Alma
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1692 results found
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Electronic Portfolios - can we have a new coverage line where free access can be added ?
At present in the coverage tab, there are the global dates, local, and perpetual (if the collection has been identified as having some perpetual access) Some of these titles have free access, which is not technically perpetual but is also not part of a subscription. Could a new line be added to include these free years/volumes, with the option to display these dates (or not) ? It would allow us to reduce the number of Free collections we have which all take users to the same place, and identify why we have access to journal years outside of our subscription dates
At present in the coverage tab, there are the global dates, local, and perpetual (if the collection has been identified as having some perpetual access) Some of these titles have free access, which is not technically perpetual but is also not part of a subscription. Could a new line be added to include these free years/volumes, with the option to display these dates (or not) ? It would allow us to reduce the number of Free collections we have which all take users to the same place, and identify why we have access to journal years outside of our subscription…
11 votes -
Add more flexibility in Request TOU Pickup Locations policy
We’d like more flexibility in Request TOU Pickup Locations policy.
We have more than 20 libraries and most of them are located within walking distance. Therefore, we want our patrons to go directly to those libraries instead of placing pickup requests and limit the patrons who can place such requests. Otherwise, the number of requests will become too large to handle and logistics and management cost will become enormous. Moreover, it’s not time efficient. If users go directly, they can borrow immediately, but it may take 1-2 days to deliver since there is no direct route between some libraries.
Currently, we cannot achieve the above requirement in Alma. If more options are added to the Pickup Locations policy, libraries in the similar situation will also benefit.
For example, it would be more flexible if there are “In List (where we can select one or more libraries in our Institution)”, “In other Campus”, or “In other Libraries” options in the Request TOU Pickup Locations policy.
Another idea is to allow staff to override pickup locations and deliver-to relationship policies so that they can place any pickup request on behalf of patrons when appropriate. It will also be beneficial for those who need special assistance.
We’d like more flexibility in Request TOU Pickup Locations policy.
We have more than 20 libraries and most of them are located within walking distance. Therefore, we want our patrons to go directly to those libraries instead of placing pickup requests and limit the patrons who can place such requests. Otherwise, the number of requests will become too large to handle and logistics and management cost will become enormous. Moreover, it’s not time efficient. If users go directly, they can borrow immediately, but it may take 1-2 days to deliver since there is no direct route between…
213 votes -
Add " Additional e-mails " fields to " Report to ex libris " form in Alma
In Salesforce the customers can use "Additional e-mails" feature to let colleagues know that they have (already) opened a case for a specific issue. This makes teamwork easier.
For SF cases opened using the "Report to ex libris" feature, this is not possible. Plase add 5 "E-mail 1" - "E-mail 5" as in SalesForce.
17 votes -
export sets into Analytics
I appreciate the ability to export Analytics results directly into an Alma set, but I would like to be able to export a set of records directly into Analytics without having to recreate my Alma search (if I can) in Analytics. This would also be very helpful for working on sets of records that other people at my institution have created!
37 votes -
Update import profiles, so portfolios are listed in ALMA & Primo in the same order as the 856 fields in the bibliographic record
Currently electronic portfolios are generated from the 856 fields in the bibliographic record, but they appear in reverse order in ALMA and Primo. Vendors often have 856 for multiple volumes in their records and they often list URLs in the order of their importance. In my attached example, the vendor includes a link to browse the particle resource first, then links to search the collections which contains the resource. The links are listed in order of importance. It is confusing to the user to list v.2 before v.1 and less important searching options before the most direct way of access the material. This should be corrected.
Currently electronic portfolios are generated from the 856 fields in the bibliographic record, but they appear in reverse order in ALMA and Primo. Vendors often have 856 for multiple volumes in their records and they often list URLs in the order of their importance. In my attached example, the vendor includes a link to browse the particle resource first, then links to search the collections which contains the resource. The links are listed in order of importance. It is confusing to the user to list v.2 before v.1 and less important searching options before the most direct way of access…
61 votes -
Keep suppressed records without items that have received more than one purchase request
We have detected this case that we consider is an incorrect behavior of Alma.
When a purchase request is generated, a non-visible bibliographic record is created. The problem is that if a second purchase request for the same document is generated, Alma automatically makes the bibliographic record visible, even though we still do not have copies of it. Therefore this record appears visible in Polibuscador but without funds.
We request that the bibliographic record should only be visible when the issue or copies are available to the user, meanwhile, even if more than one purchase request has been made, it should remain suppressed.
We have detected this case that we consider is an incorrect behavior of Alma.
When a purchase request is generated, a non-visible bibliographic record is created. The problem is that if a second purchase request for the same document is generated, Alma automatically makes the bibliographic record visible, even though we still do not have copies of it. Therefore this record appears visible in Polibuscador but without funds.
We request that the bibliographic record should only be visible when the issue or copies are available to the user, meanwhile, even if more than one purchase request has been made, it…
38 votes -
Print slip option in the Acqisition receive screen
We want a print slip option for the Receive screen in Acquisition that includes barcode and location, reporting codes, receiving note and notification of interested user/ patron request.
28 votes -
Search more than one POL at a time
The new feature of the october 2018 release made it possible to receive several POLs at once by selecting the desired POLs. We usually have a very large number of POLs and can't filter them by any more details. That makes finding the wanted POLs difficult.
We would like to be able to search for more than one POL at that point.32 votes -
Ability to add closed purchase order lines to the Acquisitions tab, PO Line field on active portfolios
Alma will not let you place a closed PO Line in the portfolio Acquisitions tab, PO Line field.
We want to tie closed PO Lines to active portfolios because the PO Line is why we have archival access and why the portfolios are still turned on after cancellation.
Migration to Alma results in many PO Lines not linked in the Acquisitions tab PO Line field. Cleaning this up would involve reopening the PO Lines and closing them. This is too much effort for what we need to accomplish. Please implement!
105 votes -
Flag items requested by another user in Patron Services screen
Our desk staff would like to be able to see at a glance which of the items a user has on loan has been requested.
We often have a scenario where a user presents at the desk with a blocked account. We can tell that one or more of the books they have on loan must have been requested, but need to 'View queue' for each of them to find out which ones have a request placed on them.It would be useful to be able to see this information at a glance.
Perhaps a column in the loan list in the Patron Services screen could be a flag to show if a book has been requested by another user.Our desk staff would like to be able to see at a glance which of the items a user has on loan has been requested.
We often have a scenario where a user presents at the desk with a blocked account. We can tell that one or more of the books they have on loan must have been requested, but need to 'View queue' for each of them to find out which ones have a request placed on them.It would be useful to be able to see this information at a glance.
Perhaps a column in the loan…56 votes -
Create "Quick Cataloging" placement default as "Institution" rather than "Network"
When creating an item at checkout, or a brief record, Alma opens up a Quick Cataloging window that defaults the "Placement of new record" into the network. Since these records most often end up with the Cataloger under review, I feel that Alma should default to the Institution Zone instead. This will ensure that we do not unintentionally add these records to the Network zone.
27 votes -
When Creating Borrowing Requests Check for Duplicates with previous completed and cancelled requests
Following the implementation of the ability to check for duplicates when creating borrowing requests, we see that this only applies to active requests. We would find it helpful to have duplicate completed and cancelled requests flagged up in Alma (without the request being automatically rejected)
20 votes -
Add checkboxes for the single positions at the invoice details in the invoice lines tab
Add checkboxes for the single positions at the invoice details in the invoice lines tab.
We create all of our invoices manually. Usually we don’t use the pro rata checkbox and four invoice lines for shipment, discount, overhead and insurance are created automatically.
In most cases not all invoice lines are needed and we delete the redundant lines manually. Therefore it would be easier to have a checkbox for choosing these lines and to be able to delete all of them at once instead of choosing and confirming the deletion of each line separately.110 votes -
browse by subject headings to include 600/610/611
currently browse bib headings by subject does not include 600/610/611 fields (they are placed in 'names'). When browsing by subject one would expect to find all subjects including those that describe people/companies etc.
61 votes -
Add Job Category to Update/Notify Users
It seems strange that you can add User groups, roles etc in the Update/Notify USers job but the Job Category isn't available.
It would be useful if you could add this as we are starting to use Job Categories is TOU rules and being able to assign them based on a set of users would be really helpful.26 votes -
Provide access to files FTPed to third-parties
We run a daily scheduled "Publishing to OCLC" job which sends OCLC our new and changed MARC records via FTP.
From time to time, OCLC email us to let us know that some files were not processed due to errors in the MARC (typically blanks in the leader). To fix these, we need to download the problematic files, correct them, and manually upload to OCLC again.
However we don't have access to these files in Alma. (OCLC deletes them from their server when their automated process picks them up so we can't get them from there either.)
We managed to log a Salesforce case to get the developers to find the files for us, so obviously the files are retained. However the process took several months and a lot of ExL staff time.
Libraries should be able to access the file that was sent to or from a third party directly from the job report.
We run a daily scheduled "Publishing to OCLC" job which sends OCLC our new and changed MARC records via FTP.
From time to time, OCLC email us to let us know that some files were not processed due to errors in the MARC (typically blanks in the leader). To fix these, we need to download the problematic files, correct them, and manually upload to OCLC again.
However we don't have access to these files in Alma. (OCLC deletes them from their server when their automated process picks them up so we can't get them from there either.)
We managed to…
24 votes -
Display prompts in analytics widgets
We have created a widget to display IDs of citations, and would like to be able to display the associated prompts to allow users to select their own criteria.
The current behaviour is by design:
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Knowledge_Articles/Analytics_widgets_with_a_prompt
but it would be very helpful if this could be changed.
66 votes -
Ability to change the default for reading room to NOT FINAL - Second Attempt
In August 2018 Release we got a solution for the original idea, which made things worse for us. Previously the default for the reading room was set to "Final" check in. The original idea suggested to change this to "Not Final" to help avoid a scenario where for example resource sharing items are returned accidenty to their home campus when users are not finished with them.
As of August 2018 Alma remembers the last selected choice and keeps it for the next action ("sticky approach"). Since eventually every book loaned in the reading room has to be returned "final", now staff has to check each time, whether the last selected choice is the correct one also for the next return action, which is worse than the original situation.
Two cases have already been opened on this problem (#00500765 and #00583992), but support wants us to open again a new idea to finally get what we need:
we need the default to be "Not Final".
Alternatively, the default could be configurable by the library (useful only for libraries that never work with "Not Final" returns: they could set the default to "Final").In August 2018 Release we got a solution for the original idea, which made things worse for us. Previously the default for the reading room was set to "Final" check in. The original idea suggested to change this to "Not Final" to help avoid a scenario where for example resource sharing items are returned accidenty to their home campus when users are not finished with them.
As of August 2018 Alma remembers the last selected choice and keeps it for the next action ("sticky approach"). Since eventually every book loaned in the reading room has to be returned "final", now…50 votes -
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."
159 votes -
Fiscal Period Rollover - Move Cash Balance forward to new period
The latest release of Alma added functionality to the Fiscal period rollover that offers an option to Allocate new funds based on the Cash Balance of the same fund in the closing Fiscal period. We’ve been testing this out and it seems while the cash balance is indeed allocated to the new period, it is also left on the old period!
This means the same money is being reported and allocated twice on Alma, which leaves great scope for confusion and I believe is contrary to good accounting practice.
I believe this enhancement needs a further tweak, to allocate the cash balance to the new fiscal period fund and deallocate it from the prior fiscal period - in effect a transfer and not a new allocation.
The latest release of Alma added functionality to the Fiscal period rollover that offers an option to Allocate new funds based on the Cash Balance of the same fund in the closing Fiscal period. We’ve been testing this out and it seems while the cash balance is indeed allocated to the new period, it is also left on the old period!
This means the same money is being reported and allocated twice on Alma, which leaves great scope for confusion and I believe is contrary to good accounting practice.
I believe this enhancement needs a further tweak, to allocate the…
71 votes
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