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.
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77 results found
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Increase the 10MB email attachment limit for digitization requests
Currently the limit for email attachments when filling digitization requests is 10MB. We would like institutions to be able to choose their own limit that suits their own institutional email policies (e.g. Otago's attachment limit on their email server is 30MB). Other institutions may wish to have a lower limit so it should be possible to set a limit that is appropriate up to a maximum value that can be supported by the Alma email infrastructure. Our staff frequently bump into the 10MB limit which leads to them cancelling digitization requests in Alma and then manually emailing the attachment to…
601 votesAs stated in the comment for this idea, we understand the need to have a file uploaded in various sizes so we will handle this as part of the “ship digitally” option as an alternative to the actual attachment of the file.
“Ship digitally” will send a link to the email recipient which will enable them to download the attachment. see more information here: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/030Fulfillment/040Resource_Requests/070Digitization_Processing#Attaching_Digitized_Items_to_Be_Sent_to_a_PatronAlthough you specified that your request relates to file attachments, our proposed solution is to increase the file sizes of those attachments which are sent via a link. Here is the idea exchange which relates to this:
Thanks,
Noam. -
Add ability to prevent CDI content from appearing in Primo, by Alma Electronic Collection
With CDI we have no control over preventing CDI content from appearing in our Primo filtered search, when we have full text holdings which matches to this content.
In many cases this may be a good thing, in not needing to worry over making sure full text content is searchable.
However, it is clear that there are collections in CDI with very poor data, which causes linking to fail, and also has content which we do not want at all such as Journals and Books, as we manage the title level by our Alma records.
For example, CRL Catalog has…522 votesThe local selection of individual data sources is not possible with the merged record and the single activation flow. We cannot change this in the foreseeable future. Content (including specific collection) related issues should be reported via the support channel.
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Cancellation Reason Customization
It would be very helpful to be able to customize the Cancellation Reasons with a code table of some kind. Especially since the Cancellation Letter appears to pull directly from the Cancellation Reasons drop-down, being able to customize the cancellations would give flexibility in the wording of the letter and encompass any further changes to Cancellation Reasons in the future.
440 votes -
Make all tables in Alma sortable by all their column headings
There are lots of tables in the Alma UI that come up which can be sorted by a couple of the column heads but not others. For example in Letters Configuration, you can sort by "Letter" or "Description," but not by "Enabled," "Channel," or "Retention Period." Being able to sort by column headings is a basic function of a table.
In the example above, it would be helpful to be able to see only those letters that are enabled, or to sort so that all the email letters are grouped together and all the SMS letters are separate from them.
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440 votesThanks for the idea and comments – Ex Libris agrees with you that our support in sorting of tables should be expanded. While the idea to change lists across the entire system is clear the lists in Alma differ from one to another based on entities they manage and area of operation and functionality which often require specific handling of sorting related options for displayed columns. Due to various technical reasons related to list size, database indexing, languages and more, we typically need to improve each area separately and are unable to address this idea across the system for all lists in one software change.
Due to above, the practical way to move forward is to refer to types of lists and/or areas of the system that require improved sorting. One example is mapping tables and code tables, which can be handled as a group and changed for all such…
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Update URL in porfolio when attached bib record's 856 is updated
When the URL in a bib record attached to a portfolio is updated (individually edited, or batch load/overlay of records), there should be a setting to the action so that the URL in an attached portfolio would also be updated and we don't have to remember to manually do this. We have had 2 recent instances, one where we used APIs to update bib records using our old PURL manager to use our new one, only to find that the portfolio URLs also needed to be changed separately, and one where we have a batch of vendor records with changed…
351 votesDear community,
Thank you for bringing this idea to our attention.
We analyzed it carefully, and identified that such enhancement might be risky. Therefore we decided that it will not be implemented for now.
Thanks for your understanding.
Tamar Fuches
Alma product team
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Reset PO and POL number every year
Dear colleagues,
Currently, the POs and POLs numbers are generated automatically and the turn of the calendar year has no effect on it.We would find very convenient that, at the start of each year, the sequence starts again.
The first PO of 2023 of would be PO-2023-1, same with the POLs POL-2023-1.
The numbers would gain in clarity.Thank your for considering this.
Kind regards,
Maxime336 votesDear community,
This story has 2 parts:
- Having the calendar year as a prefix without the need to explicitly define it in the beginning of each year
- Having the sequence to be restarted when a new calendar year begins
After checking the technical implications, we identify that this change is risky and might cause duplications and data mismatch.
