Alma
Your feedback matters to us. Help us improve Alma by telling us what you’d like to see using the message areas below. You can also can support something already posted.
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.
1824 results found
-
Option to set over encumbrance or over expenditure as either an absolute amount or a percentage
This relates to the override rules in fund and the different approaches to encumbrance and expenditure. Whereas over encumbrance is handled as a percentage of allocation, the over expenditure is handled as an absolute amount. This make it hard for a budget manager to determine the level of over expenditureas on one hand you are dealing with relative values and on the other absolute.
We'd like to see the option to set over encumbrance or over expenditure as either an absolute amount or a percentage.
14 votes -
Using load portfolios in a collection to update POL link
We currently use the Load Portfolios tool in the Electronic service to update portfolio information. We have found this won't update the PO Line information in the Acquisition tab of the Portfolio. It is included in the data in an extended export of portfolio information, but does any changes/additions made to this field in the spreadsheet are not reflected in Alma when it is loaded.
We would like to be able to add/change this information using the Load portfolios tool.
A recent example of where this would be useful was a number of portfolios were incorrectly deleted from a collection.…
41 votes -
Receiving note for electronic resources
It would be fantastic if a receiving note option was included for electronic resources as it is for print resources (a field which can be extracted for analytics). The current notes field can not be accessed via analytics and it is therefore difficult to track trends in usage, information about cohorts using different resources, reasons for purchasing, etc.
34 votes -
Add checkboxes for the single positions at the invoice details in the invoice lines tab
Add checkboxes for the single positions at the invoice details in the invoice lines tab.
We create all of our invoices manually. Usually we don’t use the pro rata checkbox and four invoice lines for shipment, discount, overhead and insurance are created automatically.
In most cases not all invoice lines are needed and we delete the redundant lines manually. Therefore it would be easier to have a checkbox for choosing these lines and to be able to delete all of them at once instead of choosing and confirming the deletion of each line separately.106 votes -
"Electronic material type originating from Bib" vs "Electronic material type" : a display issue in the Portfolio service editor's list
In an electronic portfolio, there is a field called "Electronic material type originating from Bib" which can be overloaded by another field called "Electronic material type".
The Job "Change electronic portfolio information" allows to update the material type of portfolios into the field "Electronic material type" into a set of portfolios.
If we do so, the material type is not updated into the Portfolio service editor's list... which is confusing.our request : when the material type of a portfolio has been updated in the field "Electronic material type", ALMA should only considare this material type and display it in…
18 votes -
Refreshing linked account expiration dates
As we understand it, there are only two ways for a linked account's expiration date to be refreshed/synchronized with the user's primary account in their home IZ:
Requesting an item from the IZ with that linked account
Staff at the lending institution go to Manage Patron Services, Find user in other institution, enter the user's identifier, and then find user
We think that the Alma experience would be improved by triggering this refresh process by a renewal attempt, by having an ability to run and schedule a job that refreshes these expiration dates on a regular basis, or by some…
103 votes -
Show orders and requests in repository search regardless of role
Every staff member should be able to see if there are orders or requests for a title regardless of their roles.
It's important e.g. for staff at info/circulations desks to see why a title without items is found - as well as for receiving operators to see if there are any patron physical item requests...Still, of course, one should only be able to edit orders or requests with the respective privilege.
17 votes -
Exclude expired users from bursar integration job
Our bursar is not currently able to collect charges from users who are no longer at the university. So we want to be able to able to exclude these patrons from the reports that are sent to the bursar with bursar integration. The fact that this doesn’t exist now has prevented us from implementing integration.
We would like this functionality to be an additional filter in the bursar integration settings that would exclude users whose expiration date is in the past. If it could specify an actual or relative date, this would be an additional improvement.45 votes -
Navigating list of records
Would like to have a forward option when working in a list of catalog records. It's cumbersome to have to go backward to go forward to the next record in the list.
15 votes -
Check for existing barcode in import profile
I would like to see a setting in the import profile to check the IZ for the pre-existence of the incoming barcode. Publishing and importing can be a fairly blunt tool that leads either to too many or too few objects being imported. When importing large numbers of records, there should be a setting in the match tab that looks for that barcode and rejects the item if that barcode already exists. This would prevent needless duplication especially when publishing on the bib level.
