It is possible to upload attachments to a PO Line or an invoice. These attachements can be viewed, edited and deleted as well.

In case of using Alma as (the only) data storage for e.g. invoice PDFs, it is very important that attachments can be deleted only by specially privileged staff users. Deletion might be necessery e.g. because of erroneous uploads.

Looking into the 'Roles Reports' shows that there is no 'Delete' option listed (so Edit means also Delete):

# Purchasing Operator / Purchasing Manager
- po_line_attachments.xml ... View Edit
- po_attachments.xml ... Edit
- invoice_attachments_tab.xml ... View
- po_line_attachments.xml ... View
- po_attachments.xml ... View

# Purchasing Operator Extended
[nothing for attachments]

# Invoice Operator / Invoice Manager / Invoice Operator Extended
- invoice_attachments_tab.xml ... View Edit
- po_line_attachments.xml ... View Edit
- invoice_attachments_tab.xml ... View
- po_line_attachments.xml ... View
- po_attachments.xml ... View

The 'Delete' and 'Edit' options should be removed from user roles which are allowed to upload and view attachments.
The 'Delete' option should be be an own user role. Alma already has this differentiation in other areas, e.g.:
- Purchase Request Operator Extended (Delete purchase requests)
- Selector Extended (Delete purchase requests)
- Cataloger Extended (additional delete privilege)
- Physical Inventory Operator Extended (additional delete privilege)
- Electronic Inventory Operator Extended (additional delete privilege)

The National Library of New Zealand (NLNZ) is ordering and receiving an increasing amount of born digital material, particularly through Legal Deposit. These publications are collected as individual monograph publications and serial issues, not as part of an aggregation or domain/website harvesting, for the purposes of long term access and preservation in our Heritage Collections. They are publications in their own right, not digitised version of print holdings. Alma’s Acquisitions workflows do not currently have any options to allow for steps that are specific to receiving born digital material.

Our current workflow involves the creation of Vendor records and POLs using a physical workflow (Print Book – One Time or Print Journal – Subscription). This allows us to manage vendor information, orders, claims and occasionally invoices. Born digital material is distinguished by a specific location and material type. We receive each born digital item in the physical workflow and then ingest it into our repository (Rosetta). There is then a synchronisation between systems that creates the digital rep and updates the label information. This means, particularly for serial issues, that we are duplicating data in the receiving (Alma) and ingest (Rosetta). The physical location we use for all born digital material is supressed so that what shows in Primo is the digital rep, not the physical item.

What we would like to see is a suite of born digital options within acquisitions in the same way as there are currently separate options for electronic material. This would include functionality for additional information such as access levels, in vendor management, orders, claims, invoices etc.. Our thinking is that the critical difference in a born digital workflow is functionality where item receipt is triggered by the creation of the digital rep either in Alma or through syncing with an external repository. This would remove the need to enter data twice and would also allow us to manage a claims workflow effectively.

Currently re-opening a closed POL doesn’t re-encumber the funds. The workaround for this is to delete the fund, save the change, then add the fund back and save again.

When we brought this up with Ex Libris they advised this can't be done automatically, but that they would instead add a popup message advising the funds will need to be manually re-encumbered. This was supposed to be added in December 2016 release but we noticed some time later that it didn't eventuate (SalesForce case #00436654).

It would save a lot of time if re-opening a closed POL automatically re-encumbered the funds without manual intervention.

The Change Bib reference action is not available for POLs that have originated from the Community Zone. This is an issue as POLs with CKB references don't have bib record information which can be used in Analytics.

In our SalesForce case about this (00570591) we were told that POLs for an electronic item can be relinked only if it has an MMS ID in the first place, and we see from the manual that changing the bib record isn't possible using the relink action if there’s not already a bib record attached:
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/020Acquisitions/020Purchasing/045Closing%2C_Reopening%2C_and_Relinking_PO_Lines#Relinking_PO_Lines

So what we want is the ability to order from the CZ and get records with an MMS ID. Ex Libris advised that “currently Alma does not have a good solution to avoid [PO Lines] to be linked to CKB records”).

When creating an e-activation task for an electronic inventory item directly from the portfolio or collection, the feedback message contains only an informational message that the task was completed but does not contain a link to the task on the E-Resource Activation Task List. We would like to see a feedback message that would include a direct link to the task so that the user can then handle the task (for example, assign the task to themselves or to others.)

We would also like to see a feedback message containing a link to the newly created task when submitting an order for an e-resource if a task is created.

Alma calculates accrual percentages based on days, while we have always calculated the percentages/amounts based on months. That creates problems when we manually calculate an invoice outside of Alma, and then try to re-create it in Alma. We have had instances in which we have different amounts in Alma and with our business office as we could not enter the amounts manually in Alma. It would be really helpful to be able to manually edit amount fields for both fiscal years.

As another example, a 50/50 split of an odd number, e.g. 49.87 requires one year to be 24.93 and one to be 24.94. Currently, we have no control over which fiscal year gets billed more.

The po_line_remove_interested_users job allows institutions to delete Interested Users from PO lines that have closed. However, there are many times when a PO line is closed before the item has left the department; consequently, running the po_line_remove_interested_users job means that interested users may be deleted before the item becomes available. Additionally, while the job removes the Interested Users from Alma, it does not remove the information from Analytics.

We request that:
A. Institutions have the ability to set a delay on the job based on the date the PO line was closed. (E.g., the job runs weekly, but only deletes Interested Users in PO lines that were closed X number of days ago);
B. The job is designed to run on PO lines that are closed but no longer in the department or in a work order (eliminating the risk that Interested Users will be deleted from a closed PO line before the item has left the department);
C. Interested Users that are deleted in PO lines are also scrubbed from Analytics.