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.
27 results found
-
Ebook usage information in Alma on Other Details per portfolio
Within Alma when looking at Ebooks (or journals) it would be nice to have the ability to see "usage" - by portfolio - based on the OpenURL report or potentially pulling in SUSHI harvested data. It could be on the portfolio level or "Other details" similar to how books show usage. Quick way to determine if additional titles need to be purchased.
1 vote -
A new design for the homepage of ALMA
It would be really lovely if the homepage to ALMA was colourful and bright with easy access to the major functions we use in the library. For example there could be a homepage that has different bubbles (5 in a circle with one in the middle for example) and people can drag and drop their 6 most used icons. For library assistants this would be super useful if we could open ALMA and instantly be able to issue / return books / search for a service users name / card number for easy access. It would also be great if…
4 votesThanks for this suggestion. We will review this internally and of course will wait to see if there are more votes,
-
Display all related records instead of 500
When looking for related records (Brief results list > Other > Related records), only 500 titles are displayed.
Especially when working with series/journals with many issues, monographs, or analytical records, having all related records would simplify the daily work.70 votesDear all,
Fetching thousands of related records may have a performance impact on the environment - however, we are looking into doubling the number of fetched results - from 500 to 1,000.
-
Please add the ability to use the facets for Archival Materials according to LDR pos. 8 = a
Hello,
Most archival materials are cataloged as follows:
LDR pos. 6 = p
LDR pos. 8 = a
Currently, the facet in Alma show these kind of materials as "Undefined".
Adding a facet of "Achieve Material" according to LDR pos.8 = a, would be very useful.Thanks.
63 votesHi. 1. Are you stating that you want a new “Resource Type”?
2. The definitions of the resource types are explained in the table titled “Rules Used to Create the Resource Type Field – MARC 21/KORMARC and UNIMARC” at https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/010Getting_Started/050Alma_User_Interface_%E2%80%93_General_Information/Searching_in_Alma#The_Resource_Type_Field
3. Do you want a new row in this table which would be as follows?
Archival materials. LDR pos. 8 = a
4. The table is read top to bottom and as soon as match is found it stops. Where in the table would you like this new row to appear?
5. How come the title of this suggestion states “LDR pos. 8 = a” but the comment from Feb. 2 also has “LDR pos. 6 = p”? We do not think “LDR pos. 6 = p” is a good idea. That is used for “mixed materials”. On the other hand “LDR pos. 8… -
Add Collection related subject area/dimensions/parameters in Analytics
Please elaborate Collection in Analytics. We suggest three ideas for that;
Idea 1)
Collection can be a separate dimension, with the existing/new parameters below;
- Collection ID (existing)
- Collection Name (existing)
- Collection External System
- Collection External ID
- Collection MMS ID (of the collection's BIB itself)
- ★★★ The PIDs of the collection's direct sub-collections (in different rows, not combined with semicolons; should be repeatable so that the created report can show the hierarchical structure of whole collections)
- Collection level (the depth)
- Collection Path (from the collection's top level collection to itself)
- Collection Description…72 votesWe have begun to investigate this more in depth and thank you very much for your three suggestions of how this can be implemented. In order to decide how best to implement this it would be useful to first know what “business needs” you are trying to address. What types of reports are you looking to create? What information do you need to get and what types of reports do you want?. Note that today the bibliographic details folder already has the collection ID and collection name.
-
Add Data Type category for the Title Report in COUNTER 5 section of analytics
The Master Title Report of COUNTER 5 includes ebook and journal titles. It is difficult to use this master report in analytics without having a data type or section type option to differentiate between which titles are journals and which are ebooks. The master title report is useless in analytics without this option. Please add the data type or section type category from the COUNTER 5 Master Title Report into the Analytics Usage Report.
205 votes -
Provide MARC record quality measures to CZ collections
CZ collections vary in regard to the quality of their metadata. Some CZ collections contain rich MARC records, while others contain very poor records. When facing the question whether to import vendor's MARC records or to rely on CZ records, librarians usually lack basic information about the quality of existing MARC records in a given CZ collection.
I would like to suggest that each CZ collection will include basic statistical information about the MARC records quality. Such information could be generated in different ways.
One possibility is to provide an analysis based on predefined quality profiles of MARC records. Here,…
152 votes -
Allow labeling of parameters like local param 01, 02 for bib and holdings
Alma allows adding bib or holding field additions into Alma Analytics
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Knowledge_Articles/Add_bibliographic_fields_to_Alma_AnalyticsFor instance you can request that "local param field 01" pulls the 690 field. However, you cannot change the "local param field 01" label in analytics from "local param 01" to 690. This is not user friendly because the availability of the 690 field in your analytics report isn't apparent to users.
I'd like to request the ability to locally label these local param fields so they match up with what the fields actually do in an analytics report.
1 voteHi, Due to the comments and requests here we have decided to reevaluate this. We are doing now a Feasibility evaluation on this and update next steps according to what we find out.
-
Reporting on historical location changes
Analytics should allow users to run reports on historical location changes e.g. identify items that were moved from Branch A to Branch B or different locations in the same branch. This information is visible in the Item history tab; it should be made available for management reports.
45 voteswe will review this again
-
OADOI/Unpaywall link doesn't display where needed
I originally posted the idea https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/16880380-add-oadoi-org-as-an-option-in-uresolver which was implemented in the Alma November release.
