Need a way to retrieve HOLDINGS where there are no ITEMS associated with the holding
Currently, there is no good way in either Advanced Repository search or Analytics to retrieve Holdings records that do not have items attached. The "has no inventory" indexing only returns bibs with no holdings, not holdings with no items. In order to have the holdings fields exposed to the Repository Search, you must select either Physical Title or Physical Item, which then only looks at records where there is an associated item record.
The same seems to be true in analytics. I can create an analysis using the Titles table and filter to "Number of Physical Items (All) = 0", but the Titles table does not index any holdings information (i.e. is it a microform or print?, what are our summary holdings?). If I try to pull the same list using the Physical Items table, I can get a list of titles within a given resource type, but as soon as I try to filter by "Num of Items", the list is reduced to just those titles which have ITEMS. If I try to filter to Num Items=0, or Num Items IS NULL, "No results" is returned, even though I get over 1800 titles returned from the previously described analysis from the Titles table. What I find even more counter-intuitive is that when I remove the Num of Items column and add in Holding Id, the results are limited to the same titles which have physical items. Even though there are holdings, and therefore holdings IDs, for many more titles, they are not included in the results. It seems as though not all holdings records are being indexed for this table, but instead, only those holdings related to items -- even though ALL bibs are indexed. Please index all holdings for both Analytics purposes and repository search.
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Stacey van Groll commented
Hi - While this development was great, I find little practical benefit because it is in the Titles subject area, which is only updated 'maybe' once a month. There is not even a set schedule for the update, so that you can try to automate checks by a scheduled Analytics report.
If anyone would like to see a daily ETL for Titles too, to make this data much more useful, then there's an idea for that here: https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/35806282-analytics-report-for-titles-daily -
Betsy R. commented
THANK YOU!!!!! I am excited and appreciative to also read in the release notes that the ability to create a set in Alma from an Analytics report has likewise been added. This is terrifically helpful.
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The May 2018 Release includes the following: changes were made to allow you to create Analytics reports for holdings records that do not have item records
See here for more details: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/010_2018/08_May_2018/Alma_May_2018_Release_Notes/07Analytics_-_May_2018_Enhancements#Additional_Analytics_Enhancements
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Thanks for the great idea, which specifically points out the need to be able to report on holdings with no items in Alma Analytics. Our plans have been updated accordingly and the Physical Item subject area will be enhanced to support these types of queries
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Betsy R. commented
Ah-ha! You are correct, "has items" under the holdings column wlll work in Repository "Physical Titles" search. So now I can find them to work on them within Alma. Thank you!
I leave this suggestion here, though, because the need to REPORT against info in the holdings records is still needed.
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Anonymous commented
There is a "has items" criterion for holdings in the advanced search which allow retrieval of holdings that have no items. However, it would still be extremely useful to be able to identify holdings without items in analytics too.