Let's talk about Fulfillment (I mean Alma, not life's purpose) 10/16/20

Let's talk about Fulfillment (I mean Alma, not life's purpose) 10/16/20

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Friday, October 16, 2020 - 2:00pm to 3:30pm

During this session held on Friday, 10/16 from 2-3:30pm central, topics of discussion included:

  • Review of recent Known Issues in Alma and Primo VE
    • Alma Primo VE Known Issues
    • The page is oriented with newest-posted Known Issues at the top.
    • Posts may include a workaround, an Idea Exchange enhancement to vote for, and/or an Ex Libris support ticket number.
  • Hold shelf maintenance and working with expired holds.
    • The workflow to return materials that expire on the hold shelf is different in Alma than it was in Voyager.
    • We reviewed the steps posted: Staff workflows for Alma Requests
      Under the section: “Best Practices: Alma Hold Shelf Maintenance”
    • Why this is important:
      • Many I-Share libraries have been reporting an increase in I-Share materials, which when they arrive at the pick-up library, direct the pick-up library to route the item back to the home library.
      • Others have reported being unable to finish routing-in their own materials when returned from the other I-Share library.
      • While some of the “route-homes” may be caused by the patron canceling the request while it was in transit (Alma will allow this; Voyager did not), through investigations conducted by NEI, many of these may also be caused by expired hold shelf materials not being “Transited” as Alma expects.
        • If staff go to Fulfillment>Return for an item in Alma that expired on the hold shelf (which was what we did in Voyager, and is not what Alma expects), Alma fails to fully clear the hold.
        • Alma will print a transit slip to return the item to the item’s home library. But, when the item arrives back home, Alma then prompts staff to return it to the pick-up location.
      • Processing the expired and canceled holds as Alma expects should alleviate many of these issues.
  • Working with patron requests, where the patrons 1) did not specify a volume of a multi-volume set, or 2) requested multiple volumes in the same request.
    • Group consensus was that if the patron did not specify which volume of a multi-volume set they wanted, emailing/calling the patron to inquire was appropriate.
    • It is possible that a patron may request multiple volumes in the same single request, since the Volume field is a free-text field.
    • During the session we did a live demonstration of a possible workflow for lending additional volumes to the requesting patron, IF those additional volumes are avaialble and lendable at your library.
    • The directions are now posted on the How To: Staff workflows for Alma Requests- Local and AFN under the "Supplying Library: Processing Requests that Need Additional Attention" section, "Patron requested multiple volumes of a title in a single request."

Additional sessions of "Let's talk about Fulfillment (I mean Alma, not life's purpose)" are scheduled/have occurred.
Please register for future sessions if interested, or review past sessions for the discussion notes: