Improve Shelf Report functionality and responsiveness
Alma’s “Shelf Report” tool is a cumbersome, involved “inventory” process that requires users to populate a spreadsheet with barcode values, feed it to Alma, and then track down and manually identify any items that come back as an error (without Alma providing a timely or clear explanation for where a problem item might have been found if it was detected, or not detected). We’re aware of Dean Lingley’s API for “shelf inventory” and the WRLC “AlmaInventory” tool that attempt to cover some of these gaps, but neither of these replicate the same mass-scan-immediate-feedback-fix-it-and-move-on utility (without involving spreadsheets, macros, etc.) that we originally had with our previous ILS.
A useable, useful inventory system should allow us to scan barcodes in a range directly on the shelves, and be immediately notified when an item is either missing or shelved in the wrong place (because it either scanned another book first or didn’t scan it when it expected to). Likewise, this tool should allow us to mark a missing item as “Missing” during the scan, fix a “missing” status if we found it, and otherwise manage inventory aspects on the fly instead of taking information back to Alma and providing results or making these changes after running a report. “Shelf Report” should either be updated with this functionality, or another feature should be introduced alongside it to accomplish this.
Aaron Kilgore
shared this idea
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Nicholas Pavlovic
commented
Another Idea Exchange submission you may want to consider voting on about Enhancing Shelf Report.
https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/45790744-enhance-shelf-report -
Katie Wallis commented
This would be really great. Inventory is important for finding missing items, but as it is now, it's so cumbersome.
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Susan Martinovich
commented
Some of the TAFE colleges in Western Australia would also like to have this functionality but within ALMA, as we can't use add-ons due to IT policies. when we had Voyager an in-house IT person made a program that we used to scan the shelves and could find by colour coded screens issues with the physical items. including wrong library, Lost and missing, wrong collection etc. It worked really well for stocktaking and issues could be fixed quickly. So yes a live stocktaking system would be beneficial and something that is missing in ALMA.