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Acquisitions/Resource Management implementers - Archive

Acquisitions/Resource Management implementers - Archive

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Archived Topics


#TopicStatusDescription/ use caseDate addedDiscussed on

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Name, Institution

Interested parties

Has been discussed in meeting:

Link to agenda/ minutes

Action required
1Ongoing Orders for serials: link between the POL and Inventory

CLOSED

At Chicago, for serial print resources, our current system connects the purchase order line to a suppressed dummy item record. This is associated with a holdings record where bound volumes reside. Print serials are received on the serials check-in record. Once a volume is complete, they are bound and an item for the volume is created on the same holdings record. In FOLIO, we don't have to create a dummy item record for print serials. The POL can generate an instance/holdings only. UXPROD-1925 - Getting issue details... STATUS and UXPROD-1995 - Getting issue details... STATUS would allow connections from the holdings to the POL, but they are not assigned to a release. How are institutions/will institutions create and connect orders for serials to inventory? Use a dummy item record? Not have the connection between the holdings and Inventory?

2021
Kristin Martin (Chicago)



2Credits

CLOSED

Could we discuss the topic of handling credits?  We'd be interested in seeing an example of the recommended credit workflow.2/3/2021
Julie Brannon, Virginia Martin (Duke)
Discussed in the 2021-04-30 meeting. People can enter as negative invoices.

3Order Status as Open after invoice is fully paid - encumbrance rolls over to next year

CLOSED

During FYRO UAT we set up some one-time orders and created invoices to fully pay those orders.  We expected no encumbrances for those orders to roll over to the next year; however, encumbrances did roll over.  We think it's because the orders were still in an "Open" status (even though they were fully paid) because they hadn't yet been received.  We often pay invoices on orders for materials that we don't receive for many months after payment and we don't want the encumbrance to carry over to the next fiscal year since they were fully paid during the current year.  These were the encumbrance rollover settings we used:


How should we handle this scenario?  Would we need to change the PO Line receipt status to "Receipt Not Required"?  Which leads to the question: What impact does the Receipt Status values have on the Order Status based on invoice payment status?


2/9/21
Julie Brannon, Virginia Martin (Duke)
Discussed in the 2021-02-12 meeting. For the order to close, it must be received and paid. You could uncheck the "re-encumber" box to prevent re-encumbrance.

4Finance App:  Adding groups to Funds UI enhancement

CLOSED

At Duke, we're planning to use a large number of Finance Groups (approximately 80) and Funds (approximately 400) to take full advantage of the ability to summarize spending in various ways.  Each of our 400+ funds will have 4-5 groups assigned.

In places where we need to select a fund or group from a list, it becomes cumbersome to scroll to select.  Here are two examples:

1) Transfer:  The transfer popup window requires the user to scroll through all funds to select the appropriate "From" without a search capability.


2) When applying the groups to a fund in the create new/edit screen it is cumbersome to scroll through such a high volume of groups 4 or 5 times to assign all of the appropriate groups. 

For a future usability enhancement perhaps one of these approaches could be considered for instances where we need to select a fund or group from a list:

  1. Apply a filter to find the appropriate group, as seen in the fund code filter on orders:

2.  Or, better yet, display the full list of groups with checkboxes and allow the user to select the desired groups simultaneously, as seen in the Users app to apply permissions:

2/9/21
Julie Brannon, Virginia Martin (Duke)
Discussed in the 2021-04-30 meeting. Future functionality can allow groups to be organized, and to select funds from the Group Interface, instead of only being able to assign Groups from the Fund interface. UXPROD-2562 describes functionality to categorize groups.

