Alma
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1754 results found
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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!
106 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.
25 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 -
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.38 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…
26 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.
72 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…47 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."
160 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…
72 votes -
Renewal POL : free the box "Manual Packaging"
When we renew POL, we would like to be able to tick or not tick the box "Manual Packaging".
Our aim is to not heritage the Packaging from the 1rst POL / PO, but to decide to re-package POL as wanted.40 votes -
EDI check in for print journals
Alma documentation states that Alma supports the following Edifact message types – INVOIC, ORDERS, OSTENQ, ORDRSP, ORDCHG. However our old LMS Aleph supported an additional Edifact message type called DESADV.
This allowed our serials agent, Ebsco, to check in our journals in on the LMS remotely via EDI once our monthly consolidated deliveries of print journals were despatched from the warehouse.
Provided our prediction patterns matched the PIA line this worked efficiently. An example of EDI text is as below:-
LIN+1'
PIA+5+0001-4788(2012)42?:1;1-9:SI::28'
IMD+L+050+:::ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS RESEARCH'
QTY+12:1'
RFF+SNL:52280023'
RFF+SNA:52280023'The above essentially means that for order no 52280023 (linking to order no. RFF+SNL and SFF+SNA lines), check in Vol. 42, 2012, Issue 1, pp.1-96, for ISBN 0001-4788 (PIA additional product ID line)
This is an urgent improvement required and it is highly unusual that such a powerful market leader as Alma does not provide this service, which is pretty standard in much more basic systems. Since upgrading to Alma we have had to re-introduce a manual workflow which had been completely automated for the last 10 years.
Best wishes,
Neil O'Brien
Acquisitions Librarian
James Hardiman Library
National University of Ireland GalwayPhone: 00353 91 493338
Email: neil.obrien@nuigalway.ieAlma documentation states that Alma supports the following Edifact message types – INVOIC, ORDERS, OSTENQ, ORDRSP, ORDCHG. However our old LMS Aleph supported an additional Edifact message type called DESADV.
This allowed our serials agent, Ebsco, to check in our journals in on the LMS remotely via EDI once our monthly consolidated deliveries of print journals were despatched from the warehouse.
Provided our prediction patterns matched the PIA line this worked efficiently. An example of EDI text is as below:-
LIN+1'
PIA+5+0001-4788(2012)42?:1;1-9:SI::28'
IMD+L+050+:::ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS RESEARCH'
QTY+12:1'
RFF+SNL:52280023'
RFF+SNA:52280023'The above essentially means that for order no 52280023 (linking to…
24 votes -
User ID Generation functionality also on the User Details page
Libraries can configure the automatically generated user identifiers for new patrons that are added when an operator adds a patron on the Patron Identification page. We would like that the user Primary identifier can also be generated when users are added or edited on the User Details page: Existing users (external or internal) could have their Primary identifier updated (refreshed) in a more easy and effective way by circulation desk operators.
84 votes -
Have the option to turn off sorting for sets.
Our OAC department needs to generate a packing list of items that are scanned in, in the order in which they were scanned. The problem is that after creating a physical items set via scanning, the set sorts itself, and the items are no longer in order.
In addition, our Metadata Services department used to manage our corrections projects in Millennium by having a public set that everyone could access. Once the cataloger was done correcting the record, it was removed from the set.
Our problem is that once we're done correcting the record for a Physical Titles set and do a save and release, it is no longer in the position it used to be in the set. (e.g. if you were working on the first record on the first page of the set, after you save, it's no longer the first record, it's moved somewhere on the first page)
It would be very beneficial if we could have the option to turn off the sorting for itemized sets, and leave the sets in the order in which they were scanned in/loaded/created.
Our OAC department needs to generate a packing list of items that are scanned in, in the order in which they were scanned. The problem is that after creating a physical items set via scanning, the set sorts itself, and the items are no longer in order.
In addition, our Metadata Services department used to manage our corrections projects in Millennium by having a public set that everyone could access. Once the cataloger was done correcting the record, it was removed from the set.
Our problem is that once we're done correcting the record for a Physical Titles set and…
24 votes -
Make the effect of exclude process from publishing on holdings configurable
The current implementation of exclude process types from publishing has the side-effect, that a holdings record gets automatically suppressed as well if it only contains items which get suppressed based on the exclude from process types configuration.
E.g. if you have process type=acquisition, material type=issue, exclude=true all holdings which happen to only have items with material type issue in process type acquisition are suppressed no matter what. This is bad in itself, since it precludes the possibility of offering additional information to our users via the 866 field.
What makes things worse is that the bib record gets suppressed as well if the automatically suppressed holdings record happens to be the only one for the title and if you have the flag suppress bib with suppressed holdings set to true.
We understand that the current behaviour may be desirable to some, for us it necessitates weird workarounds including dummy holdings / dummy items. So we would urge ExLibris to consider making the suppression of holdings which virtually end up with no items an optional thing.
After all for regular holdings with no items we have a choice whether we want these suppressed or not. For exclude process types from publishing ExLibris made some assumption regarding the correct behaviour which for us simply don't apply.Oliver Lehner
TU Wien libraryThe current implementation of exclude process types from publishing has the side-effect, that a holdings record gets automatically suppressed as well if it only contains items which get suppressed based on the exclude from process types configuration.
E.g. if you have process type=acquisition, material type=issue, exclude=true all holdings which happen to only have items with material type issue in process type acquisition are suppressed no matter what. This is bad in itself, since it precludes the possibility of offering additional information to our users via the 866 field.
What makes things worse is that the bib record gets suppressed as…77 votes -
Add Requester Name and Requester's ID on Pick up from Shelf export list
Add Requester Name and Requester ID on Pick up from Shelf export list.
24 votes -
Configuring Physical Item Sort Routine for Alternative Call Number
We have large volumes of items that are at the same location but at a different call number. All of these items migrated on to one holdings which means the Alternative Call Number is key in determining the correct call number. Are there any plans to add Alternative Call Number field to the physical item sort routine?
37 votes
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