LibGuides: Alma Documentation: Outstanding Issues

Technical Services (Last updated February 9, 2014)

Issue	Description and Impact	Workaround	Case #	Priority	Status
Records newly added to Alma don't appear in Primo even after a day or two	Some records for newly-acquired resources that are added to Alma don't seem to get published to Primo like they should, and consequently are not discoverable by our patrons	Informing Technical Services (Megan Kiesman) on a case-by-case basis allows us to 1) add the item as an example for Ex Libris in our open case for this; and 2) manually force the record to be published to Primo	00076013	High	Primo update 4.8 (scheduled for release sometime in July) is expected to resolve this issue.
Popup Notices for Accompanying Material	Sirsi circ notes for accomp material were put into the "Internal Note" field in Alma. The note needs to be moved to the “Fulfillment note” field in order for an alert to pop-up upon charging/discharging the item	None	N.A.	High	In progress - 50% complete
Monographs coded as analytics (N < 1,100)	Some monographs were erroneously coded in Sirsi as analytics and therefore were not loaded into Alma. These need to be corrected and added to Alma. They will not be discoverable or circulatable until this is done. Requires manual inspection and revision by Technical Services	Create on-the-fly record if one needs to circulate and route the item to Technical Services for resolution when item is returned	N.A.	Medium	Not started
Print + electronic versions of same serial resource catalogued together on a single record (N = 490)	"Get it at UML" button will not appear. Link to resource appears in "Links" section of "Details" tab in catalogue, but if the resource is licensed, clicking the link will lead to a login screen. Requires manual inspection and revision by Technical Services	None	N.A.	Low	Not started
Items in "Empty --> Unassigned" location (N = 551)	Items appear in catalogued as "Available at Empty Library UNASSIGNED location". Many are actually lost and don't exist at all. Many are actually electronic resources. Requires manual inspection and revision by Technical Services	None	N.A.	Medium	Work has started
Records for filmographies lack "filmographies" fixed field code	Alma doesn't seem to use this code for discovery purposes so the impact is currently nil, but future systems may use it. May be correctable in a batch process	None	N.A.	Low	Not started
Item Policy "Unknown" (N = 17,159)	These items will default to end-of-term due dates when circulated, but circ staff can correct the Item Policy at that time if a different return date is required. Many items currently having this policy probably don't really exist	Manual correction by circulation staff as detected	N.A.	Low	Not started
Serial analytics not loaded	Distinctively-titled issues of serials for which we had created an analytic record will not be discoverable unless we also have a subscription to the electronic version and the distictive title is discoverable via that format (in which case the user still wouldn't necessarily discover the print version). Resolution would require extensive manual work both initially and ongoing. Requires detailed information gathering and consultation regarding issues, options, costs, and benefits	None	N.A.		Detailed information gathering in progress.
Items with Material Type "Other" (N = 7,453)	Many items have Material Type "other" even though their actual material type is something more specific. Doesn't seem to affect the catalogue since its icons which display item format are assigned at the bibliographic record level and do not make use of Item Material Type. Requires manual inspection and revision by Technical Services	Material Type can be fixed on the fly as discovered	N.A.	Low	Not started
Fix Item Material Types for items with Item Policy "Computer Disk" (N = 67)	Some of these items have blank material types; others are "Book". Doesn't seem to affect the catalogue since its icons which display item format are assigned at the bibliographic record level and do not make use of Item Material Type. Requires manual inspection and correction by Technical Services	Material Type can be fixed on the fly as discovered	N.A.	Low	Not started
Analytics coded as monographs (N = 196)	Some analytics were incorrectly coded as monographs in Sirsi and have inadvertently been loaded into Alma. Some are fine because they have distinctive call numbers in the record, but others have no link to the physical item and therefore will not allow retrieval of the associated item	If patron clicks the "Details" tab, they will see "Part of..." along with the title that they can search to find the actual item on the shelf	N.A.	Low	Not started
Migrate important data from Sirsi holdings records	Some of the data in our holdings records in Sirsi (none of which migrated to Alma) was actually useful and should be added to Alma as needed. Requires manual review and revision by Technical Services	Unit staff can request updates from Technical Services as the need arises	N.A.		Not started
Holdings records are a mess (includes these issues identified by Public Services: "Holdings records with multi-part items" and "Descriptor fields in journal holdings")	In many cases Alma created a holdings record for every volume of a journal or multi-part monograph instead of for each distinct location/call number. This leads to many problems in the organization and display of volumes in the catalogue. Currently requires manual review and revision by Technical Services but there may be potential for local development of an automated fix	None	00064168 (Closed) 00106988 (resolution of this case would greatly simplify manual correction of item and holdings records)	Medium	Technical Services is fixing these manually on a case-by-case basis while an automated solution is investigated
