Boston College would like to be able to configure Alma so that work orders are auto-created for materials in a designated location when they are placed on loan.

Here is the desired workflow:

1. Item is loaned.


2. At the same time, Alma automatically places a work order on the item.


3. When the item is returned to the managing circulation desk the work order is triggered and the item is routed to the correct work order department for processing.

The purpose of this request is to improve the management of the laptops that Boston College Libraries loan to patrons, and to facilitate the implementation of an online laptop availability tool.

Current Alma practice is that EDI invoices automatically load into Alma and expend from a fund whilst still 'in review' and before the 'approval' stage.

Below are some examples where the practice of expending a fund whilst the invoice is still 'in review' is causing us issues:

1. We have full end-to-end invoice integration from our suppliers, via Alma and into Agresso. We don't send through manual invoices for payment. Our invoice data is automatically transferred through to Agresso every evening once an invoice has been approved. Only those invoices that have moved out of review are included in the export. Any invoices 'in review' will not be in the export but will be showing as expended on our system. This means that Agresso and Alma will always be out of step whilst we have invoices 'in review'. This makes it impossible to reconcile Alma and Agresso.




2. Some invoices have over 200 lines and it may take us some days to work through each transaction. There may be issues with incomplete or inaccurate data. We have to make a few manual amendments in order to ensure that the Agresso transfer completes successfully. Only once all of that is done do we 'approve'. Whilst this is happening our Alma and Agresso systems are out of sync. What is the point of the approval step?




3. We are working with IT on enabling the accrual accounting functionality so that our Finance Team don't have to maintain a separate spreadsheet of prepayments and meet monthly to reconcile. There is little benefit to be gained from working on this functionality if, once again, the two systems are always out of sync. We can't reliably turn up to meetings to discuss our accounts when the Alma reported expenditure includes invoices that aren't yet paid.




4. If an invoice arrives that doesn't have an Alma PO number on it, the transaction amount is expended but because there is no PO to match to the amount remains encumbered too.

Any 'in review' invoices should remain as 'encumbrance' until they have been 'approved' or have another 'pending expenditure' type invoice status.

The process for printing Pull Slips has multiple failure points. Suggestion: Use the Print Slip Report as the data source for a mail merged Word document Pull Slip.

Creating email pull slips is too reliant on multiple systems working at all times. All of the required systems (servers, printers, scripts…) are potential failure points. These failure points often require staff from other departments to resolve. When there is a failure at any of the many points, the result is an inability to process Pull Slips through the normal workflows.

Suggestion: (1) Execute Print Slip Report, (2) Open Word document Pull Slip, (3) Insert Merge Fields to the Word documents from the Excel report, (4) Print.

Currently, there are limited scheduling options for emailing Scheduled Reports (Alma Analytics Object area). Many of our users need reports delivered on the 1st of each month in order to capture the previous month's data. The only option right now somewhat close to that is delivery on the 2nd of each month. This doesn't work for us because it adds the first day's worth of data from the next month to the previous month. I propose adding delivery options for the 1st of each month. Better yet - how about offering a drop-down list where users can choose a certain day of the month for report delivery?

Problem:
It is not possible to easily find IZ bibliographic records that have associated PO lines but no inventory. The All Titles Advanced Search has an option to search for “Has inventory | equals | no”, but those results include bibliographic records that have related holdings records (bound withs), as well as bibliographic records that have holdings records but no item records. We want the ability to easily find bibliographic records that have only a PO line associated with them.

Use Case:
The ability to find bibs with only PO lines attached is necessary in order to keep the database tidy. Examples include:
bibliographic records that migrated with PO lines or order records attached but no inventory.
bibliographic records where inventory was relinked but the PO line left behind.

Potential solutions:
The NZ has a job (Identify records that are not used in the Network) that provides operators with several options for defining which records are considered “unused”, including those with no inventory and not part of a boundwith relation. One potential solution to the problem is to have a similar job in the IZ that would allow us to find bib records with PO lines but also exclude holdings records with no items.

Another potential solution to this problem is to have a new search index (and corresponding indexed field) in Alma that would allow an advanced search for bibliographic records with attached order records but no holdings/inventory records.

We would like more order types to choose from when creating additional orders on a portfolio using the “Additional Order” button. Particularly, Electronic Book - One Time and Electronic Title - One Time.

Currently there are only a limited number of order types available when creating an order via this method. This creates inefficiencies, because using the Additional Order button is the easiest, quickest and neatest way to create an additional order on a portfolio.

An example of where this change would be helpful is when purchasing additional copies of a limited-user ebook. Because we don’t have the option of creating an Electronic Book - One Time order via the Additional Order function, we have to follow an unnecessarily convoluted process to create the order and attach it to the portfolio. Simply adding more “type” options for Additional Order would save us a great deal of time.

Currently the only way to use records from NZ in an IZ is to search them in the NZ and perform an action like "order" or "link" on every single record one by one. There are, however, situations where an IZ wants to use a bulk of records. For this purpose we need a possibility to link records in bulk and create inventory for the linked records.

We imagine a linking job that takes as an input a logical or itemized set of records saved from a search in the NZ. The linking job can create physical and electronic (and digital) inventory, similar to current import profiles. The inventory operations for electronic inventory should include an option to specify the desired action if the record and a portfolio exist already in the IZ, out of the following choices:

• Add new portfolio.


• Update portfolio information (the URL).


• Don't do anything.

Use case:
The NZ loads monthly updates from e-book vendors where the IZs have purchased different packages. The workflows for group inventory aren't applicable here because the NZ doesn't possess the necessary information for determining who has rights to which portfolio. OAI is no option because this currently creates duplicate portfolios each time a record gets updated in the NZ. The workarounds currently in place involve sending files back and forth which is error prone and not very efficient.