This webpage includes steps for regular request-related clean up tasks. Many, but not all, of these tasks take place on the Resource Request Monitor page in Alma. Others in the Hold Shelves or the Resource Sharing Borrowing Requests area of Alma. Information about the workflows and Alma areas are included below.
Resource Sharing Borrowing Requests
The Resource Sharing Borrowing Requests page shows you the requests that your patrons have placed for other I-Share member libraries materials, and allows you to minimally track the status of those AFN requests. Several of the maintenance workflows described on this page are performed in this area of Alma.
Documentation from CARLI: How To: Staff workflows for Alma Requests- Local and AFN
Active and Expired Hold Shelf
Alma has an internal hold shelf list, where library staff can review the materials that are On Hold for pick-up at their library. Library staff can use the Expired Hold Shelf list to return materials to their owning locations, once the hold has expired.
Documentation from CARLI: How To: Staff workflows for Alma Requests- Local and AFN, see the section on "Best Practices: Alma Hold Shelf Maintenance."
Ex Libris Documentation: Managing Expired Hold Shelf Items
Monitoring Requests & Item Processes
The Resource Requests Monitor page shows you what is happening with your institution's items that are involved in a request process.
The page includes items with a current request, including the types:
Documentation from Ex Libris: Resource Request Monitoring
Required Roles:
In order to view the Resource Request Monitor page, you must have one of the following roles:
Required Roles:
In order to view the Resource Request Monitor page, you must have one of the following roles:
Required Roles:
In order to view the Resource Request Monitor page, you must have one of the following roles:
The following workflows are easy to do in Alma and hard to do in real life because the virtual needs to match the physical.
This involves trying to locate the physical item so that you can to set the virtual to match.
Note: This process involves contacting staff at other I-Share libraries, and having staff from other I-Share libraries contact your library.
Please do your best to help locate missing items, or to contact your library's patrons, depending on the situation.
Recording: Brief introduction to cleanup work from the June 21, 2022 Let's Talk About Fulfillment session, describing why it is important for the item "in Alma" to match the state of the physical item.
As we've been on Alma and had different issues with our configuration setup and with how Primo VE talks to Alma, we've had some requests enter Alma that were unable to be processed in Alma. Your library may or may not have completed these steps. At the time as these were discovered, we would email the I-Share liaison and other contact email lists to share the clean-up tasks, it is possible the requests were not cleaned up at the time.
Note: If you find recent requests with these statuses, please contact support@carli.illinois.edu with the request information.
Recording: Demonstration of cleanup work for past Borrowing Request clean-up tasks from the June 21, 2022 Let's Talk About Fulfillment session.
The three statuses that need clean-up are:
Directions for "Waiting for cancel response" and "Ready to be sent":
Directions for "Locate failed"
Background: The hold shelf is one of the areas of circulation that is the most prone to problems, both workflow based, and technologically. Some now-resolved Alma known issues left lingering transactions that may need a one-time clean-up. Even after the one-time clean-up is complete, the expired hold shelf should be monitored regularly.
Recording: Demonstration of cleanup work for the expired hold shelf from the June 21, 2022 Let's Talk About Fulfillment session.
Day to day Hold Shelf workflows for all branch libraries at your institution (except the Resource Sharing Library):
Periodic clean-up to confirm the physical hold shelf matches Alma's virtual hold shelf
One-time clean-up for past known issues:
From getting used to the software, learning new workflows, staff workflow errors, delivery snafus, and software bugs, your institution likely has items with an "In Transit" status, that are not actually in transit. The workflow below is to tidy your institution's own "in transit" materials.
Recording: Demonstration of cleanup work for missing-in-transit clean-up tasks from the June 21, 2022 Let's Talk About Fulfillment session.
Request/Process Type: Transit for Reshelving
Workflow step: Transit Item
**Steps for the patron's home institution:
You can view the following types of information about each request.
Local requests:
I-Share requests:
You can perform the following types of actions on an entry. Local requests:
I-Share requests: