Alma
Your feedback matters to us. Help us improve Alma by telling us what you’d like to see using the message areas below. You can also can support something already posted.
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.
1880 results found
-
Add a tab "re-loan" to Patron Services to return and re-loan items in one step
An additional tab (e.g. "re-loan" or "Wiederausleihe" in German) would be a valuable improvement to the Patron Services page.
The goal of this tab is the returning and re-loaning of an item to the patron in one step, with a pop-up warning if there are requests present in the request queue.
The option of a re-loan tab would be a big help in cases where large amounts of items are reloaned to the same person when the items reach the maximum amount of renewals. The additional tab would make the process easier, less error-prone and especially faster.153 votes -
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…151 votes -
Fines and Fees report Excel output is dumb
Okay, in what universe does having the Fines and Fees report output the money amounts as text make any sense?
It just adds extra steps if you want to work with it - first convert that text back into numbers, then format it as currency.
It should be exported that way to begin with.
150 votes -
Work orders: unnecessary message "cancel requests" when moving an item with work order
When moving an item that has a work order from a location to another, the cataloguer receives a message "The item is in work order, moving the item will cancel the requests if the item is not requestable in the new location". Most of these messages are not pertinent, and we ask for the possibility to adjust it, so that it only appears when really necessary. It confuses cautious employees who are afraid of unintentionally deleting markers, or it is hardly noticed because too often wrong.
151 votes -
Role Profiles Enhancement
When using role profiles, it would be nice if the profile could create a link to the user(s) with roles defined by the profile. Then, if you want to modify the profile, the change updates all users in the profile. Currently, you'd have to update the role profile and each individual user.
150 votesIt will be possible to maintain ongoing link between the role profile and the user record, so that you can use the template to assign a predefined set of roles to a user, and any further changes to templates will automatically affect the linked users' allowed roles.
Note - multiple profiles may be assigned to a user.
It will be possible to view the list of profiles an account is liked to for inheriting its roles, and to remove/add more profiles.
-
Searching for a title with "&" should also search "and" when searching for PO lines and invoices
When searching for a title in any of the Acquisitions (i.e. Order Lines, Invoices, Vendors, Funds, etc.) filters, searching for a title containing "and" should also pull up any results with an ampersand (&) in the title.
e.g. Searching the title "Law and Inequality" will not find the title's PO line unless it is spelled as "Law & Inequality."
150 votes -
Automate Work Order creation based on item location.
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:
- Item is loaned.
- At the same time, Alma automatically places a work order on the item.
- 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…
149 votes -
On-shelf requests for specific user groups
We have limited human resource for picking up the items for on-shelf requests. Therefore, we hope this service is only available for patrons in need, for example, disabled patrons or distinguished professors/researchers.
Therefore, we need Alma to support “specific user groups’ to “request for on-shelf items”, and “pick up in different library/campus only”. It would also be nice if we can limit the number of on-shelf requests in a period of time.
This will definitely help librarians to provide precise service efficiently!
146 votes -
Alma collections: Allow to add from network zone
Our Alma consortium shares a common network zone. On the local institution level, we are building Alma collections (not digital/electronic collections). We can add titles from the institution zone, but we can't add titles from the network zone.
This is documented:
Alma Online Help (English) > Resource Management > Inventory > Managing Collections"You can only add titles from your Institution Zone to collections. NZ-managed inventory cannot be added to collections."
This is very bad since many of our e-book packages are managed on the NZ level. So we can't add e-books to our collection and present them together with…
146 votes -
Allow cataloguers to choose which names are linked to authority files
Allow cataloguers to choose which names are linked to authority files
This is important because the all on or off automatic linking creates links for unqualified names and catalogers want the option to verify and thus link names in the way it is done in connexion.
This when the authority data is updated - every record attached to it is improved and unqualified or non-established names do not get affected.
145 votes -
Job or tool for extraction of related bibliographic records
We would like the ability to get a hold of or extract the related bibliographic records in bulk based on a set of (other) bib-records.
Alma already now automatically displays related records in "other details". We understand that the links are built based on bibliographic data in the MARC linking fields: 773, 774, 777, 786, 800, 810, 811, and 830 (subfield w,x,z).
An example of a related record is a title within a monographic series. In this case, the bib record for the single monograph has a 830 $w with the MMS-ID/system number of the superordinate bib record.
We would…
145 votes -
Add a "back to repository search" button to reduce the number of clicks
Frequently when editing bib, item and holding records, we are forced to press the back button multiple times just to get back to the results list of the initial search. We have to retrace every step just to get back to the original search screen.
It would be helpful to have a back button that does not merely retrace steps, but takes you back to the initial results list and repository search screen, thereby eliminating several clicks that add up to hundreds of clicks in a day.
144 votesWe will add the ability to use search criteria as pre defined search scope.
Design will be shared with the Alma UX Focus Group as part of Alma Working Group -
Request letter
We would like to be able to send a user a notification about a request immediately after placing the request. The notice would give basic information about the status of the request. Something along the lines of the "interested in" letter. Running a request report once a day is insufficient for our operations.
144 votes -
Enable bulk updating of items from spreadsheet based on barcode
It would be very useful to be able to bulk edit item records from an uploaded spreadsheet of physical items in much the same way that portfolios can be updated via uploading a spreadsheet.
I'm particularly interested in being able to bulk change data in the Enum/Chron fields in serials. I imagine this might have to be coupled with a regenerate job.
144 votes -
Local Authorities for Network Zone linked records
Alma provides the possibility of local authorities for cataloguing in an Institutional Zone and its local records. Unfortunately I cannot use those local authorities if I work in a Network Zone environment for records linked to the Network Zone.
I would like to:
a. define the local authority in the Institution Zone.
b. Link to this local authority in a local field 6XX (= with $$9LOCAL) via F3 in MDE even if the bibliographic record is linked to the Network Zone.144 votes -
Analytics Reports for Deleted Purchase Requests
I would like to be able to run Analytics reports on deleted purchase requests. Currently, deleted purchase requests are not available in Analytics. Therefore, we don't want to delete any of our hundreds of purchase requests because we'd lose the ability to generate Analytics reports on them. Having hundreds of old purchase requests accumulate in Alma becomes unwieldy.
143 votes -
Customize the amount of holdings displayed in the brief results
Currently, only 5 holdings are displayed in the "Physical" tab in the brief results list in Alma. For IZs with many libraries, this is not always ideal and many clicks are necessary before getting to the complete list of holdings.
The new sortlibraryby_relevance parameter helps but doesn't solve all issues.
Therefore, we'd like to ask to implement a functionality similar to what can be done for the amount of records to be displayed in the results list (at the moment, one can choose between 10/20/50) so that for example staff users can choose whether they want to see…142 votes -
Related holdings displayed only after "direct" holdings in the brief results
Currently, only 5 holdings are displayed in the "Physical" tab in the brief results list in Alma. In many cases holdings and "related" holdings are mixed and displayed without any particular ranking. Especially when many of them are present, it takes many clicks before one can exclude the related holdings and obtain a list of all holdings linked directly to a record.
The "Physical" tab in Alma could be changed like this: all holdings linked directly to the record are displayed first (regardless of the library), and only then come the holdings of related records.141 votes -
Add a facultative note to patron when rejecting purchase request
Our proposal is to add a free field text in the popup when rejecting a purchase request. This field would include a note to the user, detailing the reject reason.
This could be used by the library in several ways :
- give the link to the record in Primo for documents already available ;
- give the link to an Open Access version of the document ;
- give details about the book (out of print...).It would make communication more personal
140 votes -
PO line description should represent current bibliographical data
Alma provides insufficient data in PO lines for the task of pulling a list of subscriptions a library has of a specific publisher's titles:
The PO line description contains only bibliographical data from the bib record as it was at the time the PO line was created. Subsequent changes in the publisher data are not updated in the related PO lines.
Even in newly created PO lines, Alma introduces the content of MARC field 264 _1 instead of 264 31 if such a field exists, i.e. it copies the first, not the current publisher’s name into the PO line description.
…
139 votes
- Don't see your idea?