Alma provides the ability to navigate (by hypertext links) among linked purchase orders, funds, vendors, bibliographic records, licenses for electronic resources, and information about electronic packages (from the Central KnowledgeBase). An example of this can be seen in the following screenshot of a Purchase Order Line in review, with a hypertext link to the fund:

Additionally, the purchase order is linked directly to the metadata records in the system; there is no need for duplicate records in Alma. Order lines are linked directly to bibliographic records, or to package records in the case of groups of e-resources. Item records, which describe the resources in the library’s inventory, are linked to the metadata record, which is in turn linked to the purchase order line.

Alma supports end-to-end acquisition processes for all resource types (print, electronic, and digital). The system employs business process automation to streamline and simplify workflows for managing orders, claims, receiving, activation of electronic resources, invoices, vendors and vendor accounts, as well as ledgers and funds. Alma’s workflow engine uses library-defined rules to manage most activities automatically and alert staff to exceptional conditions that require manual intervention.

• Most acquisitions activities are unmediated, based on library policies and procedures. Operator intervention is needed only when staff review or mediation is required for the processes to continue.
• Alma holds a single universal currency repository (based on ISO currency codes), which includes current and historical rates. The repository is updated on a continuous basis. To help libraries track and manage currency changes, Alma also provides an exchange rate report, which can be run in real-time to generate a list of recent exchange rates.
• Alma allows staff to create acquisition records for non-purchased materials, such as gifts and depository materials, without requiring that the items follow the traditional workflow of funding, invoicing and payment.

The acquisition module supports real-time fund balances, including a graphical display of the fund balance showing encumbrances and expenditures. Additionally, each fund displays a history of transactions (including positive and negative transactions) and the balance in the fund at the point of each transaction. In addition, Alma Analytics provides advanced reporting functionalities to generate comprehensive reports.

The full purchasing workflow can be summarized in the following diagram:

Order workflows in Alma include the automatic processing of purchase orders across electronic and print formats, as well as staff mediation for approval and exceptions, per the library’s rules. For example, Alma’s workflow engine will be able to automatically assign tasks to staff members, approve orders based on library-defined policies, aggregate purchase order lines into a purchase order, and send the order to a vendor.

In Alma, the order process begins when a purchase order line is created; order lines are the building blocks from which purchase orders are created.

Using business process automation, the vast majority of order lines will be processed automatically, and flow from order line creation directly onto a purchase order. Order lines that require review are flagged and placed on an operator’s task list. As an example, the screenshot below shows an acquisition staff member’s “task list” for purchase order lines in review.

Order lines may be sent for review for various reasons - that the purchase order line is missing mandatory information such as a fund, price, or location, or that a library-defined price limit has been reached.

Purchase Orders show an auto generated alert that explicitly states what is wrong or missing with that order. For example:

Once an operator has reviewed and updated the order lines as necessary, they move automatically to the next stage, where purchase orders are generated and sent to the vendors. In cases where an order does not need to be sent (e.g., Approval Plans), the purchase order process ends when the order is created in Alma.

The purchase order is linked directly to the metadata records in the system; there is no need for duplicate records in Alma. Order lines are linked directly to bibliographic records, or to package records in the case of groups of e-resources. Item records, which describe the resources in the library’s inventory, are linked to the metadata record, which is in turn linked to the purchase order line.

When initiating an order, Alma will offer the staff user the option of choosing a Purchase Type – based on the type of media being ordered. (The list can be customized by the library.)

Based on this information, the PO Line that will be created will be tailored to the type of material being order. For example a monograph fill have fields for defining library and location; journals (print and electronic) will have subscription date fields.

A purchase order for physical material – where item information can be registered:

A purchase order for electronic material – where license information can be registered:

A purchase order for continuing resources – where subscription information can be registered:

Alma supports purchasing workflows of all types.

