Top Trending Books

December 2019

The Alma Homepage features a new dashboard widget for "Top Trending Books". This widget presents a top-10 list of physical and electronic books added to library catalogs in various Alma Institutions. The Top Trending Books widget is available only for institutions that enable contribution of their library's inventory information.

PO Line Reclaims

December 2019

Alma can now re-send a claim letter to the vendor at a specified number of days after the original claim letter was sent. You can configure a reclaim interval on the vendor level or the PO Line level.

Loan Statistics in Physical Title Search Results

December 2019

In the Other Details tab of physical title search results, a number of new loan statistics are available: number of loans, last loan date, number of in-house uses, last in-house use date, and year-to-date loans.

MD Editor: Search the Network Zone, for Copy Cataloging

November 2019

You can search the Network Zone from the Alma Metadata Editor, allowing copy cataloging using records from your consortial network as a source. To enable this feature, you will need to create a Search Profile for your Network Zone.

Create Purchase Requests from Borrowing Requests

November 2019

You can manually create a Purchase Request based on the information of a Resource Sharing Borrowing Request. The original borrowing request can either be canceled or left as is. This feature is automatically available for Alma institutions going live after November 2019; but more veteran institution must contact Ex Libris to have it enabled.

Push Borrowing Requests to ILLiad

November 2019

You can add ILLiad as a resource sharing partner in Alma. This allows you for example to include ILLiad in your rota as a supplier of last resort, so that if a request is unfulfilled it will be automatically pushed into ILLiad to be handled as a borrowing request. The ILLiad partner can be configured to communicate efficiently over API, in addition to the old email communication option.

Configuring Letters in Alma

September 2019

All system letters sent by Alma can be configured in the Letters Configuration page, via an editable XSL template. The template includes data from configurable text labels and configurable XSL components such as a header and footer. A WYSIWYG preview of the letter is available from the editor, and Example Letters can be used as the basis for the preview.

Create Purchase Requests Reports in Alma Analytics

September 2019

You can create reports concerning purchase requests in Alma via the new Purchase Requests subject area. Previously, you could only analyze purchases that had a PO line. Using the fields in the Purchase Requests subject area, you can answer business questions such as:

• How many purchase requests were made in a given time range?
• How many purchase requests were assigned to a user?
• How many purchase requests have a PO line?

ID and Modification Date Display in Search Results

September 2019

Starting in the Alma September 2019 release, the system ID, or MMS ID, of various entities in Alma will appear by default in the repository search results. This information will appear for Physical Items, Electronic Collections, Electronic Portfolios, Digital Files, Collections, and Authorities. The ID is useful for quickly and unambiguously searching for the entity later.

Select One COUNTER Platform per Electronic Resource

August 2019

Starting in the Alma August 2019 Release, you have the option to select one COUNTER Platform for a given Electronic Collection or Portfolio, so that Alma Analytics usage reports will relflect only data loaded from that selected COUNTER platform, as opposed to summing the data from several platforms.

Merge Duplicate Patron Records

August 2019

You can merge a patron record into another record in the case of a duplicate. All Fulfillment Activities such as loans, requests, fees and fees will be consolidated from both records, and other user information segments can be copied as you specify. This action is useful for cleaning up erroneously created users, and can be performed by a User Manager or User Administrator.

Reshelving Items Time

August 2019

The Time to Reshelve (in Hours) field allows you to account for the shelving time of returned items. When this value is configured, newly returned items are considered available, but for the specified duration they are shown in Alma and Primo as awaiting reshelving, so students and librarians don't search for them on the shelf. This configuration is available on the Library level, Circulation Desk level, and in the Reshelve Without Transit Rules.

Share Alma Analytics Scheduled Reports via FTP

July 2019

Alma Analytics reports can now be automatically placed on an FTP server folder of your choice. This is an easy and efficient way to share reports between different dpeartments of your institution.

View Unreceived Items for Order Lines with Claims

July 2019

The Claim Task List now includes a Claiming Information section, for physical PO lines, that lists the items or holdings and their claim status. This let's you know exactly which items of the order line are the ones yet unreceived.

Multiple Language Support for General Electronic Services

July 2019

You can present the public name and public note of your General Electronic Services in the Patron's selected language.

Alma Known Issues Fix Schedule

June 2019

The Alma Known Issues Fix Schedule lists known issues that are planned to be corrected in upcoming releases. This feature enables libraries to have a clear view of upcoming corrections. The list includes a description and case numbers and has a number of filters to allow for easy review.

New Icons for E-Resources in the Community Tab

June 2019

Icon indicators that show the status of Electronic Collections (Activated / Not Activated, Available / Not Available) were added to the Community tab in the Electronic Portfolios and Electronic Titles search results. With these indicators, you can now more easily identify portfolios that are part of active collections.

New Options for Closed Library Due Date Management

June 2019

The Closed Library Due Date Management policy includes new values to support keeping the original time and change only the date if a due date for an item falls on a closed day.

