Alma
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1692 results found
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Improvements to Pick From Shelf list needed
Currently our staff spend too much time managing requests. Improvements to the interface for Pick From Shelf would help in some of these cases. We would like to see:
- A search box.
Very often we need to target a particular request, a task made more difficult by less than ideal facets (see #2). Search functionality exists under Monitor Requests & Item Processes, but not all options for handling requests are available in that view (such as "Skip Location").
- Better facets.
Two of the facets available in the Monitor Requests & Item Processes view would be great for Pick from Shelf:…
45 votes -
More POL parameters/Mappaing fields to be needed in Import Profile (EOD)
We suggest that more parameters or mapping fields can be provided in creating the EOD profile. For example, we add on the profile, we want to set POL Status as EOD General parameter - Auto Packing, Manual Manual Packaging and In review.
26 votes -
Add breadcrumb trail to staff interface
In Alma, the information displayed often depends on the task you are working on to get there. This is a nice feature, but it would be helpful if breadcrumbs were displayed to help track how you arrived at the screen.
This would be especially helpful to new users.
15 votes -
Ability to suppress licenses from discovery
Sometimes, licenses have confidentiality clauses, so we can't show them in Primo, but right now, it is an all or nothing prospect. it would be great if a checkbox on the record could suppress a confidential license from showing up in Discovery.
116 votesDear All,
We are reviewing this idea and would like to ask the following: Do you refer to the "License Terms" that appear on the Discovery?
Thank you,
Zohar Shemesh
Alma Product Team
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Show Service temporarily unavailable message even if Direct linking is enabled
The Service temporarily unavailable message is only visible if direct linking is not enabled.
It would be useful if activating the message, would automatically disable Direct linking for that particular service
21 votes -
Retain Data in Interface Records
We really like the multiple tabs on interface records that allow us to record different admin logins and statistical information.
Publisher and vendor changes happen pretty frequently in our environment and we foresee needing to move interfaces from one vendor to another on occasion.
We just found out the hard way that when an interface is deleted from a vendor record and then added to another vendor record all the information that was in the various interface tabs gets wiped out. Can something be done to preserve the information that was hand keyed into the interface tabs?”62 votes -
make permissions on changing address data more granular (email/domestic)
Aleph allows to set an option to allow users change their "address" data via Primo OVP. This allows users to edit the phone number and email in Primo, but also their domestic address. Often, the change of the domestic address must be prevented, because it is the address where a possible court order is directed to.
We want to allow users to change their email and phone number but need to disallow the change of the domestic address. Therefore, we propose that Primo and Aleph/ALMA must be designed to work in a way that allows setting permissions on each field…
22 votes -
Change Financial Year dates after they have been set
It doesn't look as if it is possible to change the start and finish dates of any financial year in Acquisitions Configuration > Fund And Ledger Fiscal Period table mapping tables once the year has been created, unless it is deleted completely.
Can it be made possible for the start and (in particular) the end dates to be edited having already been set and saved, if so required?
Being able to do this would be of particular benefit around the time of a financial year rollover, especially if an institution cannot be certain that all financial transactions for the outgoing…
17 votes -
Set standard opening hours in advance
If the Library decides to change the standard opening hours of the Library for the coming year you currently have to wait until the first day of new hours to be able to input them as standard hours into Alma.
It would be nice if Alma allowed you to enter new standard opening hours in advance and to set a date in which they would come into effect. That way you wouldn't have to schedule to change them on the first day of the new hours.
An example would be if new standard hours were decided on by Library Management…
14 votes -
Ability to link to single interface records from vendor record
At the moment, when you link to an interface from a vendor record in Alma the interface record cannot be linked to one that has already been set up. For example, if you have Vendor A and link it to Interface X you cannot also link Vendor B to Interface X. You are also unable to have two interfaces with the same name. This is required in situations where we have multiple vendors for the one interface. For example, SAGE journals are acquired directly through SAGE but the ebooks are acquired through iGroup. In this case we would like to…
93 votes
Anonymous
responded
Submitted by Ex Libris PM on behalf of our customers
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Add a checkout widget that can be accessed from the desktop
The most common thing we need to do in Alma is to check out books, but we need to train our students and Circ clerks to go to "Manage Patron Services." What about some kind of checkout widget or even an entry in the main Alma menu that actually says "Check out" or "Check in"?