• Approval orders are managed as standing orders, where the specific titles are loaded via MARC embedded order data/embedded order confirmation records. The system will check for approval titles that are already owned and flag them for staff review.
• Firm orders for print or electronic resources are managed by creating order lines attached to either a brief bibliographic record or a complete record from the Alma Community Catalog. Once the order has been processed, it may be sent via EDI, email, or print. The library may attach complete bibliographic records either from the Community Catalog or an external source. Print titles await receiving from the vendor, and electronic titles are activated as per agreement with the vendor. At that point, these resources are added to the permanent collection.
• Print continuations (print subscriptions and standing orders) and electronic subscriptions are both managed by Alma through ongoing open orders. The library establishes a purchase for the subscription, including a start and end date (the latter is optional). As new issues of print resources are received, inventory is created automatically. Electronic subscriptions may be activated and are subject to evaluation and renewal workflows.
• Alma also supports acquisition workflows for non-purchased materials, such as gifts, and legal deposit, without requiring that the items follow the traditional workflow of order, receipt, invoice, payment.
• Alma supports the ability to derive purchase orders based on EOD/EOCR records. The approach is flexible enough to accommodate mapping PO data from an array of different MARC fields and subfields, and can be customized based on different vendor requirements. Default profiles are included for common vendor mappings. The following screen capture shows an example of mapping inventory information from the vendor record to Alma item records:

• Alma maintains a lifecycle of purchasing that allows orders to be processed automatically with no staff intervention. The library can set up rules that will flag an order for review or for automatic processing based on flags, e.g.:
  • By vendor (so that some vendor orders can pass through automatically)
  • By acquisition method (e.g., so that approval orders will pass fewer checks)
  • By type of material or source of PO information
  • By additional exceptions (duplicate active order, item already exists in inventory, price exceeds limits, fund nearing limit, etc.)

In this way, acquisitions staff will have one task list in which to review orders that require decisions, while other orders will be automated. The following screen capture shows an example of a staff user’s task list – with a hypertext link to order lines that require review:

It is possible to change the vendor in an order after it was sent to the vendor:

• The 'Change Vendor' option will change the vendor in the order line and resend the order to the new vendor (as described below).
• The 'Replace (only) Vendor' option will change the vendor in the order record, but will not resend the order.

For the 'Change Vendor' option, a confirmation dialog box appears. The message in this box states that the PO line will be sent again.

After clicking Confirm, The Change Vendor in Order dialog box displays:

Once the vendor has been changed, the order will be resent.

A staff user can change the bibliographic record to which a PO line is linked. Possible reasons for doing this include:

The Relink option is available only for PO lines with the status In Review, Deferred, Ready (packed into a PO and ready to be sent), or Waiting for Manual Renewal, as well as for one-time closed PO lines. PO lines cannot be relinked if any of the following is true:

Alma allows staff to create acquisition records for non-purchased materials, such as gifts and depository materials, without requiring that the items follow the traditional workflow of order, receipt, invoice, payment. If an acquisition process is not necessary for non-purchased materials, Alma also allows the operator to skip the acquisitions workflow entirely and simply create descriptive and inventory records that are necessary to properly manage the resource.

Alma supports orders of type exchange. A typical workflow would be as follows:

Exchange partners are defined in Alma as vendors:

‘Institution A’ places an order for an item (e.g. a museum catalog) with the exchange partner (‘institution B’) listed as the vendor.

The purchase type ‘exchange’ is chosen. With this order type, the price and fund fields are not mandatory. A reporting code could also be registered.

When the item arrives, receive it like all other orders. After receiving, the order is closed and process is complete.

In Alma Analytics, a report of all exchange items can be generated by filtering on the acquisitions method and choosing the exchange parameter:

The full Legal Deposit workflow in Alma consists of 6 simple steps:

When the order for the item is created, the acquisition method 'Legal Deposit' is chosen. This acquisition method does not require that the price and fund fields be populated:

After saving the order, a legal deposit request letter is generated, and sent to the publisher:

Once the item has been received, a letter of acknowledgement can be sent back to the publisher.

Alma Analytics allows for generating reports filtered by acquisition method.

Orders can be claimed or canceled. When for example, cancelling an order, the staff operator is prompted to enter a reason for the cancellation – this can be from a pull down list of library defined reasons. An optional, additional note can be added to this.

Alma’s workflow engine uses library-defined rules to manage most activities automatically, and alert staff to exceptional conditions that require manual intervention. Most acquisitions activities are unmediated, based on library policies and procedures. Intervention is needed only when staff review or mediation is required for the processes to continue. Order lines that require review are flagged and placed on an operator’s task list.

Role and privilege granularity reflects the common breakdown of responsibilities and authorizations within the library/institution, with sensitive actions being controlled by specific roles and privileges. For example:

A Purchasing Operator role can do all of the actions required for processing a purchase request, such as:

However, the Purchasing Operator cannot:

An Invoice Operator can do all of the actions that are required for processing invoices; however, the Invoice Operator cannot:

Vendor information may be made viewable by roles that require access to this information, such as:

Alma supports the creation of purchase order templates. The use of template decreases the need to re-enter purchase related information when creating a purchase order. Templates can be saved either public or for private use. When loading templates, the staff user can choose from private templates and public templates.

Templates can be modified by editing and resaving the template. The workflow is as follows:

Alma provides extensive open interfaces, and all APIs are accessible freely through the Ex Libris Developer Network.

The Alma web services are managed via the Developers Network as well. This platform serves as the main vehicle over which the system‘s openness philosophy is realized.

Alma provides a comprehensive set of RESTful APIs, which are also available on the Ex Libris Developer Network.

Alma integrates with external systems, such as vendor systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, metadata management systems, and remote storage systems, via standard protocols, such as S/FTP. It is organized according to the external systems. Ex Libris was the first vendor to introduce a real time acquisition integration with vendors using APIs and we are working with various vendors in order to provide enhanced integration between Alma and the Vendor systems and support seamless workflows for increased efficiency for staff related processes.

Alma integrates with commonly used external selection portals such as YBP’s GOBI platform (https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/Real-time-Acquisitions) with automated import capabilities through extensive support for vendor-specific import profiles and embedded order data (EOD) records. 

Alma supports with Library Service Providers to streamline acquisitions workflows. It incorporates standard ordering and loading technologies with APIs to speed the availability of resources, increase the efficiency of integrating records, and enhance data enrichment.

Workflow 

• The user searches for items in the vendor's system, and places them in the shopping cart (or equivalent).
• The user verifies owning library, fund codes and other relevant information.
• At checkout, the vendor sends the shopping cart data to Alma using the Create PO line API.
• Alma validates the received PO line information
• Alma attempts to match the bibliographic data using standard identifiers. If no match is found, Alma creates a brief bibliographic record for the order.
• Alma responds with the newly created PO line number to the vendor.
• The PO line is processed in Alma as other PO lines are processed. If an order requires manual review, Alma sends it to the In Review task list.

The vendor reference number is kept as part of the Alma PO line. Alma PO line number is kept as part of the vendor order details.

 The following flow chart represents the workflow:

The following vendors currently support this integration:

• GOBI
• Harrassowitz
• OASIS

This is possible via the Advanced Search. Users can simply use the wildcard * to search any resource with PO Lines attached.

Step 1: Advanced Search:

Clicking on the Orders link will open summary details of the order:

Alma supports searching for purchase order lines from the standard repository search option - with indexed search options related to order lines: 

It is possible to search by a variety of search indexes related to purchase order details, fund information and associated bibliographic information. The search results can be further limited by facets such as Status, Library, Purchase Order Type, Alerts, Acquisition Method, and Vendor. Alma also provides Advanced search capabilities for searching for PO Lines based on complex criteria as illustrated below:

Search results can be saved as a set for PO Line batch processing such as changing vendor information, closing PO Lines and other acquisition tasks.

PO Lines can be searched by fields such as all, title, author, publisher, publication year, publication place, standard number, physical location name, vendor code, vendor name, vendor account code, fund code, fund name, PO line, additional PO line reference, PO reference number, vendor invoice number.