Maribeth Manoff Monica Ihli Joe Ferguson Mike Rogers ELUNA 2015
Minneapolis, MN Implementing Alma in Six Months
Slide 3
Who We Are and What Well Talk About Maribeth Manoff Head,
Discovery & Technical Services (D&TS) Background and
Introduction - Why Alma? Why Now? Six Month Alma Implementation
Timeline Monica Ihli IT Administrator in D&TS (as of April 2014
quite a year!) Rethinking and Learning Curves Communication
Considerations Joe Ferguson IT Administrator in D&TS (as of
October 2014 quite a six months!) Dealing With Configuration Some
Set-Up Tips Mike Rogers IT Analyst in D&TS Reports, Analytics,
and Certification Trainings Primo Considerations Other, Etc
(including Third Party Integrations)
Slide 4
UT Libraries By The Numbers Serving 20,000 undergraduate
students; 6,000 graduate students; 9,000 faculty and staff $12
million annual materials budget; 3.3 million volumes; 358,000
electronic books; 61,000 electronic serials 150 library faculty and
staff, including 48 librarians. John C. Hodges Library Main Library
Acquisitions, Cataloging, Serials and Electronic Resources
functions centralized here Three branch libraries Pendergrass
Agriculture & Veterinary Medicine Library; George F. DeVine
Music Library; Social Work Library in Nashville, TN Preston Medical
Library holdings represented in UTs catalog
Slide 5
Technology Infrastructure Integrated Library System = Aleph
From 2003 (version 15) to Go Live w/ Alma + 3 months (version 20)
Still working in Aleph due to encumbrances migration issue Link
Resolver = SFX First Ex Libris product, purchased with MetaLib, in
2002 Switched to Ex Libris hosted in 2012 Discovery System = Primo
Went live with Version 2 in 2009 Switched to Ex Libris hosted
(Direct model) in 2012-13 Implemented Primo Central One Search tab
in August 2014 Interlibrary Loan System = ILLiad One of Atlass
first customers pre-2000
Slide 6
Heading Toward Alma 2013 March Library-wide restructuring
included new department Discovery and Technical Services 3 units
Cataloging, Acquisitions, Enterprise Systems Department Head tasked
with keeping an eye on the Integrated Library System landscape
April A day with Carl Grant Focus on discovery and on Make Primo
better Consider workflows for back-end work May ELUNA Why not Alma?
Why not soon? July & August Alma and WorldShare demos September
through December RFP
Slide 7
The Year of Alma 2014 Early January RFP Evaluation complete and
intent to award contract to Ex Libris for Alma Late January Meeting
with Ex Libris Sales and Professional Services at ALA Midwinter
Review of the Getting Ready for Alma Implementation document April
Pre-Kickoff meeting Filled out the Alma Implementation form which
included appointing the UTK team Worried (a lot!) about not having
enough information June 12 Kickoff meeting December 18 Go
Live!!!
Slide 8
What About Those Six Months? Weekly schedule for prerecorded
trainings and Q&A Access to sandbox provided along with
trainings Migration Form, P2E file and first Auto Extract of Aleph
data due July 18 Onsite configuration meeting July 21-22
Configuration Form due August 8 Test load / production environment
delivered August 18 -> Data testing and feedback Primo / Alma
Delivery for Testing on September 15 Cutover Activity December 8-17
Go Live December 18 Switch-To-Support Planned for February 2015
(actual date March 11)
Slide 9
Thoughts About the Timeline Tell Ex Libris that you really do
need more information as soon as possible In depth review of
migration documentation to plan for source system cleanup projects
Explanation of configuration to effectively prepare for fulfillment
policies Prerecorded trainings ahead of kickoff to prepare staff
for the paradigm shift to a workflow-based system For systems
experts at UTK, certification training much earlier in the process
Understand discovery implications, i.e. have access to Primo and be
working on setup, early in the process
Slide 10
Rethinking the Systems Work individually with staff to document
their existing workflows High Level: Mapping out general workflows
How is work divided? Who is currently responsible for what major
tasks? When do materials change hands? Example: Checking physical
materials in at a circ desk before putting them on the shelf
Detailed Level: Be on the lookout for any creative uses of data
fields or elements in the old system that might not translate well
to Alma Identifying cases where staff configured Aleph to their
unique workflows Example: Additional order # 2
Slide 11
Learning Curves & Surprises Alma as a Location-Centric
System: Scoping job permissions to locations. Item statuses in the
context of work orders & work order departments. Alma as a
Workflow-oriented program: Often makes decisions about what to do
next with a record, based on where it is in a workflow. Example:
Receiving workflows or items put into a work order: Cant send a
book back out to the shelf from a workflow until: (A) You
specifically say you are DONE working on this item. (B) Check it
back in at a circulation desk scoped to that items location. When
learning workflows for the first time, it is challenging to
understand if what you are experiencing is the result of the
workflow or if something is happening differently because of how
data was migrated.
Slide 12
Learning Curves & Surprises Migrated Data Surprises: Items
Not Received in Aleph: Were populated with a default receiving date
when they got to Alma This interfered with the ability to initiate
the receiving workflow Clearing the receiving dates of migrated
items solved this problem Items Migrated from Aleph While In a
Status: Migrated into a default Technical Migration status These
needed to be checked in
Slide 13
Learning Curves & Surprises Troubleshooting &
Data-Checking Tips: Master & document creating orders and
putting them through complete workflows in Alma Compare this to
processing migrated orders Focus on learning how Libraries &
Locations impact other functions within the system, including the
scoping of roles
Slide 14
Communication Engage in technical services workflow training
for both groups and individuals Where will you put documentation as
you develop it? How will staff know when documentation is updated?
What channels will exist for communication to flow in from outside
of the implementation team?
Slide 15
Configuration Form The Configuration Form is not your friend,
but it will not hurt you. DO NOT get stressed out by filling out
this form. Alma is MUCH more configurable than the Configuration
Form leads you to believe. The Configuration Form allows ExLibris
to do your initial setup with SOME very basic settings. You can go
in after setup and make whatever changes you need.
Slide 16
Configuration Tips Do not try to convert your legacy system
loan rules into Alma rules Start fresh! What User Groups do you
REALLY need? Consolidate similar loan types. Default Institutional
Loan Policy We set our default loan policy as NO CIRCULATION so in
case anything slipped through the cracks it would not circulate. We
would rather something NOT circulate that should instead of
allowing something TO circulate that should not Think about Day 1
priorities Make sure what needs to loan can loan (even if for the
wrong loan period) Make sure what does not loan will not loan Make
sure blocks can be overridden to account for configuration mishaps
Elevated Role Permissions; many people need to be able to override
for Day 1 that might not usually need to override +2 months Post-Go
Live (like student workers)
Slide 17
Configuring Hours Be patient grasping the concepts of both
Hours Management and Printing in Alma. Hours Set up regular open
hours first (i.e. 7:30 23:59) Exceptions are the complicated part.
If you shorten your operating day you would expect to adjust your
days hours like such: If you have an exception like this then you
actually have to add two exceptions for one day to show the CLOSED
times that you would normally be open; like this: 10:00 18:0010:00
18:00 X WRONG! 7:30 10:00 18:00 23:59
Slide 18
Multiple Time Zones? A unique issue for us is that we have a
branch library in another time zone from our main campus. The main
University of Tennessee campus is in Knoxville, TN which is in the
Eastern Time Zone. We have a Social Work Library in Nashville, TN
which is in the Central Time Zone. There is not currently any
feature in Alma to support multiple Time Zones per institution.
When setting up hours for another time zone be sure to translate
that time into your institutions time zone when setting up your
hours.
Slide 19
Configuring Printing Say Good-bye to printing as you know it:
Receipt Printers are obsolete in Alma Printing is handled as
emails. Must have email enabled printers or setup intermediate
facilitator to handle printing i.e. Microsoft Outlook with rules
One printer per circulation desk Causes issues when multiple
workstations are not immediately located to shared printer You may
have to rethink your current setup and workflows to account for the
way Alma handles printing
Slide 20
Configuration in General Alma Configuration will continue past
Go-Live for +6 Months (if not longer) yes, we are still adjusting
our configuration 5 months out!
Slide 21
Alma Reports & Analytics Training WebEx Training Session
(not on-site) UT had multiple attendees ExLibris trainer was
excellent, with very relevant material 2 days: Day 1 Strategies and
techniques for using Alma to perform record batch work, data
cleanup, etc Day 2 Analytics reporting Training occurred in the 3
rd month of our Implementation
Slide 22
Alma Certification In-depth online training for Alma
administrators UT had four staff receive training 4-weeks: Week 1
User management (~3 hours videos) Week 2 Fulfillment (~10+ hours of
videos) Week 3 Resource Management (~6+ hours videos) Week 4 Review
& Exam Training occurs near the end of 6-month implementation
Once certified, staff are allowed access to Alma configuration
Slide 23
Thoughts On Alma Certification Training is very in-depth, very
helpful Primary trainer in the videos (Shmuel Moss) was excellent
Overall we learned a LOT but. Strong consensus was that we should
have received this training much earlier in process Would have
greatly benefited our understanding of migration process,
configuration setup, etc.
Slide 24
Implementing Primo: Considerations Primo is the only discovery
interface to work with Alma Primo implementation part of the
6-month Alma implementation (seriously!) No required Primo
Certification training An ExLibris Primo expert/consultant works
closely with site
Slide 25
Implementing Primo: Considerations Advantages Familiarity with
system If the site prefers, can do much of the setup work
themselves Better grasp of identifying problems during data
checking Steep learning curve Lack of familiarity may be harder for
identifying problems w/ data checking Already using Primo: New to
Primo: Disadvantages New to Primo: Already using Primo: No
capability to copy normalization rule sets into Alma (This was a
BIG problem for us!) The more customizations you have, the more
work to set them all back up May be easier to do setup from scratch
ExLibris may be able to do a default out- of-box setup, thus saving
the site much effort/time
Slide 26
The Alma Last Minute Scramble Patron loading Ongoing record
loading EDI invoice loading Self-check machines Spine label
printing Budget setup User accounts Notices/letters Work order
departments Requests Delivery skin for Requests Initial Analytics
reports Final Primo tweaks
Slide 27
Third-party integrations Unless you have staff devoted 100% to
this, there is very little time built in to the 6-month
implementation window for setting up 3 rd -party integrations We
continue setting ours up, including: Alma SAP integration
(transferring invoices, returning vouchers) Alma Banner integration
(sending holds & fines to Bursar) Alma ABLE integration
(Binding system) Alma ILLiad Alma Registrars Office system (for
closing out graduating students and updating due dates of
checked-out items)
Slide 28
Alma Three Implementations in One? Must consider that
implementing Alma is almost a 3-in-1 process: ILS system (Alma)
Link Resolving (Alma Link Resolver) Discovery Layer (Primo) It is a
LOT of work, but we feel well worth the effort!