Printed Letters
- Chris Lee
When the CSU migrated to Alma and started CSU+ there was no Printouts Queue and all printing needed to be sent to the printer through an email letter. Complications with this workflow led to the creation of CleanSlips by Jeremy Hobbs who worked at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at the time. To use CleanSlips, CSU staff downloaded an Excel file from Alma with the necessary data and uploaded the file to the CleanSlips program or website. CleanSlips would then generate the Pull Slip/Book Band or Sticker labels. Recent updates to Alma has made the ability to print these slips in the Printouts Queue using Alma Letters. This workflow reduces the amount of steps needed for printing and adds scannable barcodes for Rapido workflows. Before setting up the Alma Letters you might want to set up the Printouts Queue.
There are three Letters in Alma that can be configured for Alma printing. The Ful Incoming Slip Letter generates pull slips/book bands and sticker labels. The Resource Sharing Shipping Slip Letter generates a shipping label to send a book to the borrowing library. Lastly the Ful Resource Request Slip Letter generates the Letter for the borrowing library to add a book band when receiving a book from outside the CSU.
Adding New Letter Code
The new letters can mostly be added without disabling your current letters. The new code can be added to the existing XSLT code and will only trigger for Rapido/Resource Sharing items while leaving the original letters intact for other areas of the library. To add the code follow the directions in the files included on this page. You can also contact the Resource Sharing Manager who can answer questions or add the code to your Alma.
Ful Incoming Slip Letter
The Ful Incoming Slip Letter is the letter used when printing Rapido lending requests at the Being Processed or Created Lending statuses. This is the status requests will be at when they arrive at the lending library and need to be pulled from the library shelves. To edit the letter go to Configuration → General → Letters → Letters Configuration and search for Ful Incoming Slip Letter.
Labels
By default there is no label for the book title in this letter. To add the label you can rename the Description to a Code that isn’t used in the final version of the letter. I recommend updating the “my_id” Code to say “Title” in the description.
Template
Most of the changes to the XML code are made on the Template tab. Changes to the XML include fixing broken code, reordering fields, and resizing text for readability when printing multiple items per page. Before you update the code it is always a good idea to save a backup of the original code. After creating a backup update the code with the additions in the following file.
The new version of the Pull Slip code is below. There are two locations in the code that need to be updated with the URL specific to each campus logo. Search for the uppercase text by clicking Ctrl+F and paste ADD THE URL FOR YOUR LOGO HERE. Replace the text in the code with the URL for your logo. The URLs are also below.
Pull Slip Code to use with the Printing Multiple Slips Per Page cloud app:
Pull Slip Code to use without any cloud apps:
Resource Sharing Receive Slip Letter
The Resource Sharing Receive Slip Letter is used to generate a book band to place around incoming borrowing requests for the hold shelf. While we can make the local CSU+ letters work as book bands within the CSU we cannot control what the slips from Lending libraries outside the CSU look like. This slip ensures the patron name, book title, and any notes are clearly visible on the book.
Resource Sharing Return Slip Letter
The Resource Sharing Shipping Letter is used to generate a shipping label when materials are checked in after the patron has finished with them. This code is the only code where a clear difference between a Rapido item and traditional Alma item was not obvious, so this code will rewrite your existing code. If you need customization the RSM is happy to help.
Before you update the code it is always a good idea to save a backup of the original code. After creating a backup replace the existing code with the following XSL.
Example
Here is an example of the Borrowing Return Label created by this letter. If you need additional configurations please contact the Resource Sharing Manager to discuss updates.
