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Primary Acquisitions Workflows
Alma supports these several basic Acquisitions workflows:
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, plus other activities that - at Harvard - fall under Order Maintenance.
Flowchart: POL lifecycles
Purchasing Workflow
- Orders can be created either manually, or via an order load (called EOD: Embedded Order data)
- Orders can be either one One-time (monographs) or continuous Continuous (serials and standing orders)
- Purchase order lines (POLs) contain the order information, vendor, budget, renewal period for ongoing orders, etc
- Inventory (meaning: items and holdings) can be created automatically or manually during the POL creation
- Purchase order lines go through a validation phase to check for mandatory information and an additional review phase (if there is inaccurate or missing data)
Once the POL passes review and validation it is "packaged" into a Purchase order (PO) and sent to the vendor (if applicable), either by EDI or email
- If it is necessary to printout an order, it may be possible to send the email to a printer rather than to an email recipient.
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Receiving Workflow (Physical titles)
- Receipt of Physical material is indicated via a Receiving process on the item records
- Items can be marked as Received as a separate process or during the invoicing process
- After receipt, the titles can be assigned to another section for cataloging, binding etc, or marked In transit to be sent to their final destination
- One-Time orders close when fully invoiced and received
- Continuous orders remain in the status "Waiting for Renewal" once an item has been received and the invoice paid: these orders are closed manually
Activation
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Workflow (Electronic titles)
- Electronic titles go through an Activation process (rather than a Receipt process) in Alma; the link is tested and then made active
- One-Time orders close when fully invoiced and activated
- Continuous orders remain in the status "Waiting for Renewal" once activated and the invoice paid: these orders are closed manually
Invoicing
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Workflow
- Invoices can be created manually (either from scratch or from a POL or PO), from an Excel file uploaded into Alma, or loaded as EDI
- Invoices go through a system validation and review (if there is any missing or inaccurate data) process after creation
- Invoice approval is the final step
Related Information
POL Statuses
See: POL Statuses (TtT)