Second round Alma Enhancements 21-22

Acquisitions

Harvard University Library - E

Editing items via Receiving, Save & Receive items

From the Receive Items List, add options to edit description, enum, and chron. Currently only the barcode is editable here. This will greatly improve productivity. Furthermore, when staff need to edit additional item fields during receiving, they need to be able to go to the Physical Item Editor and then Save & Receive. Currently they can only Save from the Physical Item Editor, meaning the Receipt of an Item and the Editing of an Item are two disparate workflows, even though staff need to do them at the same time. Without this feature, working with continuous items is time-consuming, awkward, and requires many extra keystrokes/mousing. 

Reset to new by Corinna Baksik on 2022024, because ExL has not confirmed via email yet that this will indeed be part of the Receiving Workflow enhancements planned for 2023. 

Fulfillment

Boston University

Send Courtesy Notices when Patron Loans are Auto-Renewed

When loans are successfully auto-renewed in the system, the patron does not receive an email notifying them that the loan has been renewed. Therefore, it is possible after a while that the patron forgets they have the item. We would like the option to have a notice to go to the patron when an item is auto-renewed, and have a letter that is customizable for this purpose so that we could expand our use of auto-renewals.

Fulfillment

University of Haifa Library

Improve functionality of Lending: Ship Item Digitally function

When shipping an Item Digitally, it should be possible to a) Complete a request after Dropping a file, b) Preview a file, and c) write a Note to the Partner. 

Ship digitally, Complete, Preview, Note

Administration

University Library Basel

Staff user accounts -- allow proxies and duplication

Switching from Aleph to Alma the handling of staff user records is a big step back. We really miss 1) the proxy function for staff users; 2) the possibility to duplicate a staff user to create a new staff user account. //
This almost made it through NERS in 2021, with 2280 votes.  

staff user accounts

Fulfillment

SLU University Library

Make it possible to customize the cancellation reasons

When we choose to cancel a patron's hold or resource sharing borrowing request we have to select a cancellation reason from a drop-down list. The reason is then included in the letter to the patron. The available texts are currently not customizable by the library, which is a big problem. The texts should be customizable through a code table, just as the PO Line Cancellation Reasons.

Administration

Bibliotheque cantonale et universitaire â Lausanne 

Add the ability to schedule the running of jobs

Running jobs require sometimes to be done later in the day, or even at night. However, Alma does not offer the possibility to schedule when one would like to have the job performed. In the same way, clients might also want to have jobs run regularly (weekly, monthly, etc.).

Jobs, scheduling

Resource Management

University of Kentucky

Decouple bib-level Material Type: Music into "Score" and "Audio"

The bibliographic material type of Music incorrectly combines scores (Leader/06 c or d) and sound recordings (Leader/06 i or j) into a single facet. Sound recordings contain both music (Leader/06 j) and non-music/spoken word content such as poetry readings, interviews, etc. (Leader/06 i). Furthermore, music scores and sound recordings are cataloged using different work forms. For these reasons, the two formats should not be coupled into the same Material Type: Music category. This proposal requests decoupling of music scores and sound recordings in Alma and establishing separate material types for the two formats. Possible suggestions are Material Type: Score and Material Type: Audio.
For the purpose of this request, we are requesting that the Material Type field be customizable as follows:
Material Type: Score - LDR/06 ‘c’ & ‘d’
Material Type: Audio - LDR/06 ‘i’ & ‘j’

material types, facets, music, music scores, sound recordings

Resource Management

Hillsdale College

Add option to Print bib record from MDE

We find it useful to have a printed bib record to reference on paper for various purposes, but Alma lacks the means to "Print" a bib record in the MDE. It would be extremely helpful to add Alma's print functionality as a button in the MDE menu options so that we can print specific records on physical sheets, as PDFs, etc.

Administration

Sheffield Hallam University

Improve letter editing functionality

Editing of letters in Alma is a complex and difficult process, requiring substantial prior knowledge in order to do this effectively.  Improvements have been made during recent years (e.g. the ability to view impact of changes) but the editing functionality is still in need of improvement, including the following points.  We consider the priority order of these to be:

1. The built-in error checker is not helpful because it doesn't provide enough information about a supposed error to assist with identifying it, but it does prevent the template being saved, even when the user is confident they have not introduced any errors with their recent changes.

