Alma
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For more information please review our FAQ and guidelines. Thank you.
1766 results found
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Be able to see the full email message when using Send email to partner or Send query to patron
Currently we cannot see the full context of these email messages, we only see the “body” of the email, but that does not include any pre-set text or the greeting and signature.
Staff are left guessing what information is included in the full message, and the sent messages often look poorly composed and unprofessional. It is inconvenient and time consuming to find the templates to check the complete message before sending. Knowing what the full message looks like at the moment of writing, would help staff decide exactly what to write in the email
Message.3 votes -
Be able to see the full email message when using Send email to partner or Send query to patron
Currently we cannot see the full context of these email messages, we only see the “body” of the email, but that does not include any pre-set text or the greeting and signature.
Staff are left guessing what information is included in the full message, and the sent messages often look poorly composed and unprofessional. It is inconvenient and time consuming to find the templates to check the complete message before sending. Knowing what the full message looks like at the moment of writing, would help staff decide exactly what to write in the email Message.
3 votes -
Be able to cancel, or reject, a request that is updated as shipped in error
Sometimes lenders update a request as shipped in error. Once we have confirmed with the partner that we will never receive that item, we should be able to either cancel the request, or reject it so it moves on to another partner. Currently we can only “receive” and “return”, but that creates incorrect analytics reports.
3 votes -
Add Resource Sharing partner address information to Alma Analytics
Information should include street, city, state, zip code, country, and latitude and longitude. This information is essential for creating reports showing where ILL items are coming from or going to. This would enable us to create reports showing how much borrowing and lending we do by regions, internationally, and make it possible to create maps that we can use to promote our services to patrons, library staff and university administration.
3 votes -
Request for Enhancement of the "Patron Physical Item Request" Function
We would like to request an enhancement regarding the "Patron Physical Item Request" function.
Currently, Alma recommends using the "Patron Physical Item Request" function at the title level, and customer institutions are also using the function in the same way.
When a purchase request is made, notifications for item arrival and hold requests for interested users are also processed at the title level. As a result, when multiple items (e.g., volumes/issues) are ordered under a single title, even if several items are received by the library through that order, interested users receive a notification indicating that only one item has…6 votes -
Allow cross-use of MARC21 authority fields 500 and 510
Alma currently enforces strict validation rules that restrict the use of fields 500 and 510 based on the type of authorized heading (100 vs. 110), preventing cross-usage and triggering validation alerts.
However, in real cataloguing practice (including MARC21 examples and records from the National Library of Spain), it is both common and necessary to establish relationships between different types of authorities (personal ↔ corporate) using 5XX fields. For example, a 110 record may include 500 fields linking to persons, and a 100 record may include 510 fields linking to corporate bodies.
This restriction limits the accurate representation of relationships such…30 votes -
Sage Journals Backfile Packages for 2026
Sage has released their journal package lists for 2026, see https://www.sagepub.com/journals/information-for-librarians/journals-packages. Backfile collections have been added to Alma CZ for past years. We would like to see the 2026 collections added as well. We are specifically looking for the 2026 Shallow Backfile Package 1 and Package 2.
Thanks!3 votes -
Package different Acquisition Types in one PO
Our library receives invoices that include a mix of line items—some with associated bibliographic records and others that are payment only (non cataloged). For non cataloged items, we create suppressed purchase order lines (POLs) using the Technical acquisition type with manual packaging. For cataloged items on the same invoice, we use the Vendor Payment acquisition type.
As a result, a single invoice often requires multiple acquisition types. Currently, Alma does not allow different acquisition types to be packaged together during PO creation. Instead, we must create the PO first and then manually add Technical acquisition lines afterward, which adds unnecessary…3 votes -
Job of SUSHI Harvesting should report standard SUSHI exceptions
At the moment when running a SUSHI harvesting job, the job reports as successfull without further notice even if the vendor sends the report with an exception as described in the COUNTER API standards: https://countermetrics.stoplight.io/docs/counter-sushi-api/7ccbfsfe7nrev-exception
Example:
Alma is asked to download reports for the following timespan: begindate=2025-01-01&enddate=2025-09-30
The vendor sends the JSON file containing
"Exceptions":[{"Code":3032,"Message":"Usage No Longer Available for Requested Dates","Data":"Usage no longer retained for the following yearmonths(s): 202501, 202502, 202503, 202504, 202505, 202506, 202507, 202508, 202509"}]The Alma job closes as successfull. The months in question are marked as completed.
Expected behaviour:
Alma should either report the…3 votes -
Allow ERP Job to Fail Gracefully Without Updating Invoice Status
Occasionally, the ERP job “ERP export using profile Export Invoices for Payment PA” fails when it is unable to connect to the configured FTP destination. In these cases, invoices that are in the status “Waiting to be sent” are still updated to “Closed”, even though the export did not successfully complete.
This behavior creates a significant issue, as invoices are effectively marked as processed without actually being transmitted to the external system. As a result, staff must manually identify and correct these records, which is time-consuming and introduces risk of error.
It would be highly beneficial if Alma handled this…
3 votes -
Feature Request for Individual Interlibrary Loan Requests
We would like to request a functional enhancement regarding individual borrowing requests in the following menu:
[Alma > Fulfillment > Resource Sharing > Borrowing Requests]
When a user at an Alma customer institution (e.g., a university library) submits a KERIS interlibrary loan (ILL) request via the library website, the request is received in the Alma menu above. In such cases, the staff in charge of resource sharing must separately submit the request through WILL (the KERIS interlibrary loan system).At this stage, the staff would like to send a notification email to the user confirming that the interlibrary loan request…
6 votes -
It's great that Ex Libris values user feedback
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1 vote -
Make explicit exchange rates editable
Our exchange rates are updated quarterly by our institution. Rather than having to delete them and recreate them every time, we should be able to edit them.
3 votes -
Sort Routine for one-time receive items on “Receive” interface
Same problem to "Sort Routine for ordered items in PO Line" idea posted at https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/51154792-sort-routine-for-ordered-items-in-po-line , I would like for your support to the sort routine for one-time received items.
There is no sort routine for one-time received items. For receiving more than 100 items in a PO Line, we must input the barcode one item by one item (because the auto-generation of barcode cannot apply “Mod 10-Option 1” for the 14th digit as the check digit of the barcodes our library). No sorting of the one-time received items make us spend long time for locating the correct location and…
10 votes -
Sort Routine for ordered items in PO Line
I wish to get support from all Acquisition Librarians who visit this idea.
My library has to order more than 100 copies for different locations for certain titles. During creation of these PO Lines, the sorting of Ordered Items is in chaos after pressing the “Save” button. The sorting is not following the input sequence, or by alphabetical order. My acquisition colleagues, therefore, cannot double check the ordered items in sequence. Contacted Supports Team, it is confirmed that the sort routine functionality for Order Items is not currently supported in the system, and suggest me to post here for your…
10 votes -
File Naming
Current system behavior replaces user-defined file names with the Rapid request no. and the Cross Ref IDs during the delivery process. To meet ADA Title II standards, we need the system to preserve the original staff-assigned filename when the file is delivered to the patron.
34 votes -
Option to mark Home Delivery addresses added during requests as "Preferred"
Most of our patrons do not have a pre-registered address in their records, so we rely heavily on the Home Delivery option in Primo VE, which allows users to provide their address directly during the request process. While this feature is highly valued by our patrons, it presents a significant operational issue because these addresses are not automatically marked as "Preferred" in Alma. Consequently, this information does not appear on the patron’s activity page and, more critically, it cannot be retrieved within the Analytics Fulfillment subject area, where only preferred addresses are accessible for reporting.
To resolve this, we request…
21 votes -
Use of RFID in "Shipping Items"
Is it possible to add an RFID button to active interlibrary loans, as it is the case with regular loans already? This would allow the respective medium to be scanned via the RFID pad and be unlocked immediately. The arrow in the screenshot shows the desired position for the RFID integration.
1 vote -
Add IZ-level option to hide the "Order It" plugin in the navigation bar
In our Institution Zone, we discovered that the "Order It" plugin is not limited to Amazon websites, despite what the Ex Libris documentation currently states under "Supported Platforms". Ex Libris has since clarified that, although the original development focused on identifying Amazon fields, the feature can in principle work with any website that uses the same field identifiers in its HTML.
At the same time, we learned that there is currently no option to hide the plugin from the navigation bar. In our tests, the feature produced extremely rudimentary bibliographic records, which might be more difficult to manage and could…
30 votes -
Expand coverage of the 'single' ISBN and ISSN fields in the Analytics 'Titles' subject area
The fields 'ISBN Valid Single (Normalized)' and 'ISSN Valid Single (Normalized)' in the 'Titles' subject area are useful for matching purposes. However those fields only cover ISBNs/ISSNs from MARC bibliographic field 020a. Sometimes we're looking to match Alma records to sources which might use older identifiers, that appear instead in 020z, 776z, 022l, 022a and/or 776x respectively in the Alma records. Those MARC fields' contents are reportable in the general 'ISBN' and 'ISSN' Analytics fields, but those Analytics fields don't provide each identifier on its own row. Additional, expanded versions of the 'ISBN single' and 'ISSN single' fields (perhaps named…
1 vote
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