When an Automated Fulfillment network allows for their patrons to pick up materials at any Institution in the AFN, it is possible for a patron to pick up their item at a third institution, that is neither the patron's home library, nor the item's home library.

With how Alma currently manages Linked Users, and with the fields available for display on the Active and Expired hold shelf screens, library staff at that third (pick-up only) institution are unable to determine which institution the patron is from.

This is because:

Since the patron is not a local patron to the pick-up institution, and the item was not from the pick-up institution, the patron's linked user record is not automatically saved to the pick-up institution's Alma instance.

This means that the Requester ID that shows when the item is scanned in for hold is not searchable (that requester ID is only searchable at the item's home library), and, without knowing the patron's home library when the AFN is set up for staff to select the patron's home affiliation (because patron identifiers are not unique across the consortium), their name is not searchable either.

We realize the patron would, in theory, receive an email letting them know the item was ready for pick-up from the shelf and would bring their ID with them when they came to pick up the item, but, if the library wanted to contact the patron for some reason, we don't know how they would do that as we don't know how to help them retrieve the patron's record in fulfillment.

Thanks!
Debbie

The Activity Report letter automatically tries to send when “Renew Selected” and “Renew All” are selected in Alma Patron Services. This is problematic for a few reasons:

1. The letter is triggered even when the letter is disabled in Letter Activity configuration. It generates a ‘fail’ message for staff.

2. The letter slows down processes dramatically depending on how many loans are attached to the account.

3. A workaround is to use the letter opt-out functionality, but we'd have to continually update all of our users with the opt-out in order for this to work well for us.

I would like to see this functionality updated so that disabling the letter is enough to not trigger the letter automatically. This functionality should also be fixed so that the letter does not slow down processes when there are many loans attached to an account.

When scanning the patron's barcode or searching for a patron in Manage Patron Services, can a pop-up notification be configured to alert staff that there are items held for the patron on the hold shelf?

Currently, you have to look at the User Notes section on the right hand corner of the screen and it's gray text that does not draw attention. You can also look in the request tab if it is dog-eared but it will display all requests statuses; not just when an item is on shelf ready for pick up.

Since patrons don't always check their email and let staff know that there is an item at the library to be picked up- staff can miss items that are on the hold shelf to check out to patrons when they are visiting to borrow other materials. An alert to check the hold shelf would be very helpful to staff. Our older ILS, Aleph had this so I don't understand why Alma does not.

Boston College would like to be able to configure Alma so that work orders are auto-created for materials in a designated location when they are placed on loan.

Here is the desired workflow:

1. Item is loaned.
2. At the same time, Alma automatically places a work order on the item.
3. When the item is returned to the managing circulation desk the work order is triggered and the item is routed to the correct work order department for processing.

The purpose of this request is to improve the management of the laptops that Boston College Libraries loan to patrons, and to facilitate the implementation of an online laptop availability tool.

We use the booking functionality in Alma for our Audio/Video-equipment. The equipment is administrated by our media production department, and is configured as a library in Alma.

The AV-library is the only place on campus patrons can check out and return AV-items. Apart from that, the AV-library also supports delivery to a library at a different campus (Kjeller).

• The transit time between the AV-library and Kjeller is set to 48 hours.
• The preview time on the equipment booking is set to one hour.

Use case:
When scanning an item due for pick-up at Kjeller within the next 48 hours, Alma insists you reshelf the item at the AV-library. Alma keeps on insisting you reshelf the item, until one hour before the booking time, alas until you are within the set preview time. Then, and only then, the item goes into transit to Kjeller, and the workflow is as expected. This of course, results in the equipment being too late for pick up at the Kjeller library.

If we change the preview time to 48 hours to accommodate the transit to Kjeller, the correct workflow kicks in at the expected time and the equipment goes into transit. Unfortunately, this affects the preview time for all the AV-items, regardless of pick up location. One apparent downside being patrons are blocked from checking out booked items, 48 hours prior to the booking time.

Our present work-around is to keep an eye on “Monitor Requests and Item Processes”, in order to sort out the equipment booked for pick up at the Kjeller library. Checking out the item as loaned for the patron before shipping it to Kjeller. The obvious downside, not being able to track the item in process, use scan in item … etc.

Suggested solution:
We would like to be able to make an exception to the preview time for bookings in the Fulfillment Unit based on pick up location: IF pick-up location=Kjeller THEN Preview period=48 hours.

Currently, the display of holdings in Primo for multi-volume monographs is random.
Alma only allows to configure the order of locations by "their proximity to the patron, according to the library IP address”. However, holdings with the same location but different call numbers are not sorted in any meaningful way.

When we catalogue a multi-volume monograph we create a different holding record for each volume, so we cannot use the “item sort routines” to adjust the display in Primo, because they only apply to items within the same holding.

Currently, our patrons see things like this:
http://primo.sns.it/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=requestTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=39pis_alma2150514590002521

We’d like to be able to sort the holdings primarily by location and secondarily by call number, so that the holdings pertaining to different volumes of the same publication would be displayed in the proper order.

There are two other ideas about the sorting of holdings in the GetIt Tab, but I think
they don’t overlap
“Sort of holdings by location (A-Z) in Primo GetIt” is about sorting locations alphabetically by name
“Configure the order of the holdings records in the GetIt tab” is about sorting locations by loan period

As we understand it, there are only two ways for a linked account's expiration date to be refreshed/synchronized with the user's primary account in their home IZ:

1. Requesting an item from the IZ with that linked account

2. Staff at the lending institution go to Manage Patron Services, Find user in other institution, enter the user's identifier, and then find user

We think that the Alma experience would be improved by triggering this refresh process by a renewal attempt, by having an ability to run and schedule a job that refreshes these expiration dates on a regular basis, or by some other means.

Thanks!