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.
91 results found
-
"Request" link when you have ordered a physical book
When you have ordered a physical book (one time order) it would be very helpful to get a Request link available on the Purchase order lines in Review page.
Then you could place a request more quickly. You don't have to search for the book again.
153 votes -
Searching for a title with "&" should also search "and" when searching for PO lines and invoices
When searching for a title in any of the Acquisitions (i.e. Order Lines, Invoices, Vendors, Funds, etc.) filters, searching for a title containing "and" should also pull up any results with an ampersand (&) in the title.
e.g. Searching the title "Law and Inequality" will not find the title's PO line unless it is spelled as "Law & Inequality."
153 votes -
Ability to store & track VPAT® documents
As part of the procurement or licensing process, many libraries may request that a vendor provide a VPAT® (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) in order to indicate their compliance with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act. It would be desirable if functionality could be developed somewhere in Alma that would allow libraries to track & report whether/when a VPAT was requested and received, which VPAT version was used, and local notes related to accessibility testing.
105 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.95 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 votesAnonymous respondedSubmitted by Ex Libris PM on behalf of our customers
-
PO Line and invoice attachments: Upload/View/Edit/Delete - additional user roles needed
It is possible to upload attachments to a PO Line or an invoice. These attachements can be viewed, edited and deleted as well.
In case of using Alma as (the only) data storage for e.g. invoice PDFs, it is very important that attachments can be deleted only by specially privileged staff users. Deletion might be necessery e.g. because of erroneous uploads.
Looking into the 'Roles Reports' shows that there is no 'Delete' option listed (so Edit means also Delete):
Purchasing Operator / Purchasing Manager
- polineattachments.xml ... View Edit
- po_attachments.xml ... Edit
- invoiceattachmentstab.xml ... View
- poline…
92 votes -
Ability to edit a location instead of creating a new one
We are aware that this is a fulfillment configuration, but it is one which causes problems with acquisitions.
We would like the ability to 'edit' existing location codes that would automatically update everything within those locations to the new location, including holdings, items, and PO lines...rather than having to create new locations and move things before deleting the old location.
This would eliminate the problems with "change physical items" jobs that don't change locations for things with no items attached (common with serials).
This would also eliminate the problem of POs becoming unlinked from holdings when a location is changed.…
84 votes -
Setting a pickup location for interested users
It would be nice to set the pickup location as you do with requests. Currently the item goes to the "owning library" and the pickup is set there. We have Faculty that prefer different libraries for pickup so if a book is purchased but we allocated it to a Science Library but the faculty goes to a different library we can't set the pickup for that item.
79 votes -
Field to add "Charges" in the price.
We need a field that allows us to add "Charges" in vendor record or in the POL, now these only allow discounts.
Nowadays we have to assign this charge manually in the POL's list price.
76 votes -
Implement the Counter Registry API
Tasha from COUNTER asked (during ER&L 2024) if anyone had spoken with ExL about implementing the registry API. In the registry, there's SUSHI details, contact details, and notifications. Harvesting from COUNTER registry would reduce complications and would alert librarians to any problems.
Tamar, Tasha, Beda, and I discussed this in person at ER&L 2024. :)
75 votes -
Please allow to link PO Lines with status "Cancelled" in the Physical Item Editor
It is possible to select a PO Line in the Physical Item Editor. This also works well for PO Lines that already have the status "Closed".
However, it does not work for PO Lines with status "Cancelled". But it happens from time to time that we cancel a continuation order, but not all volumes already paid for have been delivered.
It is not an option for us to just close such PO Lines, as the distinction between "Closed" and "Cancelled" is important to us.
Thank you!
74 votes -
Open predicted issues in bulk / by help of a job
only option in alma is opening the predicted items per title. We would like more functionality in the receiving workbench. We can see that predicted issues can be opened for the coming year when in the receive screen, so have to do it title by title!
71 votes -
Enable link from Invoice line to live Purchase Order Line so that data can be updated
The Alma renewals workflow for continuous resources (Subscription POLs) involves creating Invoices and updating the renewal date and other data such as Notes in the Purchase Order Line. This should be possible as part of a unified workflow when invoicing, i.e. adding the invoice line and then linking through to a live Purchase Order Line to update and save the renewal date etc.
Currently the Invoice Line PO Line link is View Only which means a separate search and action is required to find and update the renewal dates etc in POLs. This is inefficient and wastes time - given…70 votes -
Colour/shade gradients to tell the different between license statuses (Active, Retired, Deleted)
In the list of licenses it would be useful to have a colour/shading gradient difference between active and inactive licenses.
For example, when you delete a license it still remains in Alma, it is just given the status deleted. This is fine as it provides a history, however, as the deleted licenses in the list look exactly the same as active licenses, apart from the status note it can often be difficult to tell the active and deleted licences apart, especially at a glance.It would be useful to change the colouring/shading gradient, for example, grey out the text, for…
64 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 -
Display local price in addition to the foreign currency price
We need the display of the local price in addition to the foreign currency price on the Invoice Lines tab and in the POL summary tab. That's very important for us.
60 votes -
need more search criteria in acq such as operator id or create/update date
It would be useful to have some additional search criteria, such as operator id, and facets, such as a last update date range and status, available to monitor staff productivity. Not just in purchasing but in all areas of acquisitions the site reports the need for functionality that will allow a combination of attributes of the records to generate results. For example, an operator should be able to search using their user name, some category of task (po lines in review, invoice lines in review, invoices pending approval, etc.) and a date or date range, or status (sent/ waiting auto…
60 votesAnonymous respondedSubmitted by Ex Libris PM on behalf of our customers
-
At fiscal rollover, populate 'list price' field in continuous POLs with the total expenditure on that POL from the previous fiscal year
See case #00483470.
The figure in 'list price' represents the amount we first paid or expected to pay for a resource. In most cases, this price is wildly inaccurate after a few years.
Manually updating these prices isn't feasible, as we've thousands of POLs and editing the prices while inputting invoices doubles the time spent on invoice processing.
I'm hoping we can do one/all of the following:
At fiscal rollover, the list price amount in the POL is replaced with the amount of the last fiscal year's expenditure.
We run a job that changes the contents of the list price…
58 votes -
Validation check for outgoing vendor emails
Please add a validation check for outgoing vendor emails. Otherwise a spelling mistake might go unnoticed.
54 votes -
Preset item policy for subscription PO Lines
Having the ability to set an item policy for a subscription PO Line would save time and trouble. Currently, when a serials item is received (checked in), one must go into the individual item record to set the item policy. Too many clicks. Also, if someone else is checking in serials, they might forget about this additional step. If someone tries to check out an item, will the person at circulation know that it is in-library use only, 3-day use or 14-day use?
53 votes
- Don't see your idea?