2. Use of XSL functions requires prior knowledge of those expressions.  It would be much better if the letter template included an XSL glossary function from which a general system administrator could choose the appropriate XSL expression.

3. It would be useful to have a 'Save draft' function to make it possible to save templates being worked on that are not yet finished, enabling users to stop their work as needed and pick it up again later without having to start afresh.

4. Introducing an integral accessibility checker would enable us to be certain that we are meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at source, rather than having to run checks on the emails themselves after sending.

Letters; emails; errors; save draft; accessibility checker

Fulfillment

Sheffield Hallam University

Enable viewing of Requests history in Alma

Currently, within a patron record in Alma, it's possible to view current and previous activity for Loans, Returns, and Fines and Fees.  However, within Requests, it's only possible to view current requests.  It would be incredibly useful for Alma users to be able to view historical requests as well, this to assist with any request queries.  The ability to view request history in Alma Analytics has been very welcome and useful for reporting.  However, for troubleshooting purposes, it would be much better to be able to use live Alma straight away, rather than having to wait until Alma data refreshes into Analytics.

Requests; requests history; historical requests; troubleshooting requests; patron record

Resource Management

Rutgers University

Add support for dynamic collections that are automatically updated using logical sets

A collection (unrelated to an electronic collection) is a set of bibliographic records used to organize and showcase a group of related library resources (i.e., 1920's jazz recordings). Customers can create collections using itemized sets (a static group of selected records) or logical sets (the results of a saved query created dynamically each time the query is run). However, once you create a collection using a logical set, it becomes static, effectively negating its purported advantage and making it behave no different than an itemized set. In order to create collections that don't require ongoing curation and manual updates, we would like to be able to use logical sets in a way that would allow collections to update automatically every time new works are added to the repository that match the set's predefined criteria.

collections, logical sets

Fulfillment

SUNY Buffalo

Allow items in Lost status to be changed to Patron Claims Returned (PCR) 

Items in Lost status are unable to be changed to Patron Claims Returned (PCR) status. The only options available for Lost items are to mark found or delete the loan. 

Lost; Patron Claims Returned; PCR

Fulfillment

SUNY Buffalo

Add and edit barcodes for Resource Sharing requests

Once a borrowing resource sharing request is received the barcode cannot be edited and additional barcodes cannot be added. There should be the ability to edit or add additional barcodes for resource sharing requests within the resource sharing request; Received Items tab (Borrowing) or Items tab (Lending.)

resource sharing; borrowing; lending; barcodes

This request has some similarities to #7685, Ability to edit barcode after receiving borrowing request, with the difference that we would like to see this functionality for both Borrowing and Lending.

Fulfillment

BIBSYS Consortium

Borrowing request with status Ready to be sent - should appear in task list

We would like borrowing requests with status Ready to be sent to appear in task list under Borrowing request heading. 

borrowing task-list 

Electronic Resources

Swiss Library Service Platform SLSP AG

Activation of e-resources in the Network Zone based on IMGs

E-Resources in the NZ can be activated only for the whole IZ or every member of the network. IMG-specific or library-specific activations cannot be made from NZ and can only be made at IZ-level. For us as consortia with centrally purchased licenses it is important to make IMG-specific activations via the NZ so we can activate for specific IMG and also configure different proxies per IMG if necessary. 

Fulfillment

Swiss Library Service Platform SLSP AG

Invoice e-mail address and address in the patron user account

For some patron users it is important to have the possibility to enter a separate mail address and address to which the invoices are sent. Therefore it would be important to store an e-mail address and address with type "invoice" (new type might be created) in the patron user account and that this e-mail adress is also included in the bursar export. 

Resource Management

Liberty University

Adding "Does not contain" and "not" search option in Alma

Revised description: 1. Add “Not contains” options to indexes of the repository search (titles & inventory) where the index currently supports a “Contains” search. 2. Add “Not equals” options to indexes of the repository search (titles & inventory) where the index currently supports an “Equals” search.

search, advanced search, not, does not contain

Fulfillment

Tufts University

Add preferred pronoun field that displays in Fulfillment Manage Patron Services display

We need a configurable field (i.e. we can add the categories of preferred pronouns) that displays in the patron info section of the Fulfillment Manage Patron Services display. Much like the preferred names functionality, this is a companion piece that should be implemented. 

https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308173-alma/suggestions/34079359-add-preferred-pronoun-field-that-displays-in-fulfi\n