In Alma task lists ...

• Electronic resources - activation - unassigned (Electronic Resource Activation Task List)


• Order Lines - review - unassigned (Purchase Order Lines in Review)


• Invoices - review - unassigned (In Review Invoices)

... there is only a row action ("..." button) to start the "Assign to" dialog which opens a pop-up window where you can select a user. Our colleagues are not satisfied with this cumbersome assignment functionality.

The missing functionalities are:
(1) a one-click "Assign to me" button
(2) a bulk functionality for "Assign to" and "Assign to me" (it is already possible to mark several records in the task list but you can only change the Status with a bulk action)

We would like desk operators to have the option of selecting from a list of predetermined check out periods for items in certain collections.

Boston College Libraries currently provide approximately 80 laptops to community members, which can be borrowed for a fixed loan period. For many patrons this static loan period is either too short or too long, adding some loan period choices would enable us to easily meet the needs of more patrons.
Currently in Alma, offering a variety of loan periods would require the creation of additional locations and terms of use. Doing so would enable us to move subsets of our inventory to each location, however, this is an inherently a rigid way of inventory control. What we are looking for is a more flexible system that enables our entire laptop inventory to circulate for a variety of loan periods.

The imagined workflow:

1. Patron comes to borrow a laptop.


2. The laptop is loaned in Alma


3. The operator is presented with a dialog box with a series of loan period options (configured at the library level) - for example (4 Hours, 1 Day, 4 Days, 7 Days).


4. The operator asks the patron which loan period meets the need and makes the selection in Alma to complete the loan.

Thank you for considering this request.

Dear all
the May release introduced a change concerning the deletion of empty holdings:

The 'Delete Holdings' link in the 'List of Holdings' page, which was formerly visible to users with the 'Physical Inventory Operator' role, is now visible only to users who have the 'Physical Inventory Operator Extended' role.

This change is a problem because not all the operators can have the physical Inventory Operator Extended role: this role allows operators to delete copies and it is quite dangerous.
It would be better for us that operators with the physical inventory role keep the permission to move copies from an holding to another and then delete the empty holding. (let’s think of a correction of call numbers)
We propose the creation of a second Physical Inventory Operators’ role :
One without the possibility of delete empty holdings
and another one with the possibility of delete them.
So that, according to the job that operators have to do, they could keep doing the work deleting empty holdings

It would be great if we could use templates for adding new items.
At the moment, whenever we add an item, for each single one of them we have to manually fill in the same values in "Material type" and "Item call number type". The "inventory date" has to be chosen manually as well.
It would be extremely useful if we could load the physical item editor form with some values already filled in, and with the date fields automatically filled with the current day's date.

If this idea has already been posted or it the option already exists, please let me know.

Thank you and kind regards
Barbara

Work orders are useful but often cumbersome and don't work as required. A package of enhancements/fixes would make them much more useful and useable:

• Adding notes when creating work orders in bulk. This would enable having fewer work order types as explanatory notes could be used instead.
• Makes notes more (immediately) visible when scanning in (pop up message?). Again would enable fewer work order types as items could be easily catergorised according to explanatory note upon receipt at managing department.
• Select recall/not recall at work order placement (like pick from shelf), not baked into type (and in selectable in bulk as well as individually).
• Select/override priority level at work order placement (individual and in bulk)/make it easier to manually advance work orders in queue, AND:
Different priority levels for different work order types.
• Allow managing departments to manage multiple work order types (like circulation desks can) - increased versatility and flexibility.
• Where circulation desks (and hopefully managing departments) manage multiple work order types, make it possible to view all in-process items and have work order type immediately visible.
• Alert on scanning into work order managing department if higher priority work order/request exists.
• Enable cancelling specific work orders/work order types in bulk (can currently only cancel all physical item requests on a set of items in bulk). This would improve versatility and flexibility.

Realise this in not a single enhancement, but no single enhancement will make that much difference. The whole work order system needs to be looked at start-to-finish for real-world usability.

When using the Restore change type under Change item information, the only change made is toggling the "item is in temporary location" back to NO. Any values filled in for temporary library, temporary location, temporary item policy, temporary call number, etc. remain. Restore should clear those fields, or allow operators to keep those fields by unchecking a box that would be checked by default.

If the item has been scanned to have an item policy for special circ rules, that information remains in the record when it is restored, even though that information is not applied. If the item is given another temporary change that doesn't require a special item policy the previous item policy will be applied when it is moved to a temporary location. See attached file for an example, and desired option to clear all temporary info.

This was also suggested in 2017 NERS as Idea 5111: Remove Temporary Item Information during "Restore" Currently, temporary item information is not wiped out when a temporarily moved item is "restored" either via a staff process or expiration of the temporary move date. The info is confusing and can cause issues with Analytics, Manage Sets, and future temporary moves on the item.

See also the idea relating to removing temporary item information: https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/11012787-remove-temporary-location-not-just-change-indicat

Making testing and training in an Alma Standard Sandbox based on Ex Libris provided configuration is very difficult since this configuration may be very different from the one in the customer's production environment.

Currently Ex Libris is offering two types of Sandboxes for Alma:
(1) "Standard" - by default included in Alma subscription pricing. This sandbox contains Ex Libris provided data and configuration
(2) "Premium" – for addition subscription fee – this sandbox includes a full copy of the customer's data and configuration

Refresh of the Alma sandbox environment is possible up to once a quarter, upon request. In the case of a Premium Sandbox, Ex Libris updates the customer’s Premium Sandbox with the most recent data and configuration copied from the production environment. In the case of Standard Sandbox, Ex Libris resets the Sandbox data and configuration to the original copy.

We would like Ex Libris to propose an improved Standard Sandbox so that customers can export the configuration from the production environment with a job in order to import it in the Standard Sandbox. This Standard Sandbox would still contain Ex Libris provided data, only configuration would be copied from prod to sandbox. A Standard sandbox containing the customer's configuration would be very useful for staff training, testing of setup scenarios, new enhancements, integration with other systems, etc. This service is already proposed for Primo!

It would be nice to be able to move up and down within a field using arrow keys in MDE. For example, when a lengthy 505 or 520 MARC field has many lines, the cataloger must now move to the desired line using either mouse or left/right arrow keys, since pressing up/down arrow causes the pointer to move to the previous/next field.

My suggestion is that the pointer should be able to move within the field using up/down arrows and move only to the previous/next field when the pointer is on the first/last line of the field.

Using up/down arrow keys when moving within a field would streamline cataloger’s work and help making the MDE more user-friendly.