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.
For more information please review our FAQ and guidelines. Thank you.
1765 results found
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History Note Indicating Shelf Report Processing
For physical collection care/management teams, it would be valuable to have an indicator in an item's history that notes a barcode was fed through the Shelf Report Function along with the date. This small note can be immensely valuable when tracking down missing physical items in a collection.
13 votes -
Monitor request page
Currently on the Monitor requests page for the Activity status filter there are the following options:
Completed; Active, All. It would be useful to have the option that filters requests with status Rejected83 votes -
Have multiple pickup locations available in Primo when requesting items from the same library
Our wish is to be able to offer several pickup locations in Primo for the same library when documents are available for loan (not linked to a reading room desk) without having to create a new virtual library. The library must be able to configure the visibility of these pickup locations based on certain user criteria (e.g., user group).
For example, a library may offer a special room whose access is reserved for teachers and doctoral students. The library would like doctoral students/teachers to be able to choose this room as their pickup location at the time of the request…
27 votes -
Keep patron physical requests active even if “deliver to” relationships are temporarily interrupted
Our consortia has several libraries connected through “deliver to” relationships, allowing patrons to request and pick up physical items from different sites.
Currently, when these relationships are interrupted — for example, due to maintenance, or temporary closures — all related patron requests are automatically cancelled, and patrons receive cancellation notifications. That makes them angry.
We would like Alma to preserve these requests in an active or pending state during such interruptions, so they can be fulfilled automatically once the relationship is restored, without requiring patrons to place new requests.
This would improve the user experience and reduce administrative workload for…
33 votes -
Flag AI created resources
As an electronic resources access manager, I would like to propose functionality be created to identify when a resources was created all or partially by artificial intelligence.
More content is being created by AI and it is getting harder and harder to detect. Gobi now has "AI-generated" as a tag under "interdisciplinary topics" when purchasing books (screenshot attached) and it would be great if Alma could do something similar to alert users when they are looking through institutions catalogs of resources.
I am not sure if this idea is for Alma only or Alma and Primo but it would be…
21 votes -
Fee block: automatic blocking and unblocking
The following configuration is desired:
A fee block should be set automatically once a freely selectable fee amount has been reached and after a freely selectable period of time.
- Once the fee has been paid, the block should be automatically deleted.
Reason for automatic fee blocking:
The fee limit that can be configured in Alma only refers to the maximum fee amount that may be reached, but not to the period in which a fee must be paid, regardless of the amount of the fee.Reason for automatic unblocking:
Fees can be paid at any time, especially after the planned…6 votes -
Add more fields under Customize view in the Physical item search: Provenance, Physical condition
We would appreciate it if more fields from an item could be displayed in the results list of a Physical item search:
- Provenance
- Physical conditionE.g. if you run a Physical item search for 'Physical condition' is not empty it would be great to have this field in the results list and in the Excel export file as well.
We always prefer a search in Alma to an Analytics query with the data from the previous day.Thanks!
Does anyone else need an additional field?
9 votes -
Allow prioritization of item requests based on library proximity and capacity
In our consortium, several libraries are linked through relationships. However, these libraries differ in distance, staffing levels, and delivery times.
We would like Alma to provide a way to prioritize the fulfillment of requests based on configurable criteria such as library proximity, staff availability, or delivery speed (as actual transit time rules are not efficient enough).
This enhancement would enable the system to route requests for multiple available items to the most suitable library — ideally the closest or best staffed — thereby streamlining daily operations and improving service efficiency across the consortium.22 votes -
Improve Alma Analytics to allow for more straightforward and accurate COUNTER usage data and Cost Per Use reporting.
Improve Alma Analytics to allow for more straightforward and accurate COUNTER usage data and Cost Per Use reporting. To address the following:
Simplify CPU Calculation: Improve the system to allow straightforward calculation of Cost Per Use (CPU) by including financial data in the usage subject area, eliminating the need for SQL joins.
Increase Data Update Frequency: Increase the frequency of usage data updates in the e-inventory subject area and fix the date of the job, as the current monthly updates, which have variable dates, cause scheduling issues.
Enhance Data Accuracy: Address inaccuracies and missing data due to limited match points…
136 votes -
Post Alert when import job reaches Manual Handling Required
Please add an alert to the Real-Time Notifications list, targeted to users with privileges for running import profiles, when an import job is paused with the status "Manual Handling Required."
