Improve the e-book purchase request workflow
The purchase request workflow needs to be improved for acqusition of electronic resources.
Currently, you can either approve or reject a purchase request. An approval automatically creates a POL and a standalone portfolio based in the Purchase Request BIB record. Both outcomes are unfortunate when working with e-books. An e-book will usually be ordered on the vendor site (e.g., the ProQuest portal) rather than through an Alma POL. It should be possible to select whether a POL is created. More importantly, we'd like the option, upon approval, to select and activeate a title from among CZ collections instead of having a standalone portfolio created.
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Jin commented
The simplest way is to add a closing step "Close" button to the purchase request to end the previous request that did not fully follow Alma's approve and order process.
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Laura Krier commented
You should also be able to link to an existing POL for physical items. When we order from our main book supplier, POLs are created automatically via the API. I can't link the request to those POLs, and instead have to reject them and personally email the requester to tell them that it's not actually been rejected. Being able to link a request to an existing POL would be very useful.
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Katherine O'Brien commented
Another +1 for selecting a CZ portfolio as part of the ebook purchase request workflow
This would allow us to use purchase requests. We decided not to use purchase requests because it creates a local portfolio when the request is approved. We use the EBC integration profile, which only checks for existing CZ portfolios, not local ones, and so we end up with duplicate portfolios in our collection. The CZ portfolios are preferable but it is too much work to de-dupe and the integration profile is more valuable to us than the purchase request feature.
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Tracey Reeves commented
We use a reject reason so that POLs are not generated by the purchase request, but that isn't ideal because it means that the bib data is deleted. You also need to manually add the requester to the POL you're creating/was loaded by API instead.
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Heidi commented
This would be a great improvement.
See also https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/39749557-in-purchase-requests-permit-re-linking-request -
Birgit commented
It would indeed be very interesting to be able to configure whether a POL is created or not. Even for printed materials which are ordered RTA or EOD that would be helpful.
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Tamara Pilko commented
+1 for selecting a CZ portfolio as part of the ebook purchase request workflow