Decision is that we will not implement this due to technical risks.
Best regards,
Tamar Fuches
Alma product manager
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Allow Reinstatement of Fines/Fees
Fines are occasionally processed in error or you might need to reinstate a fine payment taken on someone's account. We would like the ability to reinstate fines that have previously been paid or waived.
307 votesReverting status of fines and fees would require careful privilege management, and may have negative implication in terms of managing fee auditing and implications on fulfillment, such as anonymization. The currently recommended practice is to manually create a new fine with a proper comment
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Allow Linking PO Lines to Electronic Inventory Regardless of Order Record Type
We keep running into road blocks with not being able to hotlink POLines into the POLine fields of either Electronic Collection Records or Portfolio records.
Is there a way that Alma can allow us to add POLines to Electronic inventory no matter what the order type is? This would save us so much time and allow us to use existing order lines for renewals. Right now we are doing a work around to connect order lines with electronic inventory by entering order information in the Portfolio Internal Description field.
280 votesDear community,
We reviewed this idea and analyzed it deeply.
The current Alma data model relays on the PO line type as indication of the related inventory. Changing this is very complicated and risky, therefore for now we will not implement this.
Thanks,
Tamar Fuches
Alma product team
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Alma emails: provide matching plain-text alternative to reduce spamminess
Currently Alma emails only include an HTML-formatted variant. Anti-spam software will typically penalise messages that do not contain a plain-text variant, increasing the odds that the message will be marked as spam. Providing a plain-text variant would also benefit users of plain-text only email readers. The plain-text variant should resemble the unformatted content of the HTML-formatted variant. If they differ this might suggest that the sender is perhaps sending an innocuous text in the plain text part just to get through spam filters, and again, would be penalised for this.
267 votes -
Title-level request and item-level request
Currently it is only possible to configure either item-level-requests OR title-level requests in Alma for Primo . We request the possibility to configure title-level-requests in the terms of use when specific parameters are met, for example when all items are located in a certain location.
255 votesHi,
Alma Fulfillment manages requests as title level, which is the easiest requesting option for the patrons. The request form allows to specify specific required terms of use or material types. If there are specific items that should be requestable on the item level, Alma expects their unique attribute to be described in the Description field. That will make them requestable at the item level.
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Manage Item Returns: Send one Return Receipt Letter for all returned items per user
Returning items via "Manage Item Returns" generates one Return Receipt Letter per returned item. This means if one user returns several items he will get several e-mails, one for each item. This is annoying for users. The problem arises especially when the drop box for returns is used and the staff scans in lots of unsorted returned items from different users.
Scanned-in returns should be collected in a cache and allocated to the users who loaned them. After pressing "Exit" and closing the scan-in-session one return receipt per user containing all returns belonging to this user should be send.
Thanks…
251 votesThere is no user session in Return Items, which is designed to enable returning items of multiple user. It is therefore technically not possible to aggregate notices for a specific user
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Analytics on Sandbox
Having the flexibility to build analytics on our premium sandbox would be beneficial two fold. First, it would allow us to fully test processes on our test system using analytics reporting we intend to use in production. Second, it would allow us to work through data changes and the related reporting without having to disrupt live production data.
239 votesUnfortunately adding Analytics which is a third party tool with high maintainance effort envolved to the sandbox is not feasibile.
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New institutional number sequence, or reset Additional ID, to shorten hold shelf pickup number
In the April 2019 RN the feature "Additional ID for Hold Request Management" became available and it has been very useful for our library, especially since we have an open hold shelf and need anonymized hold shelf slips. By the end of 2022 we noticed that the number sequence wasn't reset when it reached 999-999-999 like we expected it to. Instead new numbers are added and we've been told that it will just continue to add new numbers and never reset. Very long serial numbers are not user-friendly, neither for the staff, nor for the patron.
To prevent long numbers,…
197 votesThe Additional ID is generated by a third party software component which we have no control of.
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Decouple the bib-level material type of Music into Scores and Sound Recordings
The bibliographic material type of Music inexplicably combines scores (Leader/06 c or d) and sound recordings (Leader/06 i or j) into a single facet. This makes no sense and makes standard statistics reporting extremely difficult as scores are usually reported with books (they are, after all, pieces of paper bound between covers) whereas sound recordings are usually reported with other media. Scores should be separated out as its own bib-level material type.
