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.
679 results found
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Allow starting Course Load jobs via API
We'd like to be able to kick off course loads via the API. The machinery needed to do that seems to be in place but customers are prevented from using it and are forced to schedule the job using the Alma UI.
3 votesThe API has been expanded to allow starting Course Load jobs.
For more information please see Alma December Release Notes -
Add Expiry Date as optional field to display in Profile Role list
We depend on Profiles (Config > User Management > Profiles) to assign multiple roles to many new student hires each semester. We set all student roles to expire at the end of each semester and renew roles each semester for returning workers. We started adding Expiry Dates to roles in frequently-used student Profiles to gain efficiency. We must update the Expiry Dates in each role in a profile in advance of the next round of student staff onboarding. Profiles that are applied less frequently do not get this Role-Expiry Date treatment.
The problem is that the Profile Roles list display…
3 votes“Expiry Date” has been added as new column to User Profile’s Roles page.
As of July Release -
JSON reports for zero usage are not including a usage data line
Ex Libris have advised that the current behaviour is by design. When Alma loads an empty file that does not contain any usage data, the log will show "Failed" with no reason or description for the failure. Alma reports should include a message to indicate that there was zero usage, so that users know Alma has conducted a successful harvest.
3 votesAs of May release Alma knows to handle 3060 error messages coming from vendors which have difficulties analyzing the standard R5 date format. in these cases Alma will re attempt to send the request with a different date format for the vendor to process.
Additional handling was done to files which were “Fully processed” but did not contain any usage data. In the past the “data description” column was empty.
In cases where the harvest was successful and there was no data in the file, the status of the harvest will be “Completed – No valid report items found in the file”In case a single harvest brought a file with usage for multiple months, and some months had usage while others don’t the status of the harvest will be “Completed”.
Vendors which Alma can now better communicate with are:
Sage Journals
Duke Press
MIT Press
American Society of Civil… -
Exclude cancelled or closed POLs from the search results
When you are searching for POLs, you are able to select one facet pertaining to the POL status to narrow down your results. What would be more helpful is if we could EXCLUDE search results based on a selected facet. For example, selecting a facet to remove all "Cancelled" POLs.
3 votes -
Show / Hide Email Type and Address Type values (e.g. Alternative etc.) from Register New User menu
It would be useful if we could show or hide some Email Type and Address Type values (e.g. Alternative etc.) from the Register New User menu.
Actually those values sometimes generate problems in our API connecting Alma with our Human Resources system. But in general making them disappear could help in making the form for registering a new user more customizable and, if needed, simpler.3 votesIt is now possible to configure the fields that appear in the Patron Registration and the Edit User Info (from the Manage Patron Services page) forms in Alma.
The new option makes it possible to configure a form that is fine-tuned to the library's needs and manages only the information the library wants to manage.
For more information see August Release Notes
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Set default payment type for circulation desk
We would like the ability to set default payment options for our circulation desks. We currently use the cash option for our student campus payment system since we do not have the ability to add custom payment types and we do not actually accept cash anymore so we use that but cash is showing as the "default" option from the payment area and most of our payments are credit card so we would like to set credit card as the default payment option.
3 votesThis idea was rereleased in Feb 2024
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Add patron due date to Resource Sharing information
On the Borrowing screen for Resource Sharing requests it would be nice to see the patron's current due date in addition to the request due date for requests that are checked out to patrons. This could be an optional field to be added to the Resource Sharing Task List.
3 votesThe user's loan due date is now being display on the borrowing request.
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Add "equal" option to the title search "Authority id" index
When searching for titles by authority ID, currently the search supports searching with: Contains keywords, contains phrase, is empty, not contains keywords, not contains phrase, is not empty.
Add the option to also search by "equals".3 votesThis request has already been fulfilled; the equals operator is implemented and available in the Authority ID index.
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Staff search add thumbnail to staff search results
It will be really nice if the staff search result can display the cover of a book or a journal
1 vote -
2 votes
The ability to enlarge the font was added as part of user UI preference.
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Replacement Costs in Analytics represented as a number
Currently they are represented as text. You have to manipulate the Excel file to get them to become numbers. However, it would be nice if they exported as numbers, or were numbers in Analytics, for easier manipulation of the data.
2 votesThis ideas exchange is complete.
The replacement cost no longer works as a decimal number.
It now behaves as follows, correctly filtering for example by less than or equal to 50: -
View history of patron record
We'd like to be able to view the history of a patron record. This would help with troubleshooting problems with updates from our SIS and also investigating problems with circulation.
2 votes -
Add fund rules fields to Tools>Excel export in Funds and Ledgers search results screen
Support have confirmed that it's not possible for an Alma user to access reporting on the fund rules fields e.g. over expenditure allowed, over-expenditure limit etc.
They suggest the quickest way to achieve this would be to add these fields as columns to the Tools>Excel export function in the fund and ledger search results screen.
2 votes -
Invoice amount
We need a display for a total invoice amount and total invoice lines amount above the invoice tabs. Otherwise we must always click on the summary tab after the recording the invoice lines for control. See attachment please.
2 votes -
Increase the number of vendors available through the SUSHI module
There are many vendors that provide SUSHI setup information that are not certified for the Alma module (Factiva, Project MUSE, and Gale to name a few).
Work with these vendors who do offer SUSHI to get them working through Alma's SUSHI module.2 votes -
Put oclc number as the first oclc number in the Network number in analytic reports
When a bib record has 035 and 775 which has an OCLC number, in an analytic report, the 775 number is the first OCLC number in the Network number column. But if a record only has 035 subfield a and z, then the OCLC number for the resource is the first OCLC number in the Network number column.
When we are doing an analytic report retrieving the OCLC number, we are only interested in the OCLC number of the resource, not its the OCLC number of its other edition (755). This confusing order of resource OCLC number makes this Network…
2 votes -
Additional File Format Options for Scheduled Analytics Reports
When setting up a scheduled analytics report there are a couple of file format options: Excel, PDF, text.
The text option is not useful and what we really need is CSV and Tab Delimited options.
I realize you can have it provide Excel and then you can resave it, but that requires extra processing steps that should not be required in this day and age.
2 votes -
Correcting Alma Analytics
In Alma Analytics, if you want to get a report of items that their replacement cost is under $50 for example, the program is written in such a way that looks at the costs in decimal order. So your report will include all items that cost $100, $200, $300, $400, etc. as long as the first digit is under 5. So you will end up with wrong results. Please correct this so the program looks at numbers as whole numbers not by decimal order. Thank you.
2 votes -
More search indexes in Advanced Search
Please enable search indexes such as 'Is not empty', 'Not contains', 'Not contains phrase', 'Not equal' search logic to as many search indexes as possible, especially for DC fields of Digital titles.
2 votesA "Not Equals" operator is available in the Alma advanced search.
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New Alma Layout and New Metadata Editor: Same Icons for Different Functions
In the New Alma Layout the ‘Recent Pages’ and ‘Recent Entities’ share the same icon although they serve different content (cf. attached screen clipping).
In the new Alma layout, the icon for Advanced Search displayed left of the persistent search slot is essentially the same as the icon in the new Metadata Editor's left pane, which serves to filter the list of records (cf. attached screen clipping).
We believe that using one icon for two different functions is confusing to the users and suggest replacing the icon for one of the two for both cases.
2 votesThank you for your feedback. We have changed the advance search icon to a different icon than the filtering option in the new metadata editor.
We have checked the other idea of changing the icon for Recent Pages and the icon for Recent Entities and come to the conclusion it is the common semantic users are used to.
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