Item records for books with Material Type "ELEC" (N = 13,986)	Alma automatically identified some books as electronic even though they're not. These can be viewed in the public set "Cleanup: ELECT Material Type". Doesn't seem to affect the catalogue since its icons which display item format are assigned at the bibliographic record level and do not make use of Item Material Type. Requires manual review to ensure that they're all books, but may be fixable via a job.	None	N.A.	Low	Not started
Publishing to WorldCat not yet operational	Alma behaved unpredictably during tests of publishing to WorldCat and so this functionality has not yet been activated. Means UML's holdings are not being kept up-to-date in WorldCat, and new original records that we create in-house are not added to WorldCat. Problem apparently fixed in June Alma release (but not yet tested by UML)	N.A.; however, when the publishing job is activated we will be able to "catch up" to sync our holdings with WorldCat, so no long-term damage is done by this problem	00056054	Medium	Not started
Ebook Portfolio Problems	There are some duplicate portfolios for ebooks in Alma (some work and some don't), which means some links in the catalogue to ebooks will not resolve; Also, many of the statements carried over from Sirsi in 856 $3 (which display in the catalogue) are either useless or downright misleading and should be cleaned up. Requires manual review and revision by Technical Services	Manual correction when detected	N.A.	Medium	Not started
Items with "Technical - Migration" status in Alma (N = 6,194)	Some items migrated from Sirsi with this status, but it causes a number of problems when we try to do anything with the book (e.g., circulate it). The public set "Technical - Migration (UML Items Only)" shows all these items. Status needs to be manually reviewed and fixed.	Manual correction by unit staff when detected	N.A.		Technical Services is not able to resolve this; it must be resolved at the unit level when detected. Instructions: if the item is known to exist, scan its barcode at the owning library's circulation desk on the "Scan in items" screen. If the item is known to no longer exist, send its barcode as a withdraw to Technical Services on the library's withdrawals spreadsheet. If it's unknown whether the item exists or not, you may mark the item as "Missing"
Theses missing 008/Nature of Contents code "m" ("Thesis") (N = 17,375)	Most of our records for theses are missing this code which identifies them as theses. Doesn't affect the catalogue because it isn't using this coding for either the item "Material Type" or the "dissertations" facet, but future enhancements may make use of this coding so it should be corrected. May be possible to correct via a job (to be investigated)	Manual correction is possible when detected but should be avoided pending automated fix	N.A.	Low	Not started
U Manitoba Theses Disappear when Limiting Search Results in Primo with the "Dissertations"facet	After doing a search in Primo the search results screen may include U of M theses. Among the "Content Types" that Primo lists on the left, "dissertations" often appears. However, if one selects it in order to limit the results to dissertations, all the U of M theses disappear	None. Resolution requires change to Primo normalization rules for theses which will need to be developed and tested by UML staff	00082130 (Closed)	Medium	A resolution method has been given to us by Ex Libris and we are currently exploring it

Resolved Issues
"In Transit" Problem	Alma assigns the status of "In Place" to items received from OCLC as well as newly checked-in serials, when in fact they are not in place yet and may not be for several days				Resolved
Undisplayable records (Alma and Primo)	Some serial records can't be displayed in Alma or Primo, including records for Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg Tribune, The Gazette (Montreal), Hein's United States Treaties and Other International Agreements		00049309		Resolved
Fix Item and Bibliographic Material Types for Loanable Equipment (N = approx. 150)	Some of our records are for loanable equipment, e.g., headphones. These migrated with bib and Item material type “Book”				Resolved
Records for Recitals (Music Library) all went in with Bib type “Book” even thought they’re music CDs	Makes limiting search results by material type fail for these materials and misleads users into thinking that these recitals are books				Resolved
Bound-withs not discoverable	When multiple titles are bound together in a single item (which is a common situation in Archives and Special Collections), only the first title can be found in a title search in the catalogue. Requires manual inspection and revision by Technical Services	None	N.A.		Resolved. Primo Working Group to update label in catalogue. (Currently reads "Inventory of related [other title] is listed below"; Will update to read "Bound with [other title]” followed by the call number)
Serial records missing or missing volumes	Some records for serials did not get extracted from Sirsi at all; others were extracted but with incomplete holdings. Requires re-extracting all serial records from Sirsi and reloading (but without re-adding volumes that have been withdrawn since migrating to Alma). Also requires additional Alma functionality scheduled for August (2014)	Manual correction of records as they are detected is possible but is labour-intensive and should only be done as needed; record for "Business week" has been added but requires volume designations for the item records	00105110 (resolution of this case would greatly simplify an automated solution for this problem)	High	Resolved (December 2014)

Fulfillment/Circulation (Last updated October 24, 2014)

Issue	Description and Impact	Workaround	Case #	Priority	Status
Item remains on patron's record after it has been paid for	When patron pays for lost item, the item remains on their record. Requires 2 additional steps - deleting loan and marking missing - to achieve the desired result of taking the loan off their account and marking the item as 'missing'		00084351	High	Case filed. We may be able to remove lost items from patron records by running a job, daily or weekly.