5Avoiding Receiving books

CLOSED

For those of you who do not plan to receive ebooks, if you create an order for an ebook, even if you do not create an item record in inventory, a piece is still created in Receiving to be received. Currently, this can be avoided by checking"Manually add pieces for receiving." We don't plan to use Receiving to "receive" ebooks, so we don't need the piece. We would like to discuss a way to avoid creating a Piece record or receiving option for non-physical objects. If we just ignore these pieces for e-resources, we are concerns that it will be a problem to have a lot of permanently unreceived pieces hanging around. The current work-around is not intuitive. Will using Receipt Status="Receipt Not Required" solve the issue?
2/11/2021
Kristin Martin
Discussed in 2021-02-12 meeting. POs will close once paid and received. If "Receipt Not Required" used, then PO will close when paid and not be impacted by receiving.

6Purchase Orders editing

CLOSED

Could we cover what can be edited in the PO/POL while it is open versus needing to unopen/reopen the PO? And are there any implications for unopening/reopening a PO if there are payments attached?2/11/2021
Kristin Martin
Discussed in the 2021-04-30 meeting. The acquisitions fields information shows which fields can be edited while a PO is in an open state.

7Update on plans Acquisition Unit restrictions

CLOSED

We've noticed that we can add Acquisition Units to Ledgers/Funds/Budgets; however, there do not seem to be any restrictions based on those assignments.  So, if a user is assigned to the Law Library acquisition unit, but not the Medical School Library acq unit, they can still exercise all of their user permissions on the Medical School Library Ledgers/Funds/Budgets.  

We don't see a JIRA for implementing such functionality in the future.  It would be helpful to better understand what functionality is planned/underway/complete for Acquisition Units across FOLIO so that we can identify any gaps where a feature request might be needed.

2/12/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)
Discussed at the 2021-05-21 meeting.

Some action items are inactive, but the options are not invisible. These are controlled by permissions.



8Ongoing Orders

CLOSED

We're a little confused about some of the fields in the Order for ongoing subscriptions.  Specifically, there is a review date field on the GUI when creating a new order, as seen below.  The API schema defines that field as "Date when Order has to be reviewed".  There is also a field called Renewal date which is defined as "The date this Ongoing PO's order lines were renewed."  Should this field contain a past date when the subscription was last renewed or a future date of the next renewal?

Also confusing: once you save the order and view the order information the Review date field doesn't appear in the Ongoing order information section.  Is this expected behavior?

2/18/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)
Discussed at the 2021-05-21 meeting. There will be some changes where Review Date (for non-subscriptions) will start to display. Renewal Date will no longer be required if "subscription" is checked.

9Order Material Type

CLOSED

At Duke we're currently working on order data migration and are concerned about UXPROD-2455 which would address the need for an order material type.  In which release of FOLIO is that JIRA expected so that we can plan our data migration appropriately? We're also interested in knowing the expected release of UXPROD-2865 - Getting issue details... STATUS (custom fields on PO lines) as a possible method to store the original order date from our current system on migrated orders, and possibly material type if UXPROD-2455 isn't ready.

2/18/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)
Discussed at the 2021-05-21 meeting. Custom fields highly ranked in the Kiwi pointing exercise.

10Allocation Between Funds

CLOSED

FOLIO allows an allocation of money from one fund to another which appears on the transaction log of both budgets with a type of "Allocation."  There is also the "Transfer" action which does the same thing (moves money from one fund's current budget to another fund's current budget).  Those transactions are listed on the log with a type of "Transfer." 

We're just curious if other institutions plan to use the "Allocate" action to move money between funds, and if so, why not use the Transfer action?  It seems a little confusing to us to allow the user to choose a "From" fund for an allocation.

Update from 5/14/21 RM SIG meeting discussion:  

  • Bug identified in Iris:  The Transfer action popup window doesn't require the user to choose a "From" fund, but will throw an error message if you try to submit a transfer with a blank From fund.  
  • Dennis explained why an institution may choose to use the Allocation action to move money between funds:  During FYRO the new budget for the new fiscal year can be set up with an allocation amount based on the prior year allocation.  If you want the amount that is being "allocated" from another fund to be included in the following year allocation amount for the "To" fund, then use the Allocation action rather than the "Transfer" action.  Transfers are one-time/temporary movement of money that won't be considered during FYRO to set up new budgets.
2/18/2021

See 2021-05-14 meeting notes.  

