Alma October 2026 Release Notes
Features
More Granular External Comparisons
Resource ManagementURM-332196
Collection development workflows now support more granular comparisons with external institutions. In addition to comparing holdings against an entire external institution, users can now refine the project's Compare To scope by selecting a specific campus, library, or location within the institution.
This more targeted approach enables users to distinguish holdings in different locations of an external institution, and is especially helpful for shared print endeavors. For more information, see Streamlining the Path to Remote Storage with Rialto Collection Development Workflows.
Internal Matches Now Display Match Keys
Resource ManagementURM-335130
Rialto now displays the match key for identified internal matches, providing greater visibility into how matches are determined.
These match keys are available in exported project reports and in the Additional Items section when viewing individual recommendations. If multiple keys are used to identify a match, they are displayed in the same field, separated by semicolons.
This enhancement helps libraries better assess the strength of internal title matches and make more informed collection development decisions. For details about the match keys used by Rialto, see the Collection Development Workflows FAQ.
Description Column Added to Collection Development Reports
Resource ManagementURM-328062
Rialto has begun introducing multi-volume support for collection development workflows. This is the first phase of a series of enhancements designed to improve the handling of multi-volume items when providing retention and deselection recommendations.
As part of this initial phase, a new Description column has been added to extended collection development reports. The column is currently empty because book items with descriptions are not yet included in collection development matching workflows.
This update lays the groundwork for including book items with volume descriptions in collection development workflows, which will help libraries better understand and validate matches for multi-volume items.
Bulk Removal of Recommendations
Resource ManagementURM-327502
Rialto now enables users to remove all retention or deselection recommendations that match the current selection criteria, making it easier to manage large sets of recommendations.
Previously, users could remove recommendations in bulk only for the recommendations displayed on the current page, up to 50 at a time. With this update, users can now select all recommendations in the current results set and then use Remove from List to remove them all from the list.
This enhancement streamlines recommendation management by enabling users to filter recommendations with facets and then remove all recommendations that match the selected criteria in a single action.
Consortium Overview Analytics Dashboard: Collection Development Workflows
Resource ManagementURM-333098
A new Collection Development Consortium Overview analytics dashboard provides consortium administrators with a consolidated view of collection development workflow usage across member institutions.
The new dashboard includes key metrics and visualizations for adoption, project activity, recommendation progress, and outcomes, as well as an institution scorecard with project and recommendation metrics.
The dashboard is also available as an object in the Alma out-of-the-box analytics objects, available to the Collection Development Manager role.
This dashboard helps consortium administrators compare workflow activity across institutions, monitor recommendation review and action rates, and better understand consortium-wide engagement with collection development workflows.
OTB Object for the Collection Development Workflow Recommendations Report
Resource ManagementURM-324516
A new out-of-the-box (OTB) Alma object is now available for the Collection Development Workflow Recommendations Report introduced in April. Available to users with the Collection Development Manager role, it provides an overview of collection development recommendations, including detailed title- and item-level information.
Collection Development Data Visualizations for Consortia
[Analytics and Insights]URM-333098 and URM-324516
New out-of-the-box Collection Development Data Visualizations are available to help monitor Collection Development workflow activity. The new Collection Development Consortium Overview(Shared Folders > Alma > Rialto Collection Development > Data Visualization) dashboard provides the Network Zone with a consortium-wide view of Collection Development workflow adoption and activity across member institutions. It highlights how institutions are using retention and deselection projects, the volume of recommendation being generated, and the extent to which recommendations are being acted upon.
In addition, the Collection Development Consortium Overview and Collection Development Workflow Projects and Recommendations dashboards are available as Analytics Objects for users with the Collection Development Manager role.
RapidILL Borrowing Requests Mediated vs. Unmediated Reports
[Analytics and Insights]URM-332703
Two new RapidILL Out-of-the-Box reports are now available in the Shared Folders/Alma/RapidILL/Reports folder:
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RapidILL Borrowing Requests Mediated vs Unmediated - Previous Month
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RapidILL Borrowing Requests Mediated vs Unmediated - Previous Year
These reports track the number and percentage of mediated and unmediated borrowing requests associated with the RapidILL partner profile type. The reports help institutions monitor borrowing request workflows and assess the level of staff mediation required in the request process.
A new Borrowing - Mediated vs Unmediated tab has also been added to the RapidILL Borrowing and Lending dashboard in Shared Folders/Alma/RapidILL/Dashboards, providing quick access to both reports.
For more information, see Out of the Box Reports.
