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Alma Acquisitions Resource Guide

This guide covers all aspects of the Acquisitions process, which includes setting up funds, ordering, receiving physical items, activating e-resources, and invoicing. This guide also covers Serials patterns and arrival/check-in.

Receiving Continuous Orders

Receiving Continuous Orders

Begin the Receiving process:

  1. Go to Acquisitions >> Receive
  2. Click on the Continuous orders tab. The Continuous tab includes the following order types:
    1. Print Journal subscription - subscriptions for annuals and periodicals
    2. Physical Subscription - microfilm, DVD subscriptions
    3. Physical Standing order non-monograph - series standing orders and multi-part monographs; this replaced other standing order types during migration
  3. Find the materials you need to receive
  4. Choose Receive or Manage Items from the row action item list
  5. If needed, update item record information as described in the Receiving a Single Item process
  6. When finished, click Save and Receive

Differences When Receiving Continuous Orders

  • When receiving a continuous item, if the Keep in Department box is not checked, the status of the item will immediately become Item in place after it’s received. It will not go into Transit like one-time orders will.
  • Also, the status of a Continuous order item will not change during the receiving process – it will remain Waiting for Renewal, because the order itself hasn't changed even though a single issue was received.
  • A continuous order may have predicted items (such as for a regularly-scheduled journal) or not (such as for irregular standing orders).

 

Receiving Predicted Items

  1. Go to Acquisitions >> Receive
  2. Keep Keep in Department checked, and change it to the appropriate location
  3. Find the title you want to receive in the list using the search or sort functions on the page
  4. Click on the row action item list icon and select Manage items
  5. You are now on the Received Items List page where you can see the title and other information about the order, including any Receiving notes.
  6. There are 3 tabs:
    1. The PO Line items tab lists received and unreceived items
    2. The Bibliographical Information tab has brief bib information. If you want to see the full bib record, click on the title up at the top.
    3. The Holdings Information tab includes holdings information. Holdings can be edited here by clicking the Edit Holdings link, which brings you into the Metadata Editor.
  7. Find your items on the PO Lines Item tab:
    • Change the sort by clicking on Sort routine and select an option
    • Use the Receiving status and Location filters to limit a long list, for example to Receiving status = Not received
    • You can also click Analytics Issues Report to view a missing issues report of non-received items for this PO Line, which will list the expected arrival dates of the unreceived predicted items.
  8. Find the item record in the list that matches the issue that you have in hand and select from the row action item list on the right:
    1. Receive: If the item you’re receiving doesn’t need editing or only needs a barcode, edit the barcode on this page and choose Receive.
    2. Edit Inventory Item: You can update other fields in the Physical Item Editor, such as changing the enumeration and chronology, adding additional information, or putting the item into a temporary location. Click Save to return to the Received Items List screen.
  9. Click Save and Receive
  10. You’re returned to the Receive New Items list:
    1. Date Received is updated to today’s date.
    2. Current Step updated to the next step in the workflow

 

Predicting Additional Items

If you have received the last predicted item, you will need to open a new set of predicted item records.

From the Received Items List:

  1. Click on the Holdings Information tab
  2. Click on the Edit Holdings link to open the holdings record in the Metadata Editor
  3. Click on the binoculars icon to the left of the most recent 853 field
    1. View the next predicted item's information (and edit if needed)
    2. Click Close
    3. Make sure cursor is on the 853 field
  4. Click on the Tools drop-down menu
  5. Hover over MARC21 Holdings
  6. Click Open Predicted Items. A pop-up will display the next set of predicted items and their expected arrival dates.
  7. Click Save to save the list of newly predicted items. These newly predicted items are now in the Received Items List, although you can’t see them in the MD Editor screen.
  8. Save and release the record

Receiving Continuous Orders Without Predicted Items

If your institution isn’t using predicted items, or the title does not have predicted items, you can duplicate and edit an issue to create a new item record from the Received New Items list.

  1. Go to Acquisitions >> Receive, and choose the Continuous tab
  2. Find the title you want to receive
  3. Select Manage items from the row action item list
  4. Click on Receive New Items link above the list of items
  5. If needed, click the Keep in Department box.
  6. Review the information in the Last Received Item section
    1. If this is mostly correct, click on Duplicate. This will duplicate the item information into the New item details.
    2. If it’s not, manually enter the New Item Details
  7. After adding the information for your new item, choose one for the following action steps:
    1. Cancel: Returns you to the previous screen without receiving
    2. Create and Receive saves the newly-created item, marks it as received, adds the receipt date, and returns you to the Received items list
    3. Receive and Set Barcodes lets you change or scan in a barcode, save the newly created item, mark it as received, add the receipt date, and return to the Received items list
  8.  If you need to further edit your received new item, click on Edit Inventory Item from the row action items list and continue with the receiving process as described above.