Alma
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1733 results found
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Improve financial forecasting of subscriptions
It would nice to have more functionality in terms of subscription financial forecasting.
Although we can roll over subscriptions with a blanket % increase, we would like to be able to input and overwrite this where we know price increases will differ.
In addition, where we know the increases for multi-year agreements, these can all be set in advance, allowing for more accurate encumbrance figures.
48 votes -
Making purchase order letters more configurable to add imprint information (place of publication, publisher, and publication year) to the le
Making purchase order letters more configurable to add imprint information (place of publication, publisher, and publication year) to the letter to vendor. As it is now only the ISBN (if it is available) and title are listed, sometimes the author. Many vendors reply asking for further information to identify what it is we are ordering.
48 votes -
Allow multiple time zones for institutions with campuses in different time zones
We are currently implementing Alma, and have been staggered to learn that we are only allowed one time zone as our default. We understand that (it seems) most Alma institutions only have the one time zone, but in our case we have two different time zones - and one of them has a period of daylight savings every year, so that adds to the complication.
We can't see how Alma will be functional for us with Fulfillment and the like, if we can't allow both our east and west coast campuses to have their own time zones in place when…
48 votes -
Alma should remove any whitespace before/after identifiers, barcodes, call numbers etc.
Alma should automatically remove any leading or trailing whitespace in user identifiers, barcodes, call numbers etc. - any kind of identifiers entered manually or via copy&paste. Barcodes that are not working, users that are not matched at login are examples of real-life malfunctions that cost us time to analyze, all caused by a simple trailing blank entered in a form. It could be easily trimmed by Alma itself with neglectible implementation effort.
48 votes -
Order lines - Customize view: please add "Acquisition method"
Our colleagues are missing the field "Acquisition method" in the results list when searching for PO Lines.
Currently the field is only a facets value but this will also not add the field to the Excel export file.
Thank you in advance!48 votes -
Change physical items job -- adding notes improvement
The "Append to field" option was added in November 2023, but two additional options are still required.
'Delimiter' should be an option.
Now, the default delimiter is ";".
Some institutions use symbols other than ";" as delimiters.
For example, we use "|".
Therefore, there is a need to make the delimiter optional.Writing forward in the note
The current specification is to write backwards.
Some institutions operate writing new information in the front of the note.
There are three reasons for this.
(1)It is easier to manually add notes at the front of the note.
(2)It is easier to see…
48 votes -
Lending Ship item physically check item barcode matches title
When staff use "Ship Item Physically" from an individual request, there is no check that the item barcode entered into the Ship form matches the item barcode for the title. Staff can accidentally scan a barcode for a different request.
Because the item barcode is already in use, the other request can't be Shipped.
Adding a General setting to check that the item barcode matches the located title would help prevent workflow errors.
48 votes -
Do not allow invoices with a mismatch in payment method between vendor account and invoice from going into Approval status
It should not be possible to submit an invoice with a payment method that differs from those listed on the vendor account.
We have vendors who only accept certain types of payment, such as wire transfers. This can be documented at the account level of vendor records. However, an invoice can still be manually created that uses a payment method not used by that vendor, and it can go all the way through to issue a payment the vendor cannot accept, such as a check. There is a blue alert, but it does not block submission of the invoice. Testing…48 votes -
Linked Data Enrichment Moves $e Relator Subfields to Incorrect Positions When Saving Authorities with F3
When saving a name authority record in Alma using the F3 function, the Linked Data Enrichment process is causing the $e relator subfield to move to an incorrect position within the field. Instead of maintaining the expected order (e.g., $a, $e, $1), the $e subfield is often placed at the end or in another unexpected location after $0/$1 subfields are added. This disrupts the intended structure of the authority field and creates extra manual work for cataloguers.
Attempts to correct the placement by copying and pasting the $e subfield do not work as expected—Alma consistently pastes it at the end…
48 votes -
Payment option on user Fines/Fees tab
We would like to include a "Pay" option in the drop down list at the bottom of user Fines/Fees tab (see attachment). There are many times that patrons want to know their fine details. The staff have to show the patron Fines/Fees tab. If the patron wants to pay after that, the staff has to exit the Fines/Fees tab to pay the fine, which we think is wasting the time. Why don't have a "Pay" option in the dropdown on the Fines/Fees page?
47 votesThe Manage Patron Services menu has moved to the new UI, allowing improvement management of the payment process from that interface.