44 votes -
Update import profiles, so portfolios are listed in ALMA & Primo in the same order as the 856 fields in the bibliographic record
Currently electronic portfolios are generated from the 856 fields in the bibliographic record, but they appear in reverse order in ALMA and Primo. Vendors often have 856 for multiple volumes in their records and they often list URLs in the order of their importance. In my attached example, the vendor includes a link to browse the particle resource first, then links to search the collections which contains the resource. The links are listed in order of importance. It is confusing to the user to list v.2 before v.1 and less important searching options before the most direct way of access…
57 votes -
Collaborative Collections - Index 583 more fully
Collaborative collecting agreements are becoming increasingly critical for libraries in managing collections and access across institutions. Formal agreements require libraries to update records with an appropriate Action Note (583 field) to note these commitments. Currently, only $a of the action note is indexed. All fields of the 583 (when present in bibs or holdings) should be indexed, or at a minimum $c, $d, $f and $5.
38 votes -
browse by subject headings to include 600/610/611
currently browse bib headings by subject does not include 600/610/611 fields (they are placed in 'names'). When browsing by subject one would expect to find all subjects including those that describe people/companies etc.
57 votes -
Role Profiles Enhancement
When using role profiles, it would be nice if the profile could create a link to the user(s) with roles defined by the profile. Then, if you want to modify the profile, the change updates all users in the profile. Currently, you'd have to update the role profile and each individual user.
150 votesIt will be possible to maintain ongoing link between the role profile and the user record, so that you can use the template to assign a predefined set of roles to a user, and any further changes to templates will automatically affect the linked users' allowed roles.
Note - multiple profiles may be assigned to a user.
It will be possible to view the list of profiles an account is liked to for inheriting its roles, and to remove/add more profiles.
-
User ID Generation functionality also on the User Details page
Libraries can configure the automatically generated user identifiers for new patrons that are added when an operator adds a patron on the Patron Identification page. We would like that the user Primary identifier can also be generated when users are added or edited on the User Details page: Existing users (external or internal) could have their Primary identifier updated (refreshed) in a more easy and effective way by circulation desk operators.
87 votes -
For general electronic services links at the item level, allow the item id to be used in the URL
When a General Electronic Service is added as an item-level service, the URL template may be configured to make use of the a bunch of Holdings and item-level information, for exampe, the barcode. But the item id is not included as a possibility. Please add this as an option.
21 votes -
Electronic Resource Activation Task List: do not revert to "Assigned to Me" tab after deleting a task
When you're working in the "Unassigned" tab of the Electronic Resource Activation Task List, it always reverts to the "Assigned to Me" tab after you delete a task. I want it to stay in the "Unassigned" tab.
21 votes -
Add the ability to upload EDI files from FTP sites manually
Currently, Alma will only allow you to manually upload an EDI invoice file from a local folder. If you map an FTP site shortcut to your desktop and attempt to manually upload the EDI invoice file from that location, it will say there is an error. I have confimed that Alma does not currently support manual EDI invoice file uploading from ftp sites, only when you configure it to run automatically.
Import profiles support both processes, so it seems like this area of Alma should support both manual and automatic uploads from FTP sites as well.
15 votes -
Add a lock feature to prevent selected items from being withdrawn when running a job
I envisage this as a simple checkbox within an item's record which prevents that item from being accidentally withdrawn. (A parallel exists in many photo editing software packages.)
I also envisage this as being a property which could be engaged or disengaged on a set of items via a job.
When running a withdrawal job, any such "locked" items which were not withdrawn should be listed individually in the job report so that the user can determine whether this was correct (in case an item has been accidentally locked by a user, for example).
A use case is as follows:
…
24 votes -
Add Access type in the portfolio information update job
Since Ex Libris has added Access type for individual portfolio, there has to be a job to run to add access type to the portfolios in a collection. Currently, either we have to specify it in each portfolio manually, or we load a spreadsheet matching on portfolio ID. Unfortunately, as of today 1/23/2019, when loading a spreadsheet without the local coverage, e.g. only the access type, the local coverage is overwritten.
21 votes
- Don't see your idea?