27 votes -
Return and reissue items with a single click that have reached their max loan period
When items reach their maximum loan period and patrons want to borrow the items again they have to be returned and issued again by a circulation operator. This is an unnecessarily complex workflow. Please could an option be added for circulation desk operators to be able to return and reissue the items with a single click of an interface button (providing their are no blocks of course).
28 votes -
Configure Alma Letters to use the operator's "from" address, rather than the value stored in "addressFrom"
This is in reference to case 00172604. It was suggested we post this here by Yaala Ariel-Joel.
- Go to Alma Menu -> General Configuration -> Letter Emails
- Select, for example, the General Assign To Letter
- We have configured the "addressFrom" field in this and several other letters to be the email address of one of our library departments
For some letters, however, we find that it would make more sense for the FROM address to use the email address of the individual Alma operator whose action generated the letter, rather than using the single email address that is stored in…
28 votes -
Add seach box to Active Hold Shelf
We often have 1500+ items on our Active Hold Shelf. While we have the ability to sort, this does not help much when we are looking for a particular item. A search box would allow us to locate an item easily without clicking through page after page.
16 votes -
In the List of Items screen, add "description" to the list of search options in the "Find" box.
Currently in a list of items, Alma allows us to search within the list of items by only barcode or the call number. Adding the ability to search the description field would simplify trying to locate an item with unique information in the description, such as "index".
22 votes -
Add more options for ILL integration
Adding ILLiad integration to Alma was welcome but also brings more issues into the system. For example - patrons are shown in their account via Primo that ILL loaned items are not renewable. They are but not via Alma. A customizable message for the Resources sharing library that would display in "My Account" saying "Renewable via ILLiad" would be welcome. We have configured ILLiad to send courtesy notices. Now that we have integrated with Alma patrons get two courtesy and "due today" letters because Alma cannot turn off letters for specific locations. The ability to turn off those two letter…
24 votes -
Enable batch updating portfolios to update PO line field
Please add a column for PO line to the excel file for batch load updating portfolios. Below are specific examples from the Alma listserv of other institutions describing use cases for why this would be helpful.
Thanks,
TerraUse cases from ALMA listserv:
Eleanor Craig, e.m.craig@sussex.ac.uk
Sent: Wednesday, 23 September 2015 4:35 PM
To: ALMA-L@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [ALMA-L] Individual journal subscriptions associated to Electronic Collections"We have a subscription to the Sage Premier 2015 package. Each of the core titles (portfolios) in the package have the collection Sage Premier 2015 and this is what the purchase order for each of them…
25 votes -
The default receiving status in manage items of receiving workbench is all and it should be not received or should be configurable
As part of the new prediction pattern development it is possible in the receiving workbench to receive new items and filter the 'manage items' section by "all" "received" or "not received".
Currently it defaults to "all" which is not what would be desired because
A. it would show too much
B. they would need to manually search for what they want to receive.It should default to "not received" because then they can choose the issue they have in hand and receive it. Another option would be to have it always remember the previous filter of the user and use…
34 votes
Anonymous
responded
Submitted by Ex Libris PM on behalf of our customers
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EDI check in for print journals
Alma documentation states that Alma supports the following Edifact message types – INVOIC, ORDERS, OSTENQ, ORDRSP, ORDCHG. However our old LMS Aleph supported an additional Edifact message type called DESADV.
This allowed our serials agent, Ebsco, to check in our journals in on the LMS remotely via EDI once our monthly consolidated deliveries of print journals were despatched from the warehouse.
Provided our prediction patterns matched the PIA line this worked efficiently. An example of EDI text is as below:-
LIN+1'
PIA+5+0001-4788(2012)42?:1;1-9:SI::28'
IMD+L+050+:::ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS RESEARCH'
QTY+12:1'
RFF+SNL:52280023'
RFF+SNA:52280023'The above essentially means that for order no 52280023 (linking to…
24 votes -
Physically Received by Library
It should be possible to change the status of a Borrowing Request to Digitally Received by Library from Physically Received by Library or vice-versa, if the wrong Format was received. Currently, it is impossible to create a barcode if the item was Digitally Received.
19 votes
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