What is "Alma Shelf Report" and how do I use it?
Introduction
The purpose of the shelf report is to compare a list of barcodes you've scanned from the items physically on the shelf to a list of items that Alma has in its inventory. The comparison gives you information like:
- Items on the shelf that are not where they're expected to be. For instance, an item is in the Educational Reading Room, but it belongs in the stacks.
- Items on the shelf that are marked missing. You would want to remove the Missing status from that item because you know it's there.
- Items not on the shelf that should be. For instance, you did not find any copies of The Academic's Handbook, but Alma says you own a copy. You should mark that copy Missing.
Instructions
1. Create an Excel or .txt file of barcodes. Typically these would be collected by using a hand-held scanner in one location or area of the library. The file should only contain the word "Barcode" at the top, followed by barcode numbers below that.
2. Go to Resources > Manage Inventory > Shelf Report.
3. Choose either "Range or "Set"
a. Range: a series of call numbers (e.g., J1 to J6530)
i. Choose a call number type. For a list of call number types, see How do I format a call number?
ii. Choose a "From" and "To" call number
b. Set: either a logical or itemized set
i. For help with logical sets, see How do I save the results from a search in Alma?
ii. For help with itemized sets, see How do I put items into a set?
4. Select a library and location.
5. Upload the file of barcodes.
6. Click Submit.
7. Go to Admin > Manage Jobs and Sets > Monitor Jobs.
8. When your Shelf Report job completes, select the History tab.
9. Click the row actions button (...) and select Report to view:
- Header information that provides the processing details of the job such as Process ID, start and end processing time, etc.
- Job criteria that you specified in the Shelf Report request
- Analysis results of the comparison between the Alma inventory and the file of barcodes that you specified in the Shelf Report request
10. Expand the Analysis section to view:
- Items in place
- Missing items but marked in place
- Items on shelf but marked not in place
- Known items not in place
- Items on shelf but out of range/set (This indicates that the item is on the shelf but not in the correct shelf location.)
- Barcodes with no matched item
11. For rows 1 through 5 in the Analysis section, select Preview Items from the row actions (...) to view the first 50 results or select Create Itemized Set from the row actions(...) to create a set (of all results) that you can use for further processing. For row 6, select Download List to create an Excel or .txt file (determined by what you used in the Shelf Report request) to do further processing with the barcodes that had no matched items.