It looks like it's implemented the feature exactly as I suggested – unfortunately the method I suggested turns out to be exactly wrong for the use case as I (admitted briefly) described it! :-{
Our use case, more specifically, is that when we don’t have full text for an item but an OA version is available through Unpaywall, we want that Unpaywall option to appear very visibly for users. (Being a bit fuzzy on the relationship between uResolver, GetIt, ViewIt, and when these all appear) I…
11 votesThank you for your feedback.
Today Primo does present viewit services for resources that do not have full text indications.
We will check with Primo if this can be changed as the Unpaywall service can appear also when there is no full text service.Note that this issue is not relevant to PrimoVE
-
New role for Manage Import Profiles
Currently users must have a Cat Admin role or Gen Sys Admin role to be able to Manage Import Profiles (change/add profiles). This also gives them access to the Configuration area of Alma. There should be a role to permit users to Manage Import Profiles that does NOT also give them access to the Alma configuration area. Access to the Alma configuration menu should be separate from the ability to Manage Import Profiles.
174 votes -
Create a Physical Titles or Physical Items set from a list of MMS IDs
It is possible to create an All Titles set from a list of MMS IDs, but not a Physical Titles or Physical Items set. To run certain jobs – like Change Holdings Information – a Physical Titles set is required. In order to run this job on a list of MMS IDs, you must first create an All Titles set, then extract some other key like OCLC #, then create a Physical Titles set from that list, and only then can you run your job. Since all physical titles and items DO have MMS IDs, it should be possible to…
40 votesDear all,
We are looking into adding the MMS ID for more sets. As the MMS ID identifies a bib record, including it for title sets makes sense - and we are planning to add this option to physical titles sets.
However, regarding physical items sets, the set entity is the item, while the MMS ID is part of the metadata of the bibliographic record - which limits our ability to use it when creating a set of physical items, as it is not an identifier of the item.
-
Analyse and normalise special characters and diacritics in Alma records
In order to enable correct and consistent automatic linking between Bib. headings and authority records, Alma's treatment of diacritics needs to be normalised, and made configurable according to the Authority file being used. In addition there are special characters in use (such as quotation marks), that have more than a single graphic representation that should be normalised in order to prevent discrepancies in Almas' match and link mechanisms.
SFC#00533813, SFC#00375370 relate to the issue.66 votes -
Expand ONIX-PL import to all default values in Alma.
For ONIX-PL to actually save time, more variables has to be supported.
We suggest that all default fields in Alma, and language for Text and Data mining are included in the import file.97 votes -
Provide more output fields for the Shelf Report
When we do the Shelf Report, we wish that Alma can provide more output fields such as last loan Date, last return date，inventory date that will be helpful for us to analyse the result.
7 votes -
Add a linking job for mass linking of NZ records to IZ
Currently the only way to use records from NZ in an IZ is to search them in the NZ and perform an action like "order" or "link" on every single record one by one. There are, however, situations where an IZ wants to use a bulk of records. For this purpose we need a possibility to link records in bulk and create inventory for the linked records.
We imagine a linking job that takes as an input a logical or itemized set of records saved from a search in the NZ. The linking job can create physical and electronic (and…
109 votes -
Add Previous and Next buttons to various screens
After conducting a search and selecting a record to view, it would be nice to have Previous/Next buttons for navigation, rather than needing to always go "Back" and then select the next record in the list for viewing. This could also be useful in other areas, like the physical item editor, and perhaps in some Fulfillment functions.
125 votesThis idea exchange has been submitted to NERS as request #6828. We believe this request will be fulfilled as part of enhancing the repository search to work side by side. See roadmap: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Materials/010Roadmap/Alma_Roadmap_Highlights_-_January_2021/Physical_Resource_Management#Physical_Title_Staff_Search_.E2.80.93_Enhanced_UX
and side by side UI concept: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Materials/010Roadmap/Alma_Roadmap_Highlights_-_January_2021/User_Experience_and_Accessibility#Side_by_Side
-
Textual holdings statement fields 866-868
Currently, you are only able to search the 866 field in Alma and Analytics. To record holdings more accurately, the 867 (supplemental material) and 868 (indexes) should be used. We have data stored in these fields and are unable to search/report on them easily. We would like the 867 and 868 fields to be searchable and perhaps even indexed in Alma, and reportable in Analytics. Reporting on any standard MARC field should be possible in both Alma and Analytics.
14 votesHello. What is the reason for not doing this as follows?
Add the 866 – 868 as local fields for Alma Analytics Holdings Records. Each institution is allowed up to 10 holdings fields and 10 bibliographic fields as local fields.
Further, as described at https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Knowledge_Articles/Add_bibliographic_fields_to_Alma_Analytics it is possible to have subfield delimiters in the local fields added to Alma Analytics.
So you can already have 866 subfield x and z (for example) in Alma Analytics using existing functionality. -
Re-sequence MARC fields by each tag when running a normalization rule
Currently, after running a normalization rule on a set of bib records, the bib records display the 5XX fields out of order, e.g. 500, 546, 506 etc. This occurs even after running the CnmarcBibReSequenceTask as fields between 500 and 899 are not sorted, or sorted only by hundreds (this was the information given to us by a member of staff when we reported the issue on the ExLibris Customer Portal).
Having all fields in the correct order would ease any future cataloguing needed on these records, or when staff members view the record for work purposes.
I've attached an example…
263 votes -
Normalization rules - adding dates
It would be great if the normalization rules could be enhanced to use variables such as date, or add datestamps.
We would like the ability to insert dates into MARC notes fields via normalization rules.
Ideally inserting variables something like %DAY%/%MONTH%/%YEAR% in a rule would add today's date in the format DD/MM/YYYY once a rule is run.
59 votesWe will review and discuss conceptual solution
- Don't see your idea?