Import profiles run manually or on a schedule may reach a paused state with status Manual Handling Required, commonly for multiple matched records that require merges, and sometimes with validation errors. Because these jobs don't run to completion, they don't appear on job history. Because these jobs are paused, they don't appear in the list of running jobs. If a user is not aware that the job is paused, import…
8 votes -
Sort Routine for one-time receive items on “Receive” interface
Same problem to "Sort Routine for ordered items in PO Line" idea posted at https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/51154792-sort-routine-for-ordered-items-in-po-line , I would like for your support to the sort routine for one-time received items.
There is no sort routine for one-time received items. For receiving more than 100 items in a PO Line, we must input the barcode one item by one item (because the auto-generation of barcode cannot apply “Mod 10-Option 1” for the 14th digit as the check digit of the barcodes our library). No sorting of the one-time received items make us spend long time for locating the correct location and…
10 votes -
Sort Routine for ordered items in PO Line
I wish to get support from all Acquisition Librarians who visit this idea.
My library has to order more than 100 copies for different locations for certain titles. During creation of these PO Lines, the sorting of Ordered Items is in chaos after pressing the “Save” button. The sorting is not following the input sequence, or by alphabetical order. My acquisition colleagues, therefore, cannot double check the ordered items in sequence. Contacted Supports Team, it is confirmed that the sort routine functionality for Order Items is not currently supported in the system, and suggest me to post here for your…
10 votes -
FUND / Ledger facet missing from PO Line user interface
All PO Lines has multiple facets but FUND or Ledger is not one of them.
Funds, both allocated & summary, are fundamental to purchasing and we'd like to be able to filter the PO Line display by these variables.
Please add a facet in the All PO Lines user interface for FUND.
129 votes -
Add "Send Query to Patron" option to Digitization requests menu
Currently there is not option to ask the patron about a current Digitization request. These requests are often submitted with little or vague information and a way to contact the patron for clarification is needed. The "Send Query to Patron" option for this purpose is included under "the ellipses" for Resource Sharing requests. Why does it not appear for Digitization?
57 votes -
Allow a NR to run with the PTC job
TL;DR:
We would like to have the ability to run a normalization rule whenever the PTC modifies a record.Background:
In November 2024 Ex-Libris added a new functionality to the PTC job:
MARC 21 Preferred Term Correction Can Flip Headings with Cross-Reference in Different Field
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/2024/Alma_2024_Release_Notes?mon=202411Problem:
The PTC job only changes the first indicator correctly when the PTC job changes a field into 630.
in all other cases, the existing indicators remain.
We opened a case and spoke directly with Ex-Libris, but were told that the PTC job runs as intended, and that not handling the indicators is not…45 votes -
Consortia distribution mode of RetentionReason table per row
Hi,
we're thinking about the distribution of configuration for the Collection development from the Network Zone.
For our use case, we need to be able to centrally distribute the Retention Reason table per row (
Customization mode: Specific rows can be customized). There might be a mix of consortia and local reasons for retention. The NZ should be able to distribute the consortia retention reasons and the IZs should be able to add their own local retention reasons independently of the distributed NZ reasons.16 votes -
Add faceting to the results of the Receiving Workbench
Sometimes serials do not have identifiers, but have very common words as their title, such as Historian, People, or Taxation. The ability to use facets to narrow results lists, beyond just the library would make this much easier to use.
21 votes -
Acquisitions: Add the possibility to contact the vendor when manually closing a POL
We need a way to discontinue a standing order before completion and to inform the vendor about it via email directly from Alma.
"Cancel" does have the possibility to inform the vendor about the cancellation. However, by cancelling a POL, Alma is designed to completely undo the order by detaching already received items from the order and cancelling active requests on these items (this caused us huge trouble in the past, so we can’t use it).
"Close" is currently lacking the possibility to contact the vendor via email directly from Alma.
So we suggest that an option to contact the…38 votes -
Visibility of Patron Blocks in Alma
Not all patron blocks are visible under the "Blocks" tab in Alma, depending on the type of block and how it is generated. For example, the maximum cash limit block does not appear in the tab but can be seen as a pop-up notification when using the Manage Patron Services screen.
It would be extremely helpful if all blocks were displayed in the "Blocks" - tab, making it easier for staff to get a complete overview of a patron’s status and blocks.
21 votes -
Allow for Almost Arbitrary Conditions in General Electronic Services
Currently for a general electronic service we can only create conditions based on metadata already contained in the given BIB record. Please provide a way to let the link resolver check any condition which is computable within a reasonable short amount of time!
Example Use Case:
Our library network offers a web service taking any given ISBN, ISSN or Union Catalog ID and returning 'true' if there is a BIB record for the corresponding resource in the union catalog and at least one of the network's libraries has an item of this resource available for ILL. Otherwise the web service…71 votes
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