2019 Alma Enhancements - Second Round

RequestTitle	Module	Description
Improve Encumbrance, Disencumbrance and Expenditure functionality(4610)	Acquisitions	The timing and use of encumbrances, disencumbrances and expenditures needs to be improved to both match the actual time of events and ensure appropriate accounting expectations are met.
Portfolios in an electronic collection/package should inherit data displays from the collection's service(5054)	Acquisitions	While portfolios that are part of an electronic collection/package inherit the properties that are set at the service level, those inherited properties do not display in Alma in the individual portfolios. For example, the proxy value in the individual portfolios will always display in Alma as "No" even when the true value inherited from the electronic collection's service is "Yes." Similarly, a public or authentication note entered at the electronic collection or service level does not cascade down to the individual portfolio display in Alma either. Currently, the only service level information that appears in a portfolio is the Service Parse Params. Request: Data elements that are set at an electronic collection's service level (specifically, proxy settings and public/authentication notes) should cascade down to the portfolio level display. In addition, staff should be able to add notes on the interface level. Staff shouldn't have to check two places to see the correct setting.
Add ability to customize Purchase Request online form(5685)	Acquisitions	1. The existing Purchase Request online form (after login Primo) only have two citation types – book or journal. Other common types such as ebook and AV materials should be included. 2. Only Title is the mandatory field. It’s suggested allowing the Library to decide which field(s) are mandatory. 3. All the fields are fixed and could not be changed on this Purchase Request. It’s suggested allowing the Library to add and remove the fields so that this form could be customized. At least, A Note field should be added in this Request form. 4. The ISBN entered in this Purchase Request form is used to check the Library’s holding. If it’s found in Library, the Full BIB will be populated into that Purchase Request. It is suggested the Purchase Request showing a message and alert the requestor that the Library already has the holding before submitting the Request.
Make Suppressing a location function the same as suppressing a holding in all publishing jobs(6362)	Acquisitions	Holdings records in suppressed locations should be automatically tagged as suppressed so these values are indicated in publishing profiles and Analytics. This way, suppression indicators would function the same whether they are being published to Primo or another source.
Administration: Expand Repository Advanced Search Options(4057)	Administration	Expand searching capabiliites: in repository search: All searches should have functionality to search 'contains', 'does not contain', 'is empty', 'is not empty', 'begins with'
Ability to run patron purge on a set of user records(5304)	Administration	We would find it helpful to be able to run patron purge on a set of user records, or alternatively for Alma to add a user delete job that runs on a set.
Split role user manager in 2: the user manager and the patron manager(6348)	Administration	Right now any operator at any level with a role enabling the right to edit/delete users in Alma has the rights as well to change or delete roles or scopes of anyone else, even of the Alma administrators (!). Roles shall be fine tuned in a much more granular way, as to have two separated types of managers and administrators. - Patron managers shall be enabled to create and edit Patron Users, but not to edit/delete roles assigned to other users, esp. Libray staff Users. - User administrators instead should be enabled to edit/delete roles of other users, including Library Staff Users.
Fulfillment: Enhance the configuration of physical item recall(4025)	Fulfillment	This request seeks to enhance how Alma's request mechanism handles recall of loans to ensure patrons respond quickly and equitably when demand for resources is high. Many libraries need to make multiple physical copies of key titles available to their customers. These copies may be held in multiple holdings within and across multiple library sites. Despite holding a large number of copies there are insufficient funds to provide a copy for every patron, therefore we are reliant on the requests function to circulate stock effectively. Currently in Alma when a request is placed on a title where there are 10 copies all out on loan, and none available, a single real-time recall notification is sent to the patron who has the oldest loan, changing their loan status to recalled, but none of the other patrons with a copy are made aware of the potential demand for the item at that time. Ex Libris characterise this as an optimal 'just in time' recall approach.
Add Pop-Up Notice at Scan in Items(5299)	Fulfillment	Please add an option to allow a pop-up notice in Scan in Items for hold requests. These pop ups are important, as staff have to acknowledge them before proceeding. Right now while we scan in materials returned from other consortium libraries, the only way we know that there is a hold on an item is the on screen display. Since staff are usually processing these in bulk, the chance of missing the hold is more likely without an additional alert.
User profile - Add field for last active date(5631)	Fulfillment	We would like to have a field in the user profile that shows user’s last active date, i.e. loan, request or return. This field should also be available in Analytics. This field will be useful when deciding which user profiles to purge. We would like to limit the number of user accounts in Alma by purging regularly. Students are loaded into Alma from our SIS, with an expiration date. We purge these accounts a year after expiration date. If they still would like to use our library, we add them with a new account and different user group.