Enhanced Subject Area Documentation with Data Type and Data Size Information
[Analytics and Insights]
To help Analytics users better understand the data available for reporting, Data Type and Data Size information has been added to selected tables in the Alma Analytics Subject Area documentation. This information makes it easier to understand field characteristics when creating reports. Additional tables will be enhanced as part of future monthly updates. For this release, the following tables were updated:
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Analytics Objects > Modification Date
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Analytics Objects > Analytics Objects Details
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Analytics Usage Tracking > Usage Tracking Measures
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Analytics Usage Tracking > Query Date
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Analytics Usage Tracking > Query Details
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Analytics Usage Tracking > User Details
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API Usage > API Measures
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API Usage > API Dates
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API Usage > API Details
For more information, see Alma Analytics Subject Areas.
Updated Documentation for Analytics Tables
[Analytics and Insights]URM-328532
As part of an ongoing project and in alignment with the Analytics Community of Practice, Ex Libris is currently enriching the documentation of analytics field tables with additional information. This initiative aims to assist and support users in comprehending how our Alma data is presented within the realm of Analytics fields. For this month, the following table within the Cost Usage Analytics Subject Area was updated:
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Cost Usage > Cost Usage POL
For more information, see Cost Usage POL.
Resolved Issues
| SF number | Area | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
08190842 |
Acquisitions | In some cases, PO lines associated with purchase orders containing more than 10 PO lines could not be closed. This was fixed.URM-327249 |
|
10562115 |
Acquisitions | Previously, when the purchase order line Renewal date was changed by the PO Line - Renewal job, the change was not recorded in the PO line history. This was fixed.URM-330255 |
|
10616792 |
Acquisitions | Previously, the purchase order Enter Days field label was displayed in English rather than in the UI language. This was fixed.URM-330413 |
|
10572864 |
Acquisitions | Previously, there was an issue where the default material type did not update the item's material type during creation. This was fixed.URM-332938 |
|
10656843 |
Acquisitions | Previously, unintentional changes were applied to the Internal Access Model table. This was fixed.URM-333353 |
|
10616636 |
User Experience, Accessibility and Infrastructure | Previously, the translation was missing for labels in the Manage Sets Page. This was fixed.URM-330567 |
|
10614948 |
User Experience, Accessibility and Infrastructure | Previously, the translation for None was missing in the Current location dropdown on the top menu bar. This was fixed.URM-330952 |
|
10616776 |
User Experience, Accessibility and Infrastructure | Previously, the Renewed, Item was returned, and Workbench actions were displayed in English rather than in the configured UI language. This was fixed.URM-330957 |
|
08395442 |
User Experience, Accessibility and Infrastructure | Previously, when selecting Done in Manage Patron Services after arriving from Item Details, users were not redirected to the On Loan Item page. This was fixed.URM-331055 |
|
10600543 |
User Experience, Accessibility and Infrastructure | Previously, when accessing the same set during evening hours in the Pacific Time zone (PDT, UTC-7), the expiration date value changed to the previous day. This was fixed.URM-333255 |
|
10654949 |
APIs | Previously, the Alma Print Daemon failed to retrieve the printout list from the Alma Printouts API. This was fixed.URM-333118 |
|
10629249 |
APIs | Previously, an error was generated when trying to add members to a set of physical holdings through the API.URM-333882 |
|
10719076 |
APIs | Previously, the Set Members API returned an incorrect User Count and Members for date-cased logical sets. This was fixed.URM-334444 |
| 08397070 | Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | When a lost loan was deleted, and the close_paid_lost_loan CP was set to true, the confirmation pop-up window wrongly indicated that the status of the item will change to Missing even though it kept as Lost. This was fixed. Now, the popup only confirms the deletion - "Are you sure you want to delete the loan?"URM-328589 |
|
08366486 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, there was a problem saving a Resource Sharing Partner after deleting an email address. This was fixed.URM-326796 |
|
08387083 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, an error was generated when trying to reactivate a borrowing request. This was fixed.URM-327929 |
|
08405966 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | In some cases, requests were not exported as expected by the “Send Requests to Remote Storage” job. This was fixed.URM-327962 |
|
08416425 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, exporting fines from the Manage Patron Services failed when the fees list was too large. This was fixed.URM-328230 |
|
08386663, 08415551 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, when a GES was distributed from the NZ to IZs, the translation for the public note and public name fields were not carried. This was fixed.URM-328617 |
|
10612617, 10638802, 10584299, 10588048, 10603614, 10585794, 10658822, 10581597, 10676357 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, the network request tab table view in the MPS was inconsistent and displayed incorrectly in the list. This was fixed.URM-329673 |
|
10588735 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, the Manage Fulfillment Activities link was not available in User Details when accessed from the Scan in items page. This was fixed.URM-329960 |
|