Duplicate patron records	When data was reloaded after being erased on September 8, some duplicate records were created. This blocks access to online resources.	Please contact anyone at the Systems office to remove the duplicate.			We are removing these records as they are discovered.
Staff, faculty and student records with expiry dates	Some patron records that should be set to external are still set to "internal" and still have expiry and purge dates entered.	Please contact anyone at the Systems office to fix these records.			We are fixing these records as they are discovered.
Recalled lost items not showing up on recall list	If items are marked 'Assumed Lost' and then recalled, nothing happens: no one gets an email (patron, us), not added to Recall Report. Only know because they show up in 'Monitor Requests and Item Processes' list			High	Pending.
Pick List -- Items not appearing on list	Some requested items are not appearing on the list yet are on the shelf			High	Pending.
Credits - enable waiving	Clean-up credits in patrons' fines/fees OR enable waiving credits. The credits that appear in the "closed" fines are o.k., but the credits in the "active" fines are confusing. We've had to bill the patrons an equal amount to bring the balance back to $0.00.			Medium	Emma reported waiving was working but testing revealed it wasn't.
Loan receipts emails for 2 hour reserves still being sent	Can we have loan receipts emails turned off for just the 2 hour reserves in Music? Other reserves i.e. 1 day and 3 days should still receive emails			Medium	on Emma's list but not for Music (specifies Science Library)
7 Day Loans from Hold Shelf -- Added to Recall Report	If a patron signs out a book that has another hold on it, its loan period is shortened to 7 days and is technically recalled. The patron is aware of the shortened loan period but likely not aware of possible overdue recall fines. Requested that these items get added to the Recall Report so that staff can phone the patron ahead of time.			Medium	Pending.
Cash Reports not "grabbing" all waived fines	Could be because the reason selected			Low	Pending. Ongoing Analytics issues.
Recall Fine Policy needs revising	Once an overdue recalled item that has reached the Lost stage is returned, the Lost bill is cleared but the max recall fine remains. Should units still insist the recall fine be paid? (Note: Sirsi used to replace the recall fine with a lost bill, so if the item was subsequently returned, the patron would be off the hook for the recall fine).			Medium	Take to Management Group for decision?
Guidelines/scripts for comments needed	Patron notes/comments that appear on patron email notices (i.e when waiving fines) should be scripted.			Low	Guidelines for comments can be agreed upon by unit heads and circ supervisor's committee.
Pop-up notices for accompanying material	Sirsi circ notes for accomp material were put into the "Internal Note" field in Alma. The note needs to be moved to the “Fulfillment note” field in order for an alert to pop-up upon charging/discharging the item.			High	Les is working on a global fix.
Almost Billing Report	Requested so that Supervisors can adjust default replacement costs with actual costs before patron gets billed.			Medium	Pending.
Holdings records with multi-part items	Causing sorting problems			Medium	Les is working on a global fix.
Descriptor fields in journal holdings	Causing sorting problems			Medium	Les is working on a global fix.
Request New Books Lists be published online				Low	This can be done using an RSS feed. It is very close to being usable. We will inform everyone when it's ready.
Resolved Issues
Reserve items are still requestable			103655	High	This issue has been resolved.
External Borrowers can't renew online
Recall due dates not defaulting to end of day	Due dates for recalls have an exact time (e.g. 19:21:24) and often this falls early in the morning. The patron is then charged when they return the item later in the day. Unless they complain and we check the time due, we do not know to waive the fine.
Recall due dates falling on closed days	Our calendar has been changed to reflect summer hours and loan dates are not falling on weekends. Recently, a recall due date fell on Saturday, May 24 (Lorna has example of this if needed)
Expiry and purge dates not mandatory when registering a new external borrower	Can these two dates be made mandatory?				Made manditory. Cannot be made automatically filled in.
ICM students	Students who were previously ICM students and are now UM Students are not uploading and have no UM student account. Could this be because they had a userID in the system already (from ICM) so their new UM Student records are being rejected?				ICM students who become UM students claim thier UMNetIDs as any new UM student would and they are handled in Alma as any new UM student. Their names may be in Alma from when they were ICM students but barcode and UMNetID will be new and unique.