Automate Borrowing Request Processes(5632)	Fulfillment	Currently, we create a weekly Analytics report of all items with status Request sent to Partner and Update Date of more than three days, and then send email reminders manually to each partner via General Message. There is no status update for the request that we can apply in Alma, and the whole process is time-consuming and open to human error. We would like a set of options that allow us to automate processing for borrowing requests. When a partner does not respond within a configurable number of days, a reminder letter will be sent by email to the partner and the status of the request will be updated to indicate that a reminder has been sent. Alternatively, the request to that partner could be automatically cancelled and sent to the next partner in the rota (as is done for lending requests).
Enable customer-defined order of locations in the Get It menu(5683)	Fulfillment	Currently, the locations in the Alma resolver (Get It menu) are not sorted in a consistent, meaningful manner. There is a "use IP best locations ordering" option, but this option is insufficient for many institutions. For instance, in many cases, users are off site or not in a library building, and many institutions do not reserve IP addresses for specific buildings Ideally, we would like the ability to explicitly define the preferred order in which locations are sorted. For multi-campus institutions, customers should be able to define the location order for each campus.
option to not show related holdings locations (5340)	Interoperability & Integration	related holdings are confusing to our users, and there is currently no way to stop these from showing. See attached file for a screenshot. We have been told this is an Alma configuration that cannot be changed, but the way it is presented in Primo is the issue: either have an opt-out from showing these, or re-design the display in a better way
Link resolver delivers physical holdings for wrong titles for PCI records(6201)	Interoperability & Integration	The Alma mashup in Primo routinely delivers physical holdings information for the wrong title. When viewing a Primo PCI record, if the library does not have full-text access, the Alma link resolver attempts to find a match on physical title. This often works poorly. The mash-up may deliver holdings information for a completely different bibliographic entity, with no match point other than title. The problem is particularly severe with short titles such as "Shakespeare." The user has no idea that the holdings information presented in Get It is for an entirely different work. They may then request it or get it from the shelves, see that it's for a different work, think the library has made a gross error, and is frustrated that we wasted their time. We propose that the mash-up deliver a minimal amount of Alma bibliography data when presenting physical holdings for PCI records, so the user can determine whether the work whose holdings are in Get It is indeed what they're looking for. There are cases when the mash-up delivers a different edition, which for some users may be sufficient, and for other users, unacceptable (such as when they are verifying pagination for the footnotes/bibliography of a publication they are working on). Presenting bibliographic information would allow users to have the full information at hand. Furthermore, in addition to brief bib details, there should be a link to the bib record for which the holdings are displayed. This will allow the user to follow the link and see the full bibliographic information for the title in question so they can make an informed decision. This could be implemented as a small section above or beneath the physical holdings, with a header such as "Showing the availability for... (brief bib details). See full record (link)." The new data elements should have unique class IDs for CSS purposes. As the system works currently, the user has absolutely no idea they may be requesting a different edition or a different title altogether. Examples of the Alma link resolver presenting the wrong holdings: Example 1: PCI book chapter entitled "Shakespeare Criticism in the Twentieth Century," which is a chapter of "The Cambridge companion to Shakespeare" from Cambridge University Press, 2001. The Alma link resolver presented the holdings for this book: Shakespeare : Readers, Audiences, Players. University of Western Australia Press, 1998. Example 2: PCI book record for title: William Morris : Artist, Writer, Socialist. Cambridge University Press, 2012, by May Morris. The Alma link resolver presented the holdings for a 1936 edition of the work. NOTE TO ALMA WG: please do not combine this with NERS 6128 which asks for pub date to be added to link resolver. That is not what we're requesting.
Enhancing security and management of API keys(6430)	Interoperability & Integration	Currently the security management of API keys is very limited. There is no way to limit or control how an API key is used besides the basic "area", "environment" and "permissions" setting. The API reports are also lacking details.
Provide an option to view URL in CZ portfolios(5790)	Resource Management	It would be helpful to be able to look in any Portfolio (particularly Community Zone portfolios) and be able to quickly see exactly what the Linking URL is, eg by providing a View link under the title. This would be helpful for link troubleshooting as well as allowing for quicker capturing of the link (without having to decipher the Service Parameters or actually click through the Test Access process) for adding to documents, emails etc and enables ability to confirm that the portfolio or package information is the one we want to link to.
Working with members of a set(6393)	Resource Management	Currently the functionality for working with members of a set is clunky. We would like to see the following improvements: 1) the ability to sort and filter and facet; 2) the ability to search for a known item within a set 3) after clicking “remove selected” it should return you to the page you were working on, not the first page; 4) the ability to select members on multiple pages, rather than having to perform actions on a per-page basis; and 5) page selection option at both top and bottom of the page.