11Finding POs by format/type

CLOSED

I was doing some searching for orders in our local system and wanted to find open orders for ebooks. I realized that this was not simple. The "one-time" versus "ongoing" is at the PO level, but the filter for "order format" is at the POL level. I didn't actually see a way to easily do this. I ended up filtering by fund code, since we separate out continuations from monographs. Is there a way to do this directly in FOLIO or does it require LDP? When people have multi-line POs, do they mix formats in the Order Line?2/22/2021
Kristin Martin
See 2021-05-14 meeting notes and 2021-04-23 meeting notes. This would be part of an architecture redo to combine information from the PO and POL into a single display and search.

12Vouchers - view list of vouchers in a batch

CLOSED

Some questions about managing vouchers in Settings/Invoices

  • How can we view a list of all vouchers within a batch group that are ready to be submitted to the external accounting system (vouchers have been created, but not yet exported from Settings/Invoices.
  • Is there a way to indicate which vouchers have been "sent"?

Update from 5/14/21 RM SIG meeting discussion:  

  • It would be helpful to add an invoice filter "Batch Group" to enable users to see which invoices are ready to send to accounting before actually running a batch in Settings/Invoices.  We could filter by batch group + Export to Accounting = Y + approval date after last batch run.  
  • To see which vouchers were sent, you can download the batch file from the Voucher export details section of an invoice
3/4/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)
See 2021-05-14 meeting notes. Shared information about the voucher XML and the voucher section on the invoice.

13Receiving Books workflow

CLOSED

Chicago is considering not using the receiving app to receive print monograph. We'd like to talk this through.

Pros:

  • PO will close after payment instead of waiting for receipt
  • Receiving workflow is clunky and better searching is available through Inventory

Cons:

  • Is there a way we can move item status from On Order to In Process without going through receiving?
  • Will we lose the connection from the item to the POL?
5/13/2021
Kristin Martin

See 2021-05-14 meeting notes. In general, the Receiving workflow will be what allows an On Order Item to move to In Process, so is recommended.



14What about Cover Records? All the different kinds/for-purposes? To use/keep or no? – Example (1) for Cat Sep Serial Ongoing Orders

CLOSED

Cover Records are a term that can have different meanings to different people in different systems. They can also serve different purposes depending on the order type and formats of the things they are representing.

So let's start with a specific type: Cover Records for so called cataloged separately ongoing (aka standing or continuation or serial) orders.

Example: Yale Series of Younger Poets. 

In my current system, I have a SUPPRESSED Cover Record for the series that my Order is attached to, and I pay the invoices on the Order. I also record on the Order the Items as they arrive.

The "Cover Record" is suppressed from public view, & for various reasons, related to our current system, it also has an item and holdings record. 

Additionally I catalog the individual items with their own BIB, Item, & Holdings records (CAT SEP), AND connect the Items to the Order and their relevant Invoice.

Now in FOLIO: Can the Order (POL) take on the role of the Cover Record in this case? What are all the implications? Will I be able to link up my individually cataloged inventory items to the PO/POL? Can I Receive the items on the POLs? Do I create and add new POLs as I go? How will that work?

5/14/2021
Sara Colglazier

Discussed at the 10/29/2021 Acq SIG meeting. 

2021-10-29 Acquisitions Meeting notes



16POL Expected Date 

CLOSED

Ongoing orders: When a piece is received using the receiving app will the "expected date" on a POL be updated to indicate when the next piece is expected?5/26/21

No. Discussed at 6/11/21 meeting

17Voucher Export file

CLOSED

Is it possible to add data elements to the file generated by the batch export voucher process (see https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/x/bBgb)?  We've noticed that the Invoice Date is not included in the file, and that is a data element expected by our AP system.  There is a voucher date included, but those dates will not always be the same.6/10/21
Julie Brannon (old account)
Discussed at 6/11/21 meeting.  MODINVOICE-262 scheduled for ACQ Sprint 124

18


Print Journal Routing ListsCLOSED

The Duke Law library uses functionality in Aleph to manage lists to route print journal subscription issues to faculty and staff.  Do other institutions do this and if so, would it be possible to add a JIRA so this could be considered for future development?  This isn't a high priority request, but it is functionality that exists in our current system.

