...
Essentially, fulfillment staff keep the 3M Pad Staff Workstation running in the background and use the hotkeys in Alma to switch both programs with one keystroke (F1 for checkin, F2 for checkout). Sierra checks the item out while on the checkout screen, while the 3M Pad Staff Workstation switches the security bit while in checkout mode (you're killing two birds with one stone, essentially). The opposite is true in Check-in mode.
The way RFID works in Alma is a bit different, and somewhat better. You don't need this extra piece of softwareAlma does not need the additional piece of software, and for that reason it's better. Additionally, it does have RFID support. You essentially use NGINX or implement an RFID driver which accepts requests from Alma to do that. What's inconvenient in Alma is that when you place an item on the RFID pad, the item barcode is not "fed" into the place where the cursor is sitting. You essentially have to press the blue RFID icon every time you need to read an item. A benefit of RFID is increased read rate which is achieved by not having to read each barcode one at a time. Alma has yet to achieve this, though they do plan to bring the functionality in future releases. What we do in Sierra, is we put a set of books on the pad, and they're all read and automatically "fed" into the check-in or check-out screen (even many books at once).
Exlibris plans to eventually add the ability for Alma to constantly query the RFID pad to see if there's something on it, but for now that functionality is not there.
...