190 votes“Music” is one of the seven different distinct bibliographic material types used by the MARC standard: https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bdintro.html
This is defined as: “Music (MU) - used for printed, electronic, manuscript, and microform music, as well as musical sound recordings, and non-musical sound recordings. Material may be monographic or serial in nature”.
As adherence to the MARC standard is important to many of our customers (as also reflected in the comments to this idea), we will keep these distinct seven formats, and not add or subtract from them.
Alma also provides a “Resource Type” category, which is more granular and is based on a combination of fields – this includes the following non-musical types:
Audio nonmusical – Physical: LDR pos. 06 = i AND LDR pos. 7 = m AND 008 pos. 23 != a,b,c,o,f,q,s (MARC 21), LDR pos. 6 = i (UNIMARC) or LDR pos. 06 = i AND LDR pos.…
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Publishing of alternative call number from Alma to Primo
Currently item-level information is not published from Alma to Primo. As a result creating of call number search and browse indexes that include both permanent as well as alternative call number is not possible.
182 votesDear all, I would like to update that after consulting with our colleagues in Primo on this development, it was decided that this idea will be closed as we are not developing new functionality enhancements for Alma-Primo, and will not be adding this to the existing “publishing to Primo”. Future new Alma-Primo enhancements will be done for Primo VE only.
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Enable desk operators to select from a predetermined list of loan periods.
We would like desk operators to have the option of selecting from a list of predetermined check out periods for items in certain collections.
Boston College Libraries currently provide approximately 80 laptops to community members, which can be borrowed for a fixed loan period. For many patrons this static loan period is either too short or too long, adding some loan period choices would enable us to easily meet the needs of more patrons.
Currently in Alma, offering a variety of loan periods would require the creation of additional locations and terms of use. Doing so would enable us to…180 votesAdding more than one policy to a TOU would add a lot of complexity to TOU and loan rules management. Perhaps it is simpler to change a due date manually at loan time
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Reporting PO Line Notes
Currently, there no option to report PO Line Notes in Alma Analytics. Given the possibility to add many and various Notes to each PO Line, this seems a valuable opportunity missed.
Could other Alm users make use of this reporting option too?
Regards
Wayne
177 votes -
Calculation of due date for recalled lending requests should be consistent with fulfillment loan recalls.
When setting recall period on a fulfillment loan to "No recall due date", the original due date is kept, while renewal of the recalled loan is blocked.
For some reason, a different logic is applied to lending requests. Setting "No recall due date" as the recall period policy for lending requests, results in the due date being set to the date of the recall. The result is unpredictability for the borrower.
We propose that that these two very similar workflows are better alligned and that setting "no recall period" for recall should result in no change to the due date…
174 votesThe lender’s recall options are:
- Not to recall requested items. This can be done by removing the recall option from the relevant workflow profile.
- To recall requested items. The new due date will be set as per the recall due date policy.
In either case, a the borrower request to extend the loan of an item that has been requested by a patron on the lender side will be rejected.
The only functional implication of recalling without change in due date is the notification to the borrower that the item may no longer be renewed (which is the case anyhow). Do note that a lender’s item may be nonrenewable for any lender internal reason that the borrower may not be aware of.
The complexity of built-in configuration support for this option (i.e. not via the mentioned workaround) is probably beyond the functional benefit.
Moshe
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make location type „unavailable“ functional: items in these locations should be shown as unavailable in Alma and Primo
We need the possibility to show items as unavailable in Primo without creating requests (work orders) for them.
Our use cases are
- items which have been restituted (via a provenance research project) and are no longer in the library
- items which are blocked for usage for years
- items which are not usable for certain reasons
All of these have to be shown in the discovery interface, although users won't get them for a long time or at all.Now, all of these items have a "green" availability status in Primo and we struggle to put information about…
174 votesNon available items must be in some process. Using work orders enables setting a description for the work order to indicate why the item is not available.
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Be able to edit comment field of an active fine or fee posted to a patron's account
Sometimes, when posting a fine or fee to an account, the barcode gets scanned before entering info into the comments field requiring the removal of the fine and then having to re-post it into the patron's account. Would like an edit option in the ellipses to be able to go back into the fine and edit the comments field.
171 votesEnabling the altering of fine information may be sensitive, as it damages the creditability of information that is logged in fines.
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