GBV also using a similar function in their system. Is being used less and less just because many journals are available electronically. 

7/1/21


Julie Brannon (old account)


Dennis Bridges Need to create JIRA for prioritization. This is a lower priority at the moment. Would need to be visible at point of receipt. Users generally want to print the list of people this would be routed to. 

Joseph Reimers created  UXPROD-4087 - Create Routing List for physical pieces in receiving In Review



19Orders app: "Export results to csv" Missing data elements

CLOSED

The Orders app "Export results to csv" output file is missing a few data elements from Search & Filter pane.  Users would likely expect the export to include all search/filter data elements.  At Duke, the only one on this list that we need currently is the suffix since we're using that data element to store information that we need to export with the record.  Also, we noticed a typo on one of the record headers in the export file "Instrucitons to vendor"

  • Prefix
  • Suffix
  • Tags
7/13/21
Julie Brannon (old account)
Resolved in Kiwi - thank you!

20Finance: Display of Fund name on Budget details screen

CLOSED

Finance UI Enhancement Request: Select a fund, then select a budget for the fund. The Budget detail screen opens to a full window with the Budget name at the top. The Budget name is composed of the Fund code plus the fiscal year code (such as 'FY2022').  The Fund name isn't included on this screen and it would be very helpful to include it there, especially for libraries where the Fund code value isn't a close match to the Fund name  

It would especially help to have the Fund name viewable when using Actions such as Transfer or Allocate which are based on the Fund name.  As seen here, the Budget name displays at the top, but the Transfer action is based on Fund name - it would help to see the Fund name in the "Budget information" section as visual confirmation for the user when using the Transfer or Allocation actions.

7/15/21

We started to display Fund code in select lists. But it would also be helpful to display the Fund name on the budget screen. Nice to have and would improve the UI. Dennis Bridges 



21Organizations: FTP credentials permissions

CLOSED

The FTP details section of the Organization record contains credentials for the ftp server.  Could this group discuss the possibility of adding permission controls to display of the user name/password?  Currently, any user with permission to view the Organization record can view these fields.  To be consistent with the handling of credentials in the Interface section, it seems like this should be protected data through permissions. 

As a reminder, these are the permissions available for Organization interface credentials:

  • "Organizations: Interface usernames and passwords: view"
  • "Organizations: Interface usernames and passwords: view, edit, create, delete"
9/23/2021

Similar to interface credentials users should need a specific permission to view username and password. JIRA created UIORGS-316 - Getting issue details... STATUS



22Orders: Inconsistent terminology between filters, detail pane, and .csv export for "Date opened"

CLOSED

This topic came up while trying to figure out how to create a list of all orders for a fiscal year.

It's confusing that FOLIO has a filter in the Orders app for "Date ordered" but the user can't see any data elements on the order detail pane labeled "Date ordered." Similarly, the csv extract file doesn't contain a "Date ordered." 

It looks like the "Approval date" is set when an order is opened (when Settings > Approvals ""Approval required" to open orders" is turned off).  So, for any institutions operating without the approval step this could definitely cause confusion for anyone trying to determine when an order was opened.  Would it be possible to discuss this and find consistent terminology between the filter, detail pane, and csv extract that will help users determine when something was ordered?

Update from 10/12/21 meeting:  Dennis shared that the "Ordered date" now appears on the PO - It's not appearing in orders created and opened in the Juniper bugfest environment, so will it be in Kiwi? UIOR-776 - Getting issue details... STATUS  

9/27/21
Julie Brannon (old account)

Note: after initial conversations the "Date ordered" field was added to the order view. "date ordered" only appears.

