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Alma Resource Management Guide

This guide explains all aspects of the cataloging process, including loading, editing, and deleting bibliographic records, holdings records, and item records in Alma.

Shelf Reporting and Inventory Guidelines

Conducting Shelf Inventory 

 

Page Contents:

About

When you need to get an inventory of your physical items and make sure they are in the right location and categorized correctly in the ILS, you can use Alma's shelf reporting tools to help. This page documents two workflows that can create an inventory report, one a job in Alma and one a report you can create in Analytics.

 

Alma's Shelf Report Job

With Alma's in-house Shelf Inventory Reporting process you can take an Excel file or a .txt file containing barcodes and compare that information with the information stored in the Alma database to identify items that are misshelved or are missing from inventory.

The Shelf Report tool runs the Shelf Report job that provides a report with the following information to help you identify where you have issues with your physical inventory:

  • Number of items in place - Items in the input file with the status In place.
  • Number of known items that are not in place - Items that were not in the input file with status Not in place.
  • Number of items on the shelf but are marked not in place in the database - Items that were in the input file but with the status Not in place.
  • Number of missing items that are marked in place in the database - Items that were not in the input file but with status In place.
  • Number of items on the shelf but are out of the range specified or not in the set specified - Items with a barcode in the input file that match an item in inventory but the item is not in the range or set.
  • Number of barcodes with no matched item in the database - Items with a barcode in the input file that do not match any items in inventory.

How To Set Up a Shelf Report

  1. Create the Excel or .txt file by scanning the items on your shelf within your predetermined call number range in whichever physical location you wish to inventory (for example, you can use a hand held scanner or laptop). The file must contain the barcodes of the items in their shelving order to compare against the Alma inventory. 
  2. Open the Shelf Report page (Resources > Manage Inventory > Shelf Report).

There are two ways to set up a Shelf Report Job: Range and Set

  • In the Inventory section, specify whether you will be using a Range or Set by clicking the corresponding circle.
  • For both Range and Set Shelf Report jobs, you must specify the Library and Location for the shelf inventory that you are checking. The library and location information defined in Alma is provided in drop-down lists from which you can select this information.

Range Shelf Report job, provide the following additional criteria in the form and see picture below:

  • Call number type – The call number type such as Library of Congress classification or Dewey Decimal classification
  • From call number – The beginning call number in the range of call numbers in the Alma inventory to be compared with the barcodes in the Excel or .txt file (identified based on "starts with").
  • To call number – The last call number in the range of call numbers  to be compared with the barcodes in the Excel or .txt file. (for example: from N7445.B53 to N7445.B60)

Set Shelf Report job, provide the following additional criteria:

  • Set name – The set of items.
    • If the set contains items in a library or location that is not chosen in the job filter, these items are disregarded. For example, if the set has an item in the Law library and Stacks location and the filter selected is for the Law library and Reference location, the item in the set from the Law library and Stacks location is disregarded and not used in the report.
  • Select File section, specify the Excel or .txt file to be used by the Shelf Report job. This is the file that you previously created (perhaps by using a hand-held scanner) that contains the barcodes of the items that you want to check against the Alma inventory that you have identified by either a range of call numbers or by a set that you have specified in the Inventory section above.
  • The format of the Excel or .txt file should be one barcode per row, with the first row having the heading "Barcode". See below for an example
    Barcode_File_for_Shelf_List_Processing.png
  • Select Submit. A Shelf Report job is queued for processing.

How to Review the Results of a Shelf Report Job

  1. Open the Monitor Jobs page (Admin > Manage Jobs and Sets > Monitor Jobs).
  2. When your Shelf Report job completes, select the History tab.
  3. Select Report from the row actions for the Shelf Report job that you want to review.
  4. Expand the Analysis section of the report to view the following result details:
    • Items in place
    • Missing items but marked in place
    • Items on shelf but marked not in place
    • Known items not in place
    • Items on shelf but out of range/set - This indicates that the item is on the shelf but not in the correct shelf location.
    • Barcodes with no matched item
  5. What you can do from the reports page:
    • For rows 1 through 5 in the Analysis section, you can select Preview Items from the row actions to view the first 50 results in the Repository Search results page or select Create Itemized Set from the row actions to create a set (of all results) that you can use for further processing. For row 6, select Download List to create an Excel or .txt file (determined by what you used in the Shelf Report request) to do further processing with the barcodes that had no matched items.
 

Roles Needed

To manage physical item inventory using shelf reporting, you must have one of the following roles:

  • Repository Manager
  • Physical Inventory Operator
  • Fulfillment Services Manager

Creating a Shelf List Report in Analytics

 

*Please look for the red circles highlighting the process in the pictures below*

  1. From Alma, open Analytics
    • Analytics >Design Analytics (If you do not see "Design Analytics" as an option, you may need the "Designs Analytics" role added to your Alma user)
       
  2. From the Analytics Catalog, navigate to the Network FLVC Physical Items reports folder:
     
  3. Open Shelf list report in the Physical Items report folder:
     
  4. Select values in the report prompts to narrow by library, location, process status, call number range, etc. (or leave default values to get a list of all active physical items at the institution):
     
  5. Click OK to run report—This example shows items at SSC Altamonte in the circulating collection with process type of lost, missing, or claims returned:
     
  6. Columns may be sorted by hovering over the column title and clicking the up arrow or down arrow (this is list has been sorted by call number ascending):

  7. The report may be exported to Excel from the "Export" link at the very bottom of the report: