Alma
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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.
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Update URL in porfolio when attached bib record's 856 is updated
When the URL in a bib record attached to a portfolio is updated (individually edited, or batch load/overlay of records), there should be a setting to the action so that the URL in an attached portfolio would also be updated and we don't have to remember to manually do this. We have had 2 recent instances, one where we used APIs to update bib records using our old PURL manager to use our new one, only to find that the portfolio URLs also needed to be changed separately, and one where we have a batch of vendor records with changed…
276 votes -
Provide MARC record quality measures to CZ collections
CZ collections vary in regard to the quality of their metadata. Some CZ collections contain rich MARC records, while others contain very poor records. When facing the question whether to import vendor's MARC records or to rely on CZ records, librarians usually lack basic information about the quality of existing MARC records in a given CZ collection.
I would like to suggest that each CZ collection will include basic statistical information about the MARC records quality. Such information could be generated in different ways.
One possibility is to provide an analysis based on predefined quality profiles of MARC records. Here,…
131 votes -
batch job de/activation of proxy enabled setting at service level
You can de/activate the proxy setting in batch for portfolios, by using the "Change electronic portfolio information" job on a set. Unfortunately you cannot at this stage do the same on Services or Collections.
I have approximately 30 services that I would like to change EZproxy enabled from YES to NO. I do not want to run a batch job on the portfolios - I want the proxy to be determined at service level and the portfolios to inherit the settings. It would be helpful if this could be done as a batch job rather than editing each service manually.
114 votes -
temporarily unavailable
For electronic collections - under the Activation tab for Service temporarily unavailable:
Instead of selecting a date to turn the notice on, allow staff to select the date on which the notice will automatically expire, and then on that date, have Alma automatically set the temporarily unavailable button to off and blank out the reason/text box. Also, consider making that text appear in red.
Logistically, it makes more sense for the notice to automatically disappear, since there is no mechanism in Alma to remind the staff member that such a notice has been added to an electronic collection. So setting…
111 votesDear community,
Thanks for raising this idea.
The conceptual solution which is currently being evaluated, is to add additional "Date-Picker" field which will allow users to enter the date which the "Service Unavailable" message will expire. This new field will be added to the "Activation" tab of the Electronic service.
Please let us know if you have any comments regarding the suggested solution.
Thanks,
Noam Fass
Alma product management team
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Add Rapid ILL lending categories to Electronic Collections in Alma
Please add a new Rapid ILL lending status field to electronic collections so libraries can indicate the following Rapid ILL lending statuses and more easily create logical sets to automatically send holdings to Rapid:
• LendableInternational: You are able to fill lending requests from any other Rapid libraries around the world. This is typically the Lendable value used for print materials that you want to make available in Rapid.
• LendableCountry: You are able to fill lending requests only from Rapid libraries in your country. This is typically the Lendable value used for electronic materials.
• LocalOnly: You are not…108 votes -
Ability to assign electronic activation tasks in the POL
Electronic resources are automatically added to the Electronic Resource Activation Task List page upon ordering. The current workflow requires someone with the permission of Repository Manager to manually review the activation task list in the unassigned tab (which might have hundreds of portfolios and databases at any given time) to decide whom to assign a task.
I propose a different model or workflow: Allow Acquisitions staff to assign a task while creating the purchase order line.
102 votes -
Implement auto holdings for IEEE
Implement auto holdings (autoholding, auto load, autoload) for IEEE, as is already available for ProQuest, Elsevier, Ovid, and Springer.
98 votes -
E-Collections: Read-only access to Alma for other institutions
We wish to provide read-only access to our Alma instance to other institutions in our consortium and vice versa so that we can compare setup more efficiently. The permissions need to be quite restrictive and prohibit access to financial, patron data, etc. but allow us to view E-Collection, Service and Portfolio level screens.
When comparing set-up of our e-collections we are spending a lot of time discussing via email and sharing screen shots, which is not as efficient as being able to go in with a view privilege and compare in real-time.
73 votes -
Add "articles" in portfolio's material type
Hi there,
At the moment, when creating or editing a portfolio for an artcile, it is not possible to precise that it's an article's portfolio (you can precise that it's a book, map, journal, dissertation, proceeding...).
We would like to add "articles" in Electronic Portfolio Editor > electronic material type's field.
Please see screenshot attached for illustration.
Best regards,
Ariane
71 votes -
Display perpetual coverage dates where no other coverage provided
We now have the ability to log current access dates and perpetual access dates on a portfolio. However there is no way to display the perpetual access dates in Alma or Primo unless looking at the coverage tab of the portfolio.