Decision to update label to "Date opened" DONE



23Invoices: Voucher generation feedback

CLOSED

The voucher generation process is rather confusing - here is some feedback for discussion:

1) Institutions regularly run the voucher extract manually rather than setting up the daily/weekly schedule.  Going to settings to run an operational process seems out of place since settings are generally static.  We'll need to set up our users to have permissions in settings that may not be appropriate for their role.

2) The current setup allows the user to run manual export without entering any FTP credentials which is helpful for testing.  Why does this workflow generate an error "Credentials for export configuration was not found."  Could we find a way to make the interface more intuitive and support users who want to create a file without FTP credentials?

3) We need to preview the voucher file before it runs to confirm that the invoices are set up correctly prior to submission to the university AP system - we can then make any needed corrections before submitting to AP.  Is there already a JIRA for this requirement? Or could this need be meet by adding a filter for batch group and an indicator of which invoices have not yet been included in a voucher export run?  We can't rely on the LDP for this preview since we need real-time data.

9/30/21
Julie Brannon (old account)

Investigate approaches to allowing operational users to export vouchers without having access to settings.  - page created at https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/x/jQpU 

Allow for accurate filtering or the display of a voucher export preview - page created at https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/x/lwpU

Discussed 2022-02-25 Acquisitions Meeting notes

and 

2022-02-15 Acquisitions Meeting notes



24Invoices: Export to Accounting checkbox default value

CLOSED

Would it be possible to discuss design improvements for the "Export to accounting" checkbox?  There are no templates available for Invoices to help guide users and this checkbox is not prominent, yet significant headaches are caused if it is overlooked.  If a user forgets/overlooks this checkbox for invoices that need to be sent to an external AP system how do they fix that mistake?  Once the invoice is paid it doesn't seem possible to edit the checkbox value to "on", so would we need to cancel that invoice and create a new one in order to create a voucher for export to AP?  

A preferred workflow could be to allow institutions to configure the default value of the "Export to accounting" checkbox in Settings > Invoices based on the Payment type since that typically drives whether an invoice is sent to an AP system for payment processing or not.  Example default settings below:

Payment Type

"Export to accounting" checkbox default value

CashTrue
Credit cardFalse
EFTTrue
Deposit accountTrue
Physical checkTrue
Bank draftTrue
Internal transferTrue
OtherTrue

Note added 1/14/22: There is an "Export to accounting" checkbox in Organizations >Vendor information section.  The setting of this flag determines the default value when an invoice is created for that vendor, so a workaround for libraries that are concerned about missing this flag during invoice creation would be to turn it on for all vendors.

10/1/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)

Allow user to configure which payment types trigger export to accounting by default - need to create feature Dennis Bridges 

Discussed 2022-02-25 Acquisitions Meeting notes


UXPROD-4185 - Getting issue details... STATUS



25Invoices: Can't search or filter by FOLIO invoice #

CLOSED

The Invoices app search and filter pane doesn't include a filter or keyword search of the system assigned "FOLIO invoice number." We're not sure why this system identifier exists since there is already a Vendor invoice number and a Voucher number.  Since this "FOLIO invoice number " is a system identifier on an invoice record, it seems like this data element should be included in the search pane, or maybe it doesn't even need to exist?10/7/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)

Group is in favor of deprecating the FOLIO invoice number and removing it from the UI. Currently, it isn't being used by libraries consistently.

Replace FOLIO invoice number in POL info with Vendor invoice number.

UIOR-957 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Discussed: 2022-02-25 Acquisitions Meeting notes



26Invoices:

Hide accordions in Invoice view where there is no content

CLOSED

When looking at the invoice detail pane we find it confusing that there are accordions for "Fund Distribution" and "Adjustments" that only seem to populate when an adjustment has been applied to the invoice header.  Users see those accordion titles and would expect to see information from the invoice lines, so when no data is displayed (as will be the case for most invoices) it causes confusion. 

Renaming these might help - if the name could better describe what the user should expect to see in these sections.  Even better, only display accordions when there is data to display, as implemented in the ERM Licenses app:

ERM-1581 - Getting issue details... STATUS


10/8/