Overview of Alma Acquisitions Workflow

Primary Acquisitions Workflows

Alma supports several basic Acquisitions workflows, plus other activities that - at Harvard - fall under Order Maintenance.

Orders can be created either manually, or via an order load (called EOD: Embedded Order data)
Orders can be either One-time (monographs) or 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

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

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

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