It would be good if there was an option to use the perpetual coverage dates as our display dates either by having an additional option for the local, global, local and global section, or just displaying those dates if local only is selected and there is nothing in the local section.
We have titles that we had current and…
71 votes -
Add indications to Electronic Service & Portfolios showing when portfolios use MARC metadata instead of parser parameters for linking
There are some electronic services and portfolios in the Alma CZ that do not use parser parameters. Instead, they use ISSN or some other element drawn from the MARC metadata to construct their links. However, there is no indication in Alma when a service or portfolio behaves this way. To the Alma user, it looks as if the portfolios must be misconfigured, as they have no parser parameters and no apparent way to link at the title level. This makes troubleshooting linking problems very difficult, and it conceals the actual linking functionality from Alma customers.
To be fully transparent with…
68 votes -
Include rolling dates in local date information field
As an electronic resource librarian, I would like to see a better way to deal with rolling coverage dates. There does not seem to be a good way to deal with gaps in portfolio coverage when there's a moving target date involved. For example, if a title includes perpetual access from 2011-present, and issues 12 years or older are open access, unless you include a public note, what will display is:
Available from 2011 volume: xx issue: xx
Most recent 12 year(s) not availableThis is confusing to patrons and librarians alike. It would be useful to have the option…
66 votes -
Brief Record - Quick Cataloging Template
Boston College would like to see the contents of the linking tab of Electronic Portfolio Editor added to the Brief Record, Quick Cataloging template for electronic articles.
This will enable us to edit the URL and enable the proxy as we catalog and would save us the step of going in later to edit the linking information. It would also enable us to test the link before posting it, rather than using the "view it" function afterwards.
66 votes -
Under Electronic Service Editor to have the ability to remove portfolios in bulk.
In the electronic service editor you have the ability to deleted all the selected portfolios. I would like the ability to simply remove the portfolios in bulk from the collection.
64 votesDana Moshkovits responded
Clarification was provided regarding the functionality requested – which is not to delete portfolios but rather detaching portfolios from the collection and setting them as standalone portfolios.
Re-opening the idea. -
Update import profiles, so portfolios are listed in ALMA & Primo in the same order as the 856 fields in the bibliographic record
Currently electronic portfolios are generated from the 856 fields in the bibliographic record, but they appear in reverse order in ALMA and Primo. Vendors often have 856 for multiple volumes in their records and they often list URLs in the order of their importance. In my attached example, the vendor includes a link to browse the particle resource first, then links to search the collections which contains the resource. The links are listed in order of importance. It is confusing to the user to list v.2 before v.1 and less important searching options before the most direct way of access…
64 votes -
Collection level access model setting
Please create a setting where we can choose the ebook access model at the collection level. We have many ebook collections where we know everything in them is the same access model, usually unlimited (UA). It would be helpful to be able to set this at the collection level so every portfolio in that collection will have the access model display in Primo.
64 votes -
Allow search on Electronic Service values
Enable Searching for Electronic Collection Service values as well as Collection and Portfolio values
Eg Proxy Enabled (Service)
as well as
Proxy Enabled (Electronic Portfolio)
and
Proxy Enabled (Electronic Collection)62 votes -
Authenticated "Authentication note" field
Make the content of the "authentication note" field (electronic collection editor and portfolio editor) only visible to our legitimate end-users by means of authentication: preferably via sso, another option would be via ip. That way we can register and manage all our username/password information for e-sources from within Alma. And get rid of the in-house solution (according to the Alma-L mailing list other institutions, like us, developed solutions involving a link to an authentication protected page).
Currently the authentication note has the same functionality as the "public note" field. It is displayed to anyone searching in our Primo. There also…60 votes -
"Report To Ex Libris" for CDI issues
Currently it is only possible to report Collection and Portfolios issues via the "Report to Ex Libris" functionality of Alma.
Colleagues from our e-resources department (who also manage most of the CDI settings) would be glad to use this reporting tool also for CDI issues: wrong URLs, incorrect "Full Text Rights in CDI", etc.Please, provide a CRM Cateogry "CDI" in the form and include some CDI data (like now Collection ID, Portfolio ID).
This would make it much easier for us to report CDI problems, and support team would also benefit from standardized requests.56 votes -
Improve the management of license terms in config
Currently to manage the order and organization of license terms in Alma, we have to number each term we wish to use in order. If we want to add or reorder, we need to carefully renumber the existing terms so we don't accidentally use the same number twice and risk overwriting existing terms. While we've all learned work-arounds for this, given the amount of work it takes to maintain our hundreds of licenses, it seems risky to have this form of ordering. It would be much better to have the functionality that appears elsewhere in Alma that allows for lines…
49 votes
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