I was optimistic about exploring this idea further. While I had hoped to prioritize this enhancement, it hasn’t gained the traction we typically look for to move forward. As a result, it’s unlikely to be implemented in the foreseeable future. That said, your feedback remains valuable, and I’ll continue to keep it in mind as our roadmap evolves.
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Preventing Change of Due Date (Recall) when placing Physical Item Request
When placing a physical item request for an item that is checked out, we typically want to recall the item, but there are sometimes exceptions to this. For these exceptions, we would like to have the option, while placing the request, to prevent the recall and simply add the requester to the queue without changing the due date.
47 votes -
Automatically populate date and end time in booking request form
When placing a booking in Alma or Primo you need to choose a starting date then a starting hour followed by a starting minute. You then need to choose an end date then an ending hour and an ending minute. This is a lot of clicks to place one booking.
It would be nice if the end date, hour and time could be automatically populated based on the Terms of use of the item (so if the loan period is 2 hours and the start time is 2:30 then the end time could be automatically populated to say 4:30). If…
47 votesThank you again for sharing your idea and for the thoughtful input you've provided. When we first discussed it, I was optimistic about exploring it further,
While I had hoped to prioritize this enhancement, it hasn’t gained the traction we typically look for to move forward. As a result, it’s unlikely to be implemented in the foreseeable future. That said, your feedback remains valuable, and I’ll continue to keep it in mind as our roadmap evolves.
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Add the "Public note" of the item to the PNX record
The content of the item field "Public note" will not be published to Primo. We want to index the public note in Primo but the field is not transferred to the PNX record.
47 votes -
Ability to change the default for reading room to NOT FINAL - Second Attempt
In August 2018 Release we got a solution for the original idea, which made things worse for us. Previously the default for the reading room was set to "Final" check in. The original idea suggested to change this to "Not Final" to help avoid a scenario where for example resource sharing items are returned accidenty to their home campus when users are not finished with them.
As of August 2018 Alma remembers the last selected choice and keeps it for the next action ("sticky approach"). Since eventually every book loaned in the reading room has to be returned "final", now…47 votes -
Retain Course Reserves info in Alma Analytics
It would be helpful if the system would retain information about course reserves in Analytics, even after things are deleted in Alma. It would be useful to be able to look back over various terms and see what courses were run and when.
47 votes -
Option to define another set of records to be included in the Database search
The database search in Primo includes only electronic collections with collection type “database” or electronic collections with a collection level URL and an unsuppressed bibliographic record.
Even though you can change the electronic material type of a portfolio to “database” these titles can’t be searched through the database search. This means we have to add local database collections even though the title can be activated through the community zone.
An example is the electronic collection “De Gruyter Databases”. I should like to be able to include these in the database search.47 votes -
linked-data-powered sets and collections
TL;DR: populate existing ALMA sets / collections infrastructure using retrieval of a list of LCCNs from an external URL to allow linked-data-powered sets and collections.
Problem
We've all seen the book displays that most physical libraries have in their high-traffic areas. These might be works by the in-house press, topical events, anniversaries of author's birth, etc, etc.
In the digital space, there are shallow-functionality RSS feeds and then a yawning gap out to things that are typically called 'digital exhibitions' which are resource-intensive glossy displays.
ALMA Collections can be used for digital exhibitions, but populating them is labour-intensive and slow.
…
47 votes -
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:…
46 votes -
Enhance Physical Locations List export for "Suppress from Discovery" and other tags
At the moment there is no easy way to create a list of all physical locations set to "Suppress from Discovery".
It's not in the export, it's not in Analytics and it's not in the data you can get via API.
I would expect this information to be included in the export you can download in Alma. Same thing goes for "Accession Placement", "Call Number Type" and all other fields that are available in "Edit Physical Location".
At the moment the export is rather short as it contains only Code, Name, Location Type and Fulfillment Unit.
46 votes -
Allow institutions to export and import all configurations from Alma
Ex Libris has the new policy of forcing a refresh of the sandbox for all customers on the premium sandbox twice a year. This presents a significant challenge for institutions that use the sandbox actively, because it means that before every refresh, we have to go through the largely manual process of exporting all configurations out of the sandbox so we can keep record of them. Then if we want to recreate the old configurations, we have to do this manually.
Ex Libris offers no way to export or import these configurations in bulk. This policy change reduces the value…
46 votes
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