Waiving fines/fees - customize reasons	We only use "Billed in Error,""Cleared at Library's Discretion," and "Other"				Done.
Remove locations for ArchFA	Remove/delete the following ArchFA locations because they aren't used: JAR Room, Main Floor, Oversize, and Slide Collection				Done.
Request a Reference Oversize location for ArchFA	Create a permanent Reference Oversize and Storage Oversize location for ArchFA Library				Done.
Request an oversize location for Management	Create a permanent Oversize location for Management Library				Done.
Request a New Books location for Music	Create a temporary New Books location for Music Library				Done.
Request a Latest Issue and/or a New Journal Location	Create a location for New Journals and/or Latest Issues. It needs to be non-circulating, non-request. (Arch/FA)				Done.
Overdue Notices - regular and reserve	Some patrons are not getting the overdue notices. No overdue notices are being sent. Edit term "overdue" because the notice is sent the day the item is due, so "overdue" is confusing. (Or change the date that the notice is sent.) Add "Please note that in the event that the borrowed items are not returned, you will be charged a $25 processing fee plus the cost of the item." 'From' and 'Subject' lines of emails look like spam		00084348	High	Overdue notices are now being sent. All mail now comes from "LibraryNotices@umanitoba.ca" The "subject" can't be changed but it is an accurate description of what's being sent. E.g. "Loan Receipt Letter", "Lost Item Bill", "Due Date Change for Item(s)". Will add "Please note that in the event..." Overdue notices are sent at 5am the day items are due. Case filed to run this job later in the day. We can change the wording of the letter to indicate it's a due date "reminder" notice instead of an "overdue" notice.
Lost item processing fee	Roll into replacement cost			High	Scheduled for June 30 - Done.
DVDs in Music can’t be renewed				High	Fixed.
Journals can’t be renewed				High	Fixed.
Expired Patron Records	Recurring problems with active students being expired in Alma.			High	Patron expiry dates now managed by Iridium.
Recalled overdue items fining patrons incorrectly	If a patron has an overdue item that gets recalled, the system applies recall fines after the original due date. The fines shouldn't kick-in until 7 days after the item was recalled, regardless if it's currently overdue.				Fixed.
Reserves - Brief records for articles	There isn't a field to enter a call number in brief records for articles.	We can add articles as books in order to assign a call number, but that's confusing to patrons.		High	Enhancement request submitted. (This appears to be confusion about terminology. Alma's "Article" category is intended for parts of journals, not for entire physical items. It's intended for analytic purposes, not for actual new physical items such as folders for reserve material. But it is confusing.)
Requesting an alert when a patron has potential/accumulating fines.	When signing out items to patrons, accumulating fines do not appear until one displays all checkouts. Their active balance reads $0.00.			Medium	Enhancement request submitted. No word on when fix or upgrade may happen.
Loan Receipt Letters	Add "Library reserves the right to recall an item after 7 days"			Medium	Done
Diacritics	Names and titles with diacritics can be seen but are not searchable.			Medium	Fixed in recent release
Inactive Patron Records -- what makes them inactive?	Some patrons' records are in Alma and not expired, yet their role is inactive. One has to click on the role (and the identifier) for it to change to "active" and a checkmark appears beside it. What's causing this?			Medium	Active/inactive status, expiry and purge dates for staff, students and faculty are now managed by Iridium
Reserve not limiting to 4 items					Fixed
Inconsistent expiry dates are being used					Expiry dates now managed by Iridium.
Time zone issues for reporting fine/fee payments on Cash Report (Oracle reports)					Fixed
Procedures/Best Practices for Replacement IDs with new check digits					Issue solved by single sign on
Primo/Alma indexing problems	New acquisition records are not retrievable in Primo (Arch/FA especially!)				This happens periodically when the North American servers that Alma runs on get busy (unfortunately at peak term times.) Ex Libris is aware of the problem and is upgrading and adding server space. This problem also effects Reserves
New books showing as "checked out" in Primo	Can we change it to say "New Books Display" instead of "checked out"?				Units that have circulating New Books shelves use a work order to allow the books to be requestable. The default display for items in a work order status is "checked out". At this time that is not configurable.
Link to patron record within the repository	Want hyperlinked patron names (within an item record) direct us to their full patron record, not a brief summary of their record.				Not configurable at this time. Maybe something that will happen in an upcoming release.
Overdue recalls are not blocking patons from borrowing	Per the recall policy, users should be blocked as soon as a recalled item is overdue.				Fixed.
Recital CDs have wrong loan period	Change item policy for recital recordings to 1 day (Music Library).				Fixed