Alma
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119 results found
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Reset PO and POL number every year
Dear colleagues,
Currently, the POs and POLs numbers are generated automatically and the turn of the calendar year has no effect on it.We would find very convenient that, at the start of each year, the sequence starts again.
The first PO of 2023 of would be PO-2023-1, same with the POLs POL-2023-1.
The numbers would gain in clarity.Thank your for considering this.
Kind regards,
Maxime333 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.
265 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.
226 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,…
212 votes -
Change currency in the order
In the order the currency can not changed when the order is saved already. See attachment too, please.
We need a possibility to change the currency after sending the order. Here are the reasons:
a) During the order creation it was made a mistake.
b) For subscriptions and standing orders the currency changes during the lifecycle. First we used British pound and than we use Euro, for example. The vendor changes the currency and we also have to be able to change that.198 votes -
Interested In Letter – improvement to the usability
When working on a purchase request, you can tick a box if you would like to notify the patron upon receiving/activation, and upon cancellation.
OTB the Interested In Letter sends the same message when the request is received or cancelled. The letter in use does not seem designed for the cancellation message.
This creates a discrepancy between what we choose to notify the patron of, and what we are actually able to communicate.
Since we neither have access to the message table used as an input to this letter, or the opportunity to differentiate by using labels, we are forced…
157 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.
130 votes -
Automatic orders claiming
At the moment Alma only sends one claim request to the vendor. If the ordered item is still not received, staff need to follow up and re-claim manually; usually a number of times.
We would like to see claim cycle functionality in Alma so that we can configure follow-up claims based on a set interval per vendor, as well as a maximum number of claims to be sent before the order is automatically cancelled and the vendor automatically notified. It would also be useful to be able to see the history of claims for an order, and be able to…
130 votes -
Enable configuring VAT on the purchase order line level
Institutions should be able to enable configuring VAT on the purchase order line level so that it can be taken into account for encumbrance calculation. Having the VAT only configured at the invoice stage creates incorrect Fund Balance reports where Encumbered Balance is always underestimated and Available Balance always overestimated. A distinction between Inclusive and Exclusive VAT in the POL would be necessary.
122 votes -
Add more fields to the Update PO lines information & Update POLs Advanced jobs
All fields of the POL should be something that can be updated by job.
Some specific fields that it would be really helpful to have in the Update PO Lines Information or Update PO Lines Information Advanced jobs are:
Subscription from/to dates
Renewal date
Cancellation Restriction checkbox & Cancellation Restriction Note
While it might be possible to update these fields via the APIs, the permissions and skill level needed to use the APIs is much higher than to run jobs.111 votes -
Ability to add closed purchase order lines to the Acquisitions tab, PO Line field on active portfolios
Alma will not let you place a closed PO Line in the portfolio Acquisitions tab, PO Line field.
We want to tie closed PO Lines to active portfolios because the PO Line is why we have archival access and why the portfolios are still turned on after cancellation.
Migration to Alma results in many PO Lines not linked in the Acquisitions tab PO Line field. Cleaning this up would involve reopening the PO Lines and closing them. This is too much effort for what we need to accomplish. Please implement!
89 votes -
Additional functionality for new Born Digital POL types
As a Legal Deposit library we process physical and born digital material in the same way through Acquisitions; creating bib records (often pre-publication), POLs and claiming if we don't receive material in the expected timeframe. We need the new Digital POLs to work as close to the Physical workflow as possible.
The new born digital workflow assumes that we have the file in hand and can attach the representation when we create the POL. That is not always the case for us as we create a lot of POLs pre-publication as well as for material where we then need to…
76 votes -
Delete interested users job - independent of Interested In Letter
Ex Libris says the Delete interested users job "Runs weekly to delete interested users that are linked to closed or canceled PO lines. The job checks that an interestedin letter was sent to the interested users before removing it from the PO Line. Interested users will not be removed from a closed or canceled PO line if a letter was not sent to them."
Due to privacy regulations, we would like the job to run regardless of a letter being sent or not. The closed or cancelled PO line should be sufficient to run the job.
We do not use…
72 votes -
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.
…
67 votes -
Add "Streaming" Purchase Order Line (POL) Types
There are currently no POL line types for streaming content.
I'd like to see the following POL Line types added:
Streaming Video - Subscription
Streaming Video - One Time
Streaming Audio - Subscription
Streaming Audio - One Time65 votes -
Set the sender address to the address of the staff that made the PO and automatically forward the mail to the said staff.
With multiple librarians handling PO, this can help us keep better track of PO details and increase process efficiency.
60 votes -
Linking several Electronic Collections to one PO line from within the order
In Alma it's possible to link several Electronic Collections to one PO line. This is very helpful for us. To do so you can just write the PO line number in the field PO Line in the Acquisitions and License Information in the Electronic Collection Editor. But there is no way to do it vice verse, to link the order to multiple electronic collections from within the order. This would be very important for us, especially for those cases where the Electronic Collection is not in our IZ but in the NZ, so that we are not able to edit…
52 votes -
Order lines - Customize view: please add "Acquisition method"
Our colleagues are missing the field "Acquisition method" in the results list when searching for PO Lines.
Currently the field is only a facets value but this will also not add the field to the Excel export file.
Thank you in advance!51 votes -
More easily edit/delete POL templates
We would like to be able to more easily update our POL templates. As far as I can tell, you need to create a new order, make adjustments in the POL, and then Save As Template - overwriting the old template. There should be an easier process.
50 votes -
Manage EDI Tasks - Addition of Fund Code column
The addition of a sortable Fund Code column within Manage EDI Tasks would be incredibly useful for us. We use two strands of ordering at our institution, depending on if a title is required for research or teaching. The addition of a fund code column would allow staff to easily identify the EDI Tasks for their area.
47 votes
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