Alma
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99 results found
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Add fulfilment, Public and Internal Notes to the Excel spreadsheets for physical item sets
When a Physical Item set of records is exported into a spreadsheet via Tools > Excel, the fields Fulfilment Note, Public Note and Internal Notes 1, 2 and 3 are noticeably absent from the columns of data offered in that spreadsheet.
Those fields frequently play a major role in determining the action required by staff for the given item upon its return, as they’re used for requests for reclassification, relegation, etc. It would constitute a sizeable labour-saving fix to be able to generate/save/print off a ready list of all such messages, alphabetically sortable by contents, from the spreadsheet for staff…
22 votes -
Metadata editor Browse Shelf List forward/back buttons should be bigger or easier to distinguish.
The browse shelf list / call number browse feature is very difficult to use for actual browsing because the forward and next buttons are minuscule. They are not actually buttons, just the less than or greater than sign without borders. I frequently hit the wrong part and end up going back when I wanted to go forward. It's a really small target that calls for high-precision mousing.
Requested improvements:
1) Allow keyboard shortcuts for navigating to previous and next sections of the browse list.
2) Create borders/margins around those buttons.
3) Add mouse-over text showing previous/next so that if you…31 votes -
Add the ability to manually sort physical item records within a location
The current physical item sorting options mean that in many cases records cannot be sorted into the correct order. Adding to the existing automated sorting options will help in some cases but not in others.
The only way to be certain that item records can be correctly sorted is to add the ability to manually sort physical items within a particular location (i.e. that are linked to a particular holdings record).
Use cases abound. For instance, this is the only way that volumes designated as new ser. v. (or new ser no.) can be sorted to appear after volumes designated…
37 votes -
Add Material Type Mapping to Physical Inventory Import Profile
As a Copy-Cataloger I receive batch files of bibliographic records with physical inventory from a variety of vendors and some of these vendors send a variety of formats in the same file. These files contain bibliographic records with a material type of Book, Map, DVD-ROM, Issue, etc. With our current Import Profile that we use, the Library field, Location field, Barcode field, and Item policy field can be mapped with MARC21 local field. But this is not possible for Material type. So when we import this large file with multiple material types they are being imported with the Material type…
78 votes -
Add functionality to Change Item Information
It would be useful to have more options in the Scan in/Change Item Information function - for example, the ability to change Material Type and Inventory Date.
50 votes -
Add Storage Location ID to Export Physical Items job
"Storage Location ID" will be added to Analytics in the January 2017 release but we also need to be able to get the Storage Location ID from the Export Physical Items job.
108 votes -
Shelf Report - Figuring out items that are not in call number order
When running a shelf report for a set or call number range we want to know if any items are misshelved in the sense that they are not in the right call number order. As far as we can tell this is not possible but is an essential part of our inventory checking. For example, if we are running a shelf report for all items in our early childhood education collection we want to be able to determine if items within the collection are shelved in the wrong place according to their call number so that we can go to…
171 votes -
Ability to change item's Material Type while in process
We would like the ability to change an item's Material Type while the item is in process. Currently, Alma does not allow this unless the item is in place. If the item is in process, we get the error message, "The item is not in place and there are requests registered for this item. Please handle the requests before moving or updating this item." Incorrect material type is part of the reason the item was sent to processing, so it seems strange the change cannot be made while the item is there.
17 votes -
Function to have a real time physical inventory
Real-time physical inventory:
1. Ability to choose location and general call number range
2.Displayed by call number order including title, number of charges, number of browses and current item status (missing, work order, on loan)
3.Capacity to mark items with different categories (determined by institution): missing, need preservation, archival box, annex bound, etc.40 votes -
Enable labeling enumeration and chronology fields
It can be difficult to recall the meaning of enumeration and chronology fields, e.g., Enumeration A, Enumeration B, Chronology I, etc.). It would be helpful if general system administrators could change the labels of these that show to staff, for example, change Enumeration A to Year.
43 votes -
Narrow Withdraw Items job functionality to Physical Items sets
Restrict the Withdraw Items to functioning with Physical Items (barcode) sets. (Currently it will run with sets of Physical Titles and effectively perform as if the job DELETE BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORDS were run with the “Delete all associated inventory resources” parameter selected.)
Include OCLC number in the Excel Export for Physical Items (currently only Physical Titles sets export with the OCLC number, but those sets function erroneously in the Withdraw Items job)
35 votes -
Add a "delete" command in addition to the "withdraw" command
Currently, when a staff deletes an item record, the person can only use the "withdraw" command, even if the person is deleting an item record created by mistake. Adding an additional Delete command will distinguish the two purposes. We can then pull out WITHDRAW statistics in Design Analytics for the true withdrawn items, and not including the number of item records deleted for purposes of cleaning up data.
61 votes -
Moving item records to differenent holding records and merging holding records
Being able to merge holdings records that have been accidentally created. Either that, or moving item records to different holding records, even if the holding records are in the same location, but different call numbers.
26 votes -
"A" and "The" are not alphabetical
When listing items, titles that begin with 'a' or 'the' (the indefinite and definite articles) should not be alphabetized under 'A' and 'T', respectively. They should be alphabetized based on the beginning letter of the first non-article in the title. This is standard practice and it is ridiculous to do otherwise.
121 votes -
Delete item records created using the "duplicate" function if they have not been saved.
On the List of Items screen, under the Actions menu for each item, the "Edit" and "Duplicate" commands are currently adjacent. It is fairly common (at least for me, personally) to accidentally click "Duplicate" instead of "Edit." This automatically takes me into the edit screen for the new item I have unintentionally created.
There is already a "Cancel" option at the top of the screen, but it only goes back to the item list which now includes an extra item. In order to get rid of that new item I have to navigate to it (which can be a bit…38 votes -
Ability to create a chosen quantity of predictions
As someone who manages serial subscriptions, I would like the ability to choose the quantity of predictions I create for any given holdings record. This would allow for quicker navigation of list of items, and reduce the number of inaccurate predictions.
It is not always desired to predict an entire year’s worth of predictions (which currently is the only option). Depending on the publishing frequency and the number of copies of a subscription, we can have 11 pages of predictions in a list of items, in addition to the received items. This greatly increases the amount of clicking needed at…
171 votes -
Display renewals in Item History
In the Physical Item Editor, under the Fulfillment activities, we are able to see the Loan and Return history. I think it would be great to see Renewal information in this place as well.
So many times, we have patrons disputing fines because the item was late and they renewed it thinking that it's not due on the original due date.
It's true that when the item is checked out to the person you can see this when you click Actions>Loan History. But this does us no good when the item is checked back in and a patron comes to…
92 votes -
In the List of Items screen, add "description" to the list of search options in the "Find" box.
Currently in a list of items, Alma allows us to search within the list of items by only barcode or the call number. Adding the ability to search the description field would simplify trying to locate an item with unique information in the description, such as "index".
22 votes -
Alma Templates: allow user-by-user customization of default holdings templates
The shared MARC21 holdings templates in Alma offer customization of the template properties, allowing the selection of one template as the default. This customization applies to the entire institution, and not the individual Alma user. Therefore, when we have multiple catalogers working with multiple templates, they all have to conform to one default template. It would be useful to allow each cataloger to set the default template for their workflow.
155 votes
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