Work Orders and Post-Receiving Processing

General Information & Best Practice

After physical material has been marked as received in Alma, the item will display a certain Status or Process Type depending on which post-receiving process has been selected.

The item will appear to patrons as though as if it is available for use or as In transit to the owning library, unless some other process type is assigned to it via Work Orders.

Post-Receiving Best Practice for Physical Materials:

Unless the item being received is ready to be shelved in the owning library immediately upon receipt, the suggested best practice is to move the item into a Work order.

For more information, see the Work Orders documentation or the Work Orders Overview online module.

Using Keep in Department

During the receiving process for physical material, choose the Keep in department option

at the top of the Receiving list, and select the next workflow step from the dropdown list .

If you check Keep in Department:

When you receive just one item at a time, you will get a notification if that item has a hold.
When you receive multiple items at once, you will get a generic message that does not specify which title(s) have the hold.

Note: LTS has logged an Alma request for ExLibris to specify which title which has the request in this message.

Locating Items Marked Keep in Department

Go to Acquisitions >> Post-receiving processing >> Receiving department items

Receiving department items can be used to update items in various ways such as, changing the status, edit the item, print an arrival slip,or mark the status as Done
The list has various search indexes and filters to help limit and locate in process items

Items in this list have these values:

Status: Item not in place
Process type: The work order status, such as: Cataloging (ITS 625), etc.

Changing Item Work Order Status (Post-Receiving)

To manually update one or more items' Work Order status:

Go to Acquisitions >> Post-Receiving Processing >> Receiving Department Items
Click the box to the left of the item(s) in the In process items list
Choose Change Status at upper right
Select the status that represents the new step or location (e.g "Shelf Prep – ITS 625")
Click on Change Status

Marking the item as Done moves it into:

Status: Item not in place

Process type: Transit

This will usually be done by Binding and Shelf Preparation staff, and not by Acquisitions or Cataloging staff.

When the item is accessioned and shelved at the owning library or repository, the item will change to:

Status: Item in place

Process type: <blank>

Printing an Arrival Slip

If the item was received and marked as Keep in department, there are two ways to Print a slip:

From the Received items list (via the Manage items command from the order on the Receive New Material page
From the In Process Items screen (Acquisitions >> Post-Receiving Processing >> Receiving department items)

In either location, select Print slip from the row action item list icon. The slip will be emailed to the printer associated with the Receiving department.

If Not Using Keep in Department

When Receiving One time Orders

If the Keep in department option is not used during receipt of a One time order, the item automatically moves into the Transit process type; Status: Item not in place (which indicates that it is en route to be added to the Library stacks or remote storage).

There will be no pop-up message about pending requests until the item is scanned in at its Circulation Desk.

Items in the Transit status are scanned in at the Circulation desk to remove this status, and then shelved or sent to fulfill a request.

When Receiving Continuous Orders

If the Keep in department option is not used during receipt of a Continuous Order, the item does not move into to the Transit process type.

The item will remain coded as:

Status: Item in place
Process type: <blank>

For this reason, it is important to send the item to be shelved/deposited as soon after receipt as possible. Also, there will be no pop-up message about pending requests until the item is scanned in at its Circulation Desk.