[Wactclc-alma] question from Claire at Shoreline

[Thomas, Kirsti]

Confirming what Wade said, Amazon does not (and will probably never) provide EDI invoicing.  I don’t think Amazon really has any concept that libraries are a customer base, let alone a customer base with unique needs.

Like Wade says, EDI isn’t a way to provide payment. It’s a way to transmit purchase orders, invoices, and shipping notices electronically in an standardized format, so the information can be received and interpreted by software on both the buyer’s end and the seller’s end.

The benefit to EDI for libraries is that, instead of having staff manually type information from a paper invoice into the library computer system and/or institutional purchasing system, all the data is right there and you basically just have to click a box to confirm that the price shown on the invoice is the price you’re going to pay.  EDI invoicing is most helpful when you have either lots of invoices, or a big invoice with lots of titles (e.g. annual serials renewals or e-resource packages).

To the best of my knowledge, all the major library book vendors offer EDI invoice delivery, including Coutts, Yankee Book Peddler, Baker & Taylor, and Midwest.  Most of the big e-resource vendors also offer EDI invoice delivery.

The other big acronym that gets thrown around with EDI is EOD, which means “Electronic Order Data.”

When you order from one of the main library vendors, there are 2 different workflows you can follow. Wade described the EDI workflow in his reply.  From personal experience, the EDI workflow can sometimes cause problems when you’re trying to order a paperback instead of a hardback.

The EOD workflow is where you place an order directly in the vendor system, and then import brief bib records with order data into your local library system.

Both EDI and EOD workflows involve work with your vendor to set up.  Once you’ve done the initial set up though, they really do save a lot of staff time.

IMHO, Skagit has a genius workflow set up with their Purchase Requests.

Close to home. George Babcock has started using an Office 365 Form that allows Seattle Central librarians to send in lists of what they want to buy.  Office 365 saves whatever is submitted in an Excel spreadsheet that George can refer to while figuring out where he’s going to order something from.

In general, you want the selectors to give acquisitions staff enough information to find the right copy, and you want your acquisitions staff to deal with figuring out where to get the copy.

For tracking fund balances, take a look at the Funds Burn Down reports in Alma Analytics:
Shared Folders/Alma/Acquisitions/Reports

Chris Muzzin at Seattle Central created a report called Remaining Allocation by Fund.  It has a table that shows the initial allocation and remaining allocation, by fund, for a selected ledger, along with a gauge-style display showing how much of the fund has been spent down.  Here’s an example:

[cid:image002.png at 01D5DCF2.117E64B0]

We have an Alma Desktop widget for this report that allows anyone to add it to their Alma Desktop display.  I don’t know how many librarians are using the report widget.

I’ve saved a copy of this report here in case anyone wants to adapt it for their own use:
/shared/Community/Reports/Consortia/WACTCLC/Seattle/Remaining Allocation by Fund

Because this is an Analytics report, the data will always be one day behind.

In situations where it’s important for people to see the up-to-the-minute fund balances, they’re just going to have to bite the bullet and learn how to check fund balances in Alma.


It will be ok!

Kirsti S. Thomas
Library Technical Services Manager
Seattle Colleges
kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu



From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu> On Behalf Of Guidry, Wade
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2020 11:28
To: 'WACTCLC Alma Discussion' <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] question from Claire at Shoreline

Claire and all, thoughts below.

Additional info and document links can be found in the August 20, 2019 Alma / Primo Call Notes<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fdocument%2Fd%2F1H0DayCYgXUmQruPhbpUTKicOIRI8TUUlq_0E8V1mlWs%2Fedit%3Fusp%3Dsharing&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cfa0b511220d44f2ced9608d7ab3ab804%7C02d8ff38d7114e31a9156cb5cff788df%7C0%7C0%7C637166140994442972&sdata=Hl6hsJTNVjXEaR33vOtAzyvJyGh4M7zQQyOyoqvAqqY%3D&reserved=0>, under GOBI Acquisitions Options.

Would it be worth it to set up EDI for payment to Amazon and B&T and Ebsco?

EDI doesn’t support payment. The EDI workflow supports sending order records directly from Alma to the vendor, receiving invoices from the vendor, and receiving catalog records for titles ordered. Or, some combination of these.

I know that Ebsco GOBI supports EDI. I know that Amazon does not. I don’t know about B & T.

Just FYI, the available payment to vendors workflow involves exporting invoices out of Alma, and sending them to your financial system (such as ctcLink). At which point, Alma considers the invoices paid, and your financial system is then the platform responsible for getting checks to the vendor.

Is it possible for our librarians to order books directly from Alma?  Right now, our selectors order from Gobi and we have temporarily stopped ordering from Amazon because it’s a lot to reconcile the credit card.

The GOBI EDI workflow involves:


1.       Creating an order in GOBI

2.       Configuring GOBI to send brief order records in Alma in batch

3.       Alma creates full order records from those brief order records, and sends them back to GOBI as an order. Alma also creates brief title records.

4.       After the order is shipped, GOBI delivers invoice information to Alma, so that Alma can create the invoice

5.       If you are participating in the catalog record delivery service with WorldCat, Alma can also receive full cataloged records for the ordered titles, and overlay brief records.

The EDI workflow requires account configuration and coordination with GOBi, along with some configuration setup on the Alma side. There may be additional costs involved with GOBI, depending on which portions of the workflow you want implement

A good place to start is a discussion with your GOBI rep, who will have up-to-date info on current GOBI EDI capabilities and costs. This  Alma + GOBI workflow options<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Ffile%2Fd%2F1gLIPVMhm1meVY4eZnG3wB7q2KA7Mbgx9%2Fview%3Fusp%3Dsharing&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cfa0b511220d44f2ced9608d7ab3ab804%7C02d8ff38d7114e31a9156cb5cff788df%7C0%7C0%7C637166140994452965&sdata=cH9BDgAtym3AvSVqJyvatmxrE9rCyJA6GhTobHHJxZY%3D&reserved=0> document from 2017 has some info, but is probably stale.

Wade Guidry
WACTCLC
Library Consortium Services Manager
wadeg at bigbend.edu<mailto:wadeg at bigbend.edu>
http://www.wactclc.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wactclc.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cfa0b511220d44f2ced9608d7ab3ab804%7C02d8ff38d7114e31a9156cb5cff788df%7C0%7C0%7C637166140994452965&sdata=n4EXESKrW869Ais0T5RE2GFNnUNZmjcNrjwj0m68vc0%3D&reserved=0>
509.760.4474

Pronouns: he/him/his


From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Murata, Claire
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2020 10:31 AM
To: wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: [Wactclc-alma] question from Claire at Shoreline

ATTENTION: This email contains links. Please follow best practices before clicking on links
Hi all,

I have a couple of questions, and apologies in advance if they are super basic!


  1.  Would it be worth it to set up EDI for payment to Amazon and B&T and Ebsco?
  2.  Is it possible for our librarians to order books directly from Alma?  Right now, our selectors order from Gobi and we have temporarily stopped ordering from Amazon because it’s a lot to reconcile the credit card.


My objectives are: librarians easily request books or other resources. Tech services easily updates the budget. Librarians have up-to-date information on the fund budget.

I’ve read the section on EDI and on Purchase Requests.

Would you point me in the right direction on this? Thanks for considering!

Claire Murata
Collection Development Librarian
Ray Howard Library
pronouns: she/her

Shoreline Community College
16101 Greenwood Avenue North
Shoreline, Washington 98133-5696
library.shoreline.edu  |  206.546.5820

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