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.
1693 results found
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Check out an item to a visiting patron's account at their home institution. Direct Pick-up Resource Sharing
Instead of creating and managing a visiting patron's record, allow libraries to check items out onto their home institutions record. The patron could validate by choosing the institution and having the patron sign in to their account.
As a patron I could go to any library in my network and easily check out an item there by signing into my home library and checking out the items. Everything checked out would show up on my home library's record and I could return the item either at the lending library or my home library.
72 votes -
Limit use of material types by specific library
The list of material types used across our consortium is very long. Even though we have turned off those that we don't use, we still have a list of about 65. For most of our libraries, this is overkill, as locations like our Chemistry library only use 4 or 5 at most. Catalogers have to use the full list, which increases the chance of confusion or clicking on the wrong thing for even straightforward cataloging. I want to be able to restrict the material types that can be used at any particular library. This was a feature of another ILS…
72 votes -
Resource Sharing Electronic Locate for Borrowing article requests
A borrowing article request is stopped for local ownership when the library has an electronic database that may have coverage for the journal.
Currently, the borrowing locate local ownership check does not check the year, volume, or issue in the article request to determine if the library has access to this specific year in the database. The borrowing locate does not check for embargo status.
Because the citation year is not checked for local ownership, requests are stopped from being automatically sent to lending libraries that have the article. Library staff must spend time checking if their library has access…
72 votes -
Fulfilment Network - Control of the Register button display by user group of the logged-in user.
*This is for the Fulfillment Network, not AFN.
The Register button(1) is displayed even if the logged-in user is set to "Restricted Users"(2).
Primo VE checks with Alma whether the FN function is available after pressing the Register button.
We think this button control is not designed with the User experience.
This is because the existence of the register button is meaningless for users who cannot use this feature.To improve this function, the Register button should not be displayed to users who are set as Restricted Users.
Reference
(1)
Fulfillment Networks
Fulfillment Networks - Ex Libris…72 votes -
Refine search and Search external resources function
When using the "Search external resources" function under profiles including several external catalogs, we can only use refine search link on the first tab.
It would be great if the refine search link was on all tabs rather than on the fisrt tab only.
72 votes -
MDE Search Resources mask should be empty
When opening the Search Resources mask in MDE, the previous search is still in the data mask. For us there is no benefit for this behavior and we would like to have an empty mask and not to clear the mask every time before starting a new search.
(If other libraries need this opportunity, we would suggest to make the default settings for this mask customizable)72 votes -
No items available for request due to policy- Show policy violated
When a request fails, an error message reads: "No items available for request due to policy." It would be very helpful if the error message included which policy prevents the request. With that information, I can easily tell the patron what prevents the request or fix a policy problem. Right now, I have to hunt the problem down in the fulfillment and/or configuration modules.
71 votes -
Fiscal Period Rollover - Move Cash Balance forward to new period
The latest release of Alma added functionality to the Fiscal period rollover that offers an option to Allocate new funds based on the Cash Balance of the same fund in the closing Fiscal period. We’ve been testing this out and it seems while the cash balance is indeed allocated to the new period, it is also left on the old period!
This means the same money is being reported and allocated twice on Alma, which leaves great scope for confusion and I believe is contrary to good accounting practice.
I believe this enhancement needs a further tweak, to allocate the…
71 votes -
Get auto-renewals dates back into Analytics
Since the recently released August version, Analytics does not longer show the auto-renewal date due to a mentioned performance improvement on the nightly job. Please consider rolling back this change as it actually makes it impossible to get how many auto-renewals were made on a certain day in the past, since the only date we currently have is the Last Renewal Date which is updated every time the job runs. We virtually lost our auto-renewals log integrity.
I know we still have this Last Renewal Date, the amount of auto-renewals and the Loan Date, and we could easily calculate the…
71 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 -
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!
71 votes -
Update Resource-sharing request through the ALMA API
Currently with the API, the only update option possible is shipping a resource sharing request. We request the option to perform other updates, e.g. change the status.
(Updating the resource sharing request through the corresponding user-request does not work.)70 votes -
Subscription interval field in Analytics
Adding the Subscription interval field in PO Line to the Funds Expenditure subject area in Analytics. This would allow reporting based on the frequency of a serial.
70 votes -
Linking bib records based on 830 $x should be optional
Alma currently links bib records based on the presence of the ISSN in the 830 $x. This causes a terribly confusing display in Primo and Alma and is prone to messing up requests. This should be an optional "feature" and not automatically enabled. We do have the option to turn off all related records, but if we use that, we lose all our boundwith relations.
We should not have to delete a valid MARC subfield (830 $x) in order to prevent related holdings record displaying in Alma and Primo.
70 votes -
Allow customers to select multiple retention reasons for Item records.
Allow customers to select multiple retention reasons for Item records.
As an institution that is very enthusiastic about using the new Retention Information data fields for item records in Alma, we would like to request an enhancement that enables a user to assign multiple values to the Retention Reason field. For example, a single item could easily have all of the following statuses applied:
Institutional last copy
Faculty publication
Rare
Committed to some Shared Print program
Digitized material
Each of these retention reasons may correspond to different library staff workflow. For example, these retention reasons could support the following staff…
70 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!
70 votes -
Include rolling dates in local date information field
As an electronic resource librarian, I would like to see a better way to deal with rolling coverage dates. There does not seem to be a good way to deal with gaps in portfolio coverage when there's a moving target date involved. For example, if a title includes perpetual access from 2011-present, and issues 12 years or older are open access, unless you include a public note, what will display is:
Available from 2011 volume: xx issue: xx
Most recent 12 year(s) not availableThis is confusing to patrons and librarians alike. It would be useful to have the option…
70 votes -
Browse Shelf Listing Call Numbers - 852 $$j
Under the current design, browsing shelf listing by 852 $$j is not a supported feature in Alma.
Example:
852 18 $$b SBG $$c 91 $$8 222 B $$h 22/Z 1244 $$= l $$9 00 $$j 22/Hbl E 600 $$9 09 $$x DE-22For the holdings' field 852 subfields $$h 22/Z 1244 and $$j 22/Hbl E 600, the holdings call number “22/Z 1244 22/Hbl E 600” will appear only when the browse term is “22/Z 1244 22/Hbl E 600” or “22/Z 1244,” but not when the browse term is “22/Hbl E 600”.
We need a 'Browse Shelf Listing' that lists ALL…
70 votes -
Metadata Editor should add the year automatically to the 866 field
Currently the Metadata editor does not add automatically the year to the 866 field. If we want the year to be in our 866 we have to add it manually. Actually this is the only way our patrons can see the year in Primo.
69 votes -
Sort booking requests by Start Time
When monitoring resource requests on Fulfillment > Monitor Requests & Item Processes, a "Sort by" button with an option to sort by Start Time would ease the handling of booking requests.
The booking requests are currently sorted by Request Date, which is not very useful, and can not be sorted by any other field.A "Sort by" button actually does appear on Fulfillment > Pick From Shelf.
Another option could be adding the Start Time on the drop down menu of the bar "Requests" on top of the page.
69 votes
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