Alma
Your feedback matters to us. Help us improve Alma by telling us what you’d like to see using the message areas below. You can also can support something already posted.
We would love to be able to respond to every idea that is submitted, but this is not feasible. We are, however, committed to responding to the most popular ideas—those that have received the most points.
For more information please review our FAQ and guidelines. Thank you.
117 results found
-
Daily quota of ISO-ILL Lending requests
We would like to determine a daily quota of ISO-ILL Lending requests, like with RapidILL.
Ideally, Alma would automatically reject requests beyond the quota and send them to other ISO Partners.14 votes -
Make the labels feature in ILL/Resource sharing a preconfigured list that staff have to choose from.
We suggest an enhancement to the Labels feature within Resource Sharing/ILLs area of Alma, so that staff have to select labels from a preconfigured list/dropdown menu? At present, it is a free text field, that creates a new label any time it is entered in a slightly different format or spelling. This makes it hard to keep the labels tidy as variations and spelling errors can occur and makes stats collection more difficult.
3 votes -
Please add African Research Journal of Medical Sciences
African Research Journal of Medical Sciences aims to be the premier source of research and reviews for the scientific communities we serve. The journal aspires to be one of the top-ranking research and innovations in the medical sciences in Africa and around the world and seeks to disseminate high-impact publications.
If this journal listed in the ExLibris database It will disseminate around the world. We request all the members please vote for our Idea.
1 vote -
Limit number of resource sharing partners in a borrowing request's rota
We sometimes see instances where a problematic resource sharing requests are sent to dozens of partners before they're cancelled or go unfilled. It would be very helpful if we could somehow limit the number of partners that appear in a request's rota. Since we would always want to include a lender of last resort like ILLiad or WorlsShare ILL as the final partner, it would probably be best to allow us to limit the number of partners from a specific rota template that can be added to a rota.
26 votes -
Alma Resource Sharing Due Date for External Systems
Currently if an external system is used for acquiring a physical item for a borrower when the item is received in Alma Resource Sharing the due date is left blank even when a TOU and Fulfillment Unit Rule is in place to determine the due date of the item. The TOU/FUR does not activate until the item is loaned by the patron via circulation. Due to this the Due date does not populate in Alma resource sharing or on a book band/label as it does for items filled via Rapido or Peer to Peer requests. We would like the due…
1 vote -
Show holdings across schools within a consortia easily and quickly in one place in Circulation module.
When I am at the Circ desk and a patron needs to know if a book is available and circulating at another school within our consortia, it would be helpful if I could see holdings across schools in one place easily and quickly. This would remind me to suggest trying to get a book at another school and let me see easily if he or she can.
1 vote -
More flexibility with Shipped Physically borrowing and lending request statuses
We have situations where we need to either alter the shipping cost of a Lending request that is at status Shipped Physically or cancel/expire a Lending request that is Shipped Physically. However, there is no way to update a request at this status that will update the partner library's system. After a request is Shipped Physically it can only be completed. We would like the ability to continue to make changes that will send through to the partner library after a request is Shipped Physically. Currently we need to do workarounds like creating 'dummy' requests to send money back to…
9 votes -
Default format when creating a borrowing request manually
When creating a Borrowing request manually within ALMA, even for articles, the default option for Requested Format is Physical. It would make more sense for the default option to be Digital.
9 votes -
Resource Sharing Loan Due Date
It would be ideal if a Loan Due Date could be a standardized length. Currently Loan Due Date= Due Date minus transit time and holdshelf. Often this results in an inconsistent length of time. This is most evident when loan periods are short. For example, if an item has a 14 day loan policy according to the Loan TOU, and the Lending Resource Sharing TOU Due Date is set at 21 days, the loan period could be 17 days.
We would prefer that Loan Due Dates follow the pattern:
If Loan TOU is shorter than {Due Date - Transit and…9 votes -
Add OCLC number option to Borrowing->Create a Request ->From Search->External Search->World Cat
In the Borrowing->Create a Request ->From Search->External Search->World Cat
can OCLC number be added to the field options? This could greatly enhance matching for specific items.1 vote -
Resource Sharing API should consider coverage of local inventory
The API for resource sharing is currently not considering coverage when checking for local inventory, which means that all resource sharing requests for an owned title will be rejected by the API unless the override parameter is set to true. Resource sharing requests for articles not available due to embargos or limited coverage will thus be rejected by the API. Using the override parameter on the other hand, resource sharing requests for available material will be accepted. This is less than ideal.
The API for resource sharing requests should consider coverage for local inventory, and only reject requests that are…
26 votes -
Overdue lending requests - sort by overdue-date
In regards to overdue lending requests, it would be very beneficial to have the option of sorting by due date. By sorting this way, you could tackle the documents that have been kept out of circulation the longest first, with one (or two) clicks.
Per 13.05.24, the options we can choose from in the "sort by" drop-down menu are:
- Last interest date
- Update date
- Creation date
- Title
- Shelving location
There are toggleable due-date spans in the facet menu. A sorting function would still be beneficial.
5 votes -
RS - Copy Request Note to Request Cancel Letter as well wheb Converting Borrowing requests into patron physical item requests
The idea of
Converting Borrowing requests into patron physical item requests
has been implemented in 2019 (https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/010_2019/Alma_2019_Release_Notes?mon=201902BASE).
Request Note is copied in the Note field of the request.However it would be great that, after a successful 'View local resources' the request note could also be copied to a Note field in the "Ful Cancel Request Letter" automatically received by the user, thus letting the user know more specific info we usually write in the request note. For example, we write there an additional link to the resource we might have found, Having that automatically in a Note…
13 votes -
Allow groups of partners to be selected in rules tables by rota template or other attributes
We are a large university, with many resource sharing partners. We would like to set up rules concerning certain groups of partners, e.g. we charge more for sending physical items internationally due to the cost of postage, and want to set up Shipping Cost rules to reflect that. Unfortunately, it seems like the only way to do so is to select "partner" as a parameter and select each partner individually.
We would like to be able to select all partners with particular attributes, e.g. all partners in a particular rota template, or all partners using a system type. This would…
4 votes -
Internal Identifier number included on Resource Sharing letters
We want to be able to add a requests Internal Identifier number to the Resource Sharing Shipping Slip letter & the Resource Sharing Receive Slip letters, as a way to clearly and consistently identify a request. Because the external ID can change over the life of a request, we will often refer to the internal ID instead. It's useful to have this on the shipping and receive slips because 1. If the partner or patron needs to communicate with us they can quote the ID number, and 2. this paperwork often remains with the item when it comes back to…
2 votes -
Resource Sharing visible in Primo even if the user aren't logged in
When we started using the Resource Sharing form in Primo we noticed that it's only visible for users that are logged in. It would be preferable to at least have the option to make the button for Resource Sharing to be visible even for user that haven't logged in yet. A solution would be that a prompt for logging in would appear either when you click on the button or when you press send. We are afraid that many users will miss the option to order resource sharing because they haven't logged in yet.
6 votes -
Rapid ILL: ALMA Created lending request. To have .PDF Preview viewer also in 'Download Electronic Resource'
In ALMA there are two different ways to upload a .PDF file to a Rapid ILL created lending request. The 'Ship item digitally' (Document Delivery) way allows upload and also content preview of the actual .PDF file. The other way is via 'Download Electronic Resource' which is better because citation information also appears. But the 'Download Electronic Resource' way does not have a content preview of the .PDF file. The idea proposed is to add the same .PDF file preview window, within the 'Download Electronic Resource' option. This will improve accuracy and efficiency in our workflow.
1 vote -
Enable setting of Personal Delivery Locations from Resource Sharing Form
In November 2023, The following was developed for holds based on this Idea Exchange suggestion Allow users to enter an address for home delivery – Have an idea for Ex Libris? (exlibrisgroup.com) We would like to have the same functionality available for the Resource Sharing Form as well. Our consortium policy allows for home delivery of materials from another's library. Obviously, this might not be welcome for all but without this functionality, we cannot see it being feasible to turn on this functionality for just local requests.
15 votes -
Loan due date should appear in Facets and/or Analytics
It should be possible to the the actual Loan Due Date given to the patron, in addition to the Due Date given by the Lender in Facets.
It should also be possible to retrieve a list of such RS requests by Loan Due Date via Analytics.1 vote -
MMS ID and Keyword searching of existing RS requests
It should be possible to search existing RS requests (Borrowing and Lending) by MMS ID and Keywords using the dropdown menu.
1 vote
- Don't see your idea?