Creating and Reviewing PO Lines - Overview
This page describes the various ways to create a PO line. For a list of links to pages with instructions for purchasing in Alma including renewals, working with vendors, etc., see Purchasing. For an overview of working with acquisitions in Alma, including links to relevant sections such as Infrastructure, Invoicing, Configuration, etc., see Introduction to Acquisitions.
To create PO lines, you must have one of the following roles:
- Purchasing Manager
- Purchasing Operator
Creating a PO line is the first step in the Purchasing Workflow.
You can create a PO line using any of the following methods:
- EOD - Importing embedded order data (EOD) in a file (see Importing Records Using an Import Profile).
- Real-Time Ordering - Vendors can integrate their ordering system with Alma's repository and ordering features. Real-time order data is sent automatically to Alma from the vendor's system using Alma's APIs (see Real-Time Ordering).
- (New for May) Order It! - Create the order automatically in Alma directly from the Amazon platform using the Order It! browser add-on (see Ordering from Amazon with the Order It! Plugin).
- Manually Creating a PO Line - Manually initiate a purchase for a repository item, either with or without also creating new inventory (see Manually Creating a PO Line).
- Service Subscriptions Without Inventory - Manually create a service subscription (see Creating Service Subscription PO Lines Without Inventory).
- Legal Deposits - For governments or national libraries that receive copies of publications at no charge from vendors, use legal deposits to create zero-value PO lines (see Working with Legal Deposits).
- Purchase Request - As a purchase request or in response to purchase request made by a patron in Primo (when enabled, any user can perform this). These may also be created automatically based on certain criteria when a citation is added or edited (by a user with any role that can create a citation). See Working with Purchase Requests for more information.
- Patron Driven Acquisition - When a vendor sends e-resources to an institution that may be of interest to the institution. Access is monitored by the vendor; when a predefined threshold is exceeded, the item is considered as if it is purchased and is sent as part of an EOD to Alma. See Patron Driven Acquisitions for more information.
For more information, watch Creating Orders. (3:56 min)