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5 results found

  1. Expand 'Bulk Change Due Dates' to disregard expired patrons and include recalled items

    Configuring Alma to deliver an exclusively off-campus service in response to the Coronavirus pandemic included the extension of due dates for us. We were thankful for the 'Bulk Change Due Dates' functionality, which we were able to use to push back the due dates of a majority of items on loan (until 1 June in the first instance for us). We encountered problems though when it came to any items borrowed by patrons whose records were due to expire before that date. The items wouldn't go beyond the patrons' expiry dates, which under normal circumstances would be exactly how we…

    214 votes
    Accepted  ·  9 comments  ·  Fulfillment - Loans  ·  Admin →

  2. Claimed returned option for Lost items

    In our previous system, with one click we were able to change items to Claimed Returned status, no matter what their current status was. one click and it was done.
    But in Alma, for some reason, this is not possible once the item has been declared Lost. One has to go through a long and convoluted process creating a file and saving it then creating a set and saving it then running a job on the set. This involves three pages of instructional documentation and about 15 minutes of staff time every day.
    We often have items claimed returned when…

    163 votes
    21 comments  ·  Fulfillment - Loans  ·  Admin →
    Accepted  ·  AdminMoshe Shechter (Alma Senior Product Manager, Ex Libris) responded

    The 'Claimed Returned' action will be available for lost loans. It will change the loan status to 'claimed returned'.

    A customer parameter will determine whether the change to claimed returned should trigger a 'Find Item' action (and refund the lost item fees) + change to 'claim return', or only change to 'claim return'.

  3. Short Term Loans - Courtesy and Overdue Notices

    The new shortloancourtesyreminder & shortloanoverduereminder cannot be configured for multiple locations. For institutions with several hourly loan locations (for example Boston College maintains 2 and 3 hour loan periods for Course Reserves and a 4 hour loan period for some technology items) this dictates that the reminder notice has to be set based on the location with the shortest loan period. The overdue notice must be timed to make sense for for the longest loan period.

    In our test configuration we used the following time parameters:

    ​shortloancourtesyreminder - 105 minutes
    short    …

    284 votes
    Accepted  ·  9 comments  ·  Fulfillment - Loans  ·  Admin →

  4. Add preferred pronoun field that displays in Fulfillment Manage Patron Services display

    We will be asked to provide a place to store preferred pronoun for our users (e.g. he/his/him) at some point in not too distant future.

    We cannot use Note field for this information because we have been told by Ex Libris that if we import notes the entire note section in a user record is overwritten.

    We need a configurable field (i.e. we can add the categories of preferred pronoun) that displays in the patron info section of the Fulfillment Manage Patron Services display

    220 votes
    15 comments  ·  Fulfillment - Loans  ·  Admin →
    Accepted  ·  AdminMoshe Shechter (Alma Senior Product Manager, Ex Libris) responded

    The core user record will  have a field for selecting a preferred pronoun. The options will be from a configurable drop down such as:

    • he, him, his
    • she,her,hers


    The field will  be updatable from:

    • Alma form
    • SIS
    • API
    • Primo (VE)


    The preferred pronoun will in the Manage Fulfillment Options screen.


    It will be possible to locally override this field without overriding from the SIS, like other fields allow (such as user group).

  5. Change due date when patron account expiration date reduced

    As a Fulfillment Manager, I would like the due dates of a patron's books to be changed to their account Expiration Date if this is reduced. Eg, if a book is issued to a student for 10 weeks and they withdraw from their course, the original due date remains which can be some weeks after they have left. This can cause confusion for library staff and the patron.

    332 votes
    26 comments  ·  Fulfillment - Loans  ·  Admin →
    Accepted  ·  AdminMoshe Shechter (Alma Senior Product Manager, Ex Libris) responded

    When a loan due date is shortened due to patron expiry, Alma will retain and internal  an indication for that on the loan record. This way when the patron expiry is updated (shortened OR extended) the loan due date will be recalculated using the loan date (i.e. as if the recalculation is happening at loan time). 


    This way, the due date may be extended or shortened according to the new expiry date.

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