Jobs & Batch Processes Overview and Required Readings

Owned by Jennifer Koerber (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Apr 30, 2024 by Corinna Baksik

Words of caution

Running a batch update can be deceptively simple. The real work is to make sure you’ve appropriately scoped and planned out your update to avoid unintended consequences. Only designated staff members listed on this page should run specific jobs: Jobs & Batch Processes

Sets

Most Alma jobs require a set as an input, with the exception of Import Profiles. You should be very well-versed in Set creation, including the various methods to do so. If you need a refresher, visit Sets. 

Types of Jobs

In Alma, a job is “a scheduled, invoked, or on-request process that runs in the background.” They are called jobs or processes in different places in the system, but they refer to the same thing.

There are three major types of jobs:

  • Scheduled jobs run on a preset schedule, determined either by the system itself or by systems librarians.
  • Workflow jobs run automatically as needed; this includes exporting orders to a vendor after staff have created the orders and packaged the POs.
  • Manual jobs are available to run by staff as needed, and may require creating a set to run the job on.
    • As of May 2024, you can now schedule manual jobs. You may wish to use this feature if you have a job that you need to run manually at specific intervals, or a job that you would prefer to have run overnight or on a weekend. 

This documentation focuses on manual jobs.

Critical Information on Permissions and Effects

A very big note: Alma login permissions are not granular. The new authorizations added to your login allow for other functionality, but we trust you will only perform actions for which you have received approval from LTS.

Although Alma has a great UI to allow for batch work), it is deceptively reassuring. We have heard anecdotes from other Alma customers that staff with a lot of experience in batch load and update processes have used an incorrect input file or norm rule and caused great harm to their catalog, including deleting the entire database. Please stick to the guidelines in this documentation, and only use jobs for which you’ve been approved.


Other Vocabulary

  • Events are actions that involve at least one entity in the system, such as a record.
    • You can view events associated with a job on the Running and History tabs of the Monitor Jobs page
    • Events are also in Analytics for audit trail purposes, to know what happened when and who initiated it
  • Sip ID is a unique identifier created for a set of records affected by a job. It only exists as long as the job is running.

Required Readings