08434148 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, users with only the “Request Operator” role could not be assigned in DARA “Non-Handled Requests” configuration. This was fixed.URM-330224 |
|
10629683 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, when a bibliographic record was updated after a request was created, the scanning in action displayed outdated bib information. This was fixed.URM-330941 |
|
10617041 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, there was a problem translating values in some facets. This was fixed.URM-330959 |
|
10599079 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, the Download Electronic Resource failed for lending requests whose metadata contained a long-form/URL-style DOI. This was fixed.URM-331779 |
|
10617023 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | In some cases, an item's loan was not automatically canceled upon receipt. This was fixed.URM-332061 |
|
07896554 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, a java.lang.IllegalArgumentException error was generated when renewing a user in the Manage Patron Services. This was fixed.URM-333421 |
|
10727830 |
Fulfillment and Resource Sharing | Previously, the internal note was not displayed. This was fixed.URM-335495 |
|
08394585 |
Metadata Management | Previously the Create Itemized Set action in the All Titles search results page required one of the following privileges: *Sets Add*, Manage Set, Set Management. Now, the privileges for this action were fixed to be the same as the privileges required for the Add to Itemized Set action in this page. Now both actions require one of the following privileges: *Sets Edit*, Manage Set, Set Management.URM-328242 |
|
08408515 |
Metadata Management | In some cases, system events were not logged for some users. This was fixed.URM-329732 |
|
08416681 |
Metadata Management | Previously, records with an OCLC number in the 001 field containing the ocm prefix followed by a trailing backslash were not recognized correctly, causing the import job report to display unknown instead of the actual record ID. That was fixed.URM-330948 |
|
10557751 |
Metadata Management | Previously, when a record was assigned to a cataloger in another consortia member institution, local fields from the original member were incorrectly carried over. This was fixed.URM-331566 |
|
10614134 |
Metadata Management | Previously, deleted MMS IDs were not included in Analytics results. This was fixed.URM-332333 |
|
10577082 |
Metadata Management | Previously, when adding right-to-left and left-to-right arrows to a field in the MDE, the character was removed. This was fixed. These characters are controlled by the directional_character_embedding_sign_box_draw parameter (Configuration Menu > Resources > General > Other Settings). When set to true (default: false), box-drawing characters are used for directional characters. The parameter also controls the handling of arrows such as → and ←.URM-332964 |
|
10591025 |
Metadata Management | Previously, when the customer parameter 'include_subfields_delimiter_in_alma' was set to 'True', some fields were displayed with a subfield and delimiter on the results page. This was fixed.URM-333987 |
|
10723685 |
Metadata Management | Previously, facet entries were not translated in 'All Titles' and 'Electronic Title' searches in the Community Zone. This was fixed. Facet entries are now translated correctly in both the All Titles andElectronic Titles searches in Community Zone.URM-334721 |
|
10668203 |
Metadata Management | Previously, when opening the related records from the staff search in a specific scenario, an NZ search with unrelated results was opened instead of the related record in the IZ search zone. This was fixed.URM-335119 |
|
10745715 |
Metadata Management | Previously, when editing rule properties, the Created Date, Modified By, and Modified Date fields were not updated or displayed correctly. This was fixed.URM-335481 |
|
08188156 |
Resource Management | When a New Order import was run and added orders to already-existing portfolios, the public access model was not saved on the portfolio. This was fixed.URM-319001 |
|
08367478 |
Resource Management | When a network record linked to a member record was not found (due to an indexing issue) the publishing job failed to publish an entire bulk of records. This was fixed.URM-329000 |
|
10592495 |
Resource Management | In some cases, the Restore Request Job skipped items during processing. This was fixed.URM-330685 |
|
08440398 |
Resource Management | In some cases, records were published without related records enrichment data, and the records were not republished after the record relations were created. This was fixed, so that all the related records are included in the next publishing job after the record relations are created.URM-331614 |
|
08301323 |
Resource Management | Currently, suppressed records are excluded from the publishing job. To publish suppressed records as deleted records, contact support.URM-331941 |
|
10661732, 10668879 |
Resource Management | Updated Available For group-setting evaluation to apply the configured hierarchy correctly. Service-level availability is no longer overridden by collection-level settings when no portfolio-level setting exists.URM-332721 |
|
10601396 |
Resource Management | Additional new purchase models were added to the JSTOR autoholdings.URM-333278 |
|
10651211 |
Resource Management | Previously, when deleting a collection and selecting Delete bibliographic records, the report displayed childless records. This was fixed.URM-333393 |
|
10702607, 10677032 |
Resource Management | We improved coverage analysis in the Overlap Analysis Compare Collections flow to efficiently process multiple and overlapping coverage ranges.URM-333399 |
|
08317643 |
Resource Management | Previously, certain bibliographic record resource types appeared as Unknown on Analytics. This was fixed.URM-333878 |
|
10628161 |
Resource Management | Previously, the split_values_in_display_license parameter did not split licence values. This was fixed.URM-333992 |
|
10689721 |
Resource Management | The KBART identifier processing was improved to prevent incorrect “No MMS found” results caused by extra whitespace.URM-335926 |
