new short_loan_courtesy_reminder & short_loan_overdue_reminder cannot be configured for multiple locations. For institutions with several hourly loan locations (for example Boston College maintains 2 and 3 hour loan periods for Course Reserves and a 4 hour loan period for some technology items) this dictates that the reminder notice has to be set based on the location with the shortest loan period. The overdue notice must be timed to make sense for for the longest loan period.

In our test configuration we used the following time parameters:

​short_loan_courtesy_reminder - 105 minutes
short_loan_overdue_reminder - 241 minutes

However, this creates a situation whereby patrons borrowing from some locations will have already incurred an overdue charge before the overdue notice is sent.

In order for this functionality to provide the service is designed for, it must be robust enough to support different loan periods.

https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/030Fulfillment/080Configuring_Fulfillment/110General#Configuring_Fulfillment_Jobs

A new multi-selection field, Purchase Request Library, was added to the User Details page with the June 2018 release. If one or more libraries are defined for a user, the user may create purchase requests only for the listed libraries. If no libraries are defined, the user may create a purchase request for any library.

But managing Purchase Request Libraries in user records can only be done record per record; there is no possibility for batch processes.

Currently, there is no option:
- to add or remove a Purchase Request Library with the Update/Notify Users job;
- to add or remove a Purchase Request Library with an API;
- to add or remove a Purchase Request Library with a SIS Integration Profile;
- to retrieve in Alma Analytics existing Purchase Request Libraries in user records or to find user records that have no Purchase Request Library.

We would appreciate a lot a more efficient Purchase Request Library management that would be integrated with the existing tools (Analytics, SIS, job, API).

When a 655 field is coded for LCSH and matches a non-preferred term in LCGFT, Alma flips the heading to the preferred LCGFT term but does not update the coding (it should change the 2nd ind to 7 and add $2 lcgft).

The problem is limited to cases where:

A bib heading 655/_0 matches a non-preferred term in an LCGFT authority

What happens is:

The PTC job flips the heading to the LCGFT preferred form, but it does not change the 2nd-indicator from 0 to 7, and does not add $2lcgft

What is not a problem:

655/_0 headings that already match preferred LCSH/LCGFT form
655/_7, $2 lcgft (these get controlled appropriately)
655/_7, $2 fast (these get controlled appropriately)
655/_7, $2 any other vocab (these do not get controlled)


Example of the bug:

Before: 655/_0 $a Dissertations, Academic
After: 655/_0 $a Academic theses.