Translate Collection Name and Description

June 2019

You can now translate the name and description of a digital collection when you have multiple languages configured. End users can select the display language when viewing the collection in the discovery system.

Reload Usage Data Files that Failed to Upload

June 2019

Usage Data files that failed to load during SUSHI harvesting or file upload now display an error message in the report when applicable, and allow reloading at the click of a button.

Filter a List of Items

June 2019

The List of Physical Items for a given title can now also be filtered by Year, Volume, Description, and Receive Date.

Change Funds in Invoice Lines

April 2019

You can change the fund for one or several invoice lines in the Invoice Details page.

Sort Authorities Search Results by Rank

April 2019

You can sort the search results for Authorities by rank, displaying the most relevant Authority records on top. Each record also displays the Authority Vocabulary, and its ID in the Originating System.

Update Library Opening Hours via Excel Import

April 2019

You can efficiently update library opening hours by exporting the Opening Hours calendar to an Excel sheet, making the changes, and then reimporting the file. This can be done on both the institution level and the library level.

Analytics: New Fields in the PO Line Folder

March 2019

Starting in the Alma Analytics of March 2019, we've added new fields to the PO Line Dimension, in every Subject Area where it appears. One new field for example is the PO Line Owner Library Name, which allows you to create reports of all the PO Lines of items for that library. Here are all of the new fields:

• PO Line Binding During Receiving
• PO Line Identifier
• PO Line Manual Packaging
• PO Line Owner Library Code
• PO Line Owner Library Name
• PO Line Routing During Receiving
• PO Line Title
• PO Line Vendor Title Number

Check Availability and Pricing at Select External Vendors (OASIS, and More to Come)

March 2019

You can check the availability and pricing of items via external search of the vendor site. Items can then be ordered from the search results page. The select vendors must be configured in Alma to allow the external search, as we demonstrate at the end of the session. Currently this feature available only for OASIS, and additional vendors will be added in future releases.

Metadata Editor: Edit the 006 Field in Context-Sensitive Form Editor

March 2019

Starting in the Alma March 2019 Release, the form in the Metadata Editor for editing the 006 fixed-length field, corresponds to the form of material described by the field, so you can more easily enter the data specific to that material.

Display Logic Rule Enhancements

February 2019

You can now edit and duplicate Display Logic Rules.

Improved Feedback Messages

February 2019

We've revamped Alma's system feedback messages for the February 2019 Release, as part of our continued effort to improve user experience. Feedback messages now appear as pop-ups, sporting a new color scheme and icons, to easily differentiate between the message types: info, success, error, and warning. Most importantly, many feedback messages are now actionable, and provide a link to the next thing you need to do to correct errors or continue your workflow.

Navigate Between Tabs and Display Shortcuts Using the Alt Key

February 2019

You can navigate between tabs in any Alma page by pressing the Alt key and the number of the tab (Alt+1 for the first tab, Alt+2 for the second tab, etc.). Additionally, a long press on the Alt key displays all available Alt shortcuts. This feature is part of our effort to improve accessibility and allow for no-mouse navigation.

Navigate Lists in Alma Using the Up and Down Arrow Keys

February 2019

You can navigate between list items by pressing the up and down arrows on your keyboard. This feature works anywhere there is a list in Alma, and is intended to improve accessibility, and allow for no-mouse navigation.

Related Portfolios

February 2019

A new Related Portfolios tab was added to the Electronic Portfolio Editor.

User Preferred Names

February 2019

In addition to the standard full names of users in Alma, you can add preferred First, Middle, and Last Names, which can be used in search queries, or in system correspondence to the user.

Delete Interested Viewers

January 2019

You can delete Interested Users from closed or canceled PO Lines.

Additional Printers

January 2019

You can assign more than one printer to a circulation desk or work order department.

Analyze Fund Expenditures by Physical or Electronic Types

January 2019

You can create reports in Alma Analytics on Fund Expenditures, that analyze transactions and PO Lines by resource type. For example you could create a report that compares your transactions over time for both Physical and Electronic resources to see how much you're spending on each type, and observe how much of a shift there has been over time from Physical to Electronic resources.

Get Full URL for Survey of an E-Resource Public Trial

January 2019

You can get the full URL address of the Survey form for a Public Trial of an Electronic resource. Previously, you had to manually concatenate the URL from the trial's survey URL suffix and your Alma server's URL prefix. The full URL can be shared with your target audience of the survey. Note that this feature is relevant only for public trials, as private trials are automatically disseminated by Alma via email.

Price Note in Invoice Lines

January 2019

You can add price notes to your invoice lines.

Sort Physical Items Chronologically

January 2019

You can sort physical items chronologically, not just by volume and issue, but also by year and month; in all areas in Alma where Physical Items are listed. Note, that to enable this feature, you will first need to create a Physical Items Sort Routine that sorts by the Chronology I (Year) Chronology J (Month) fields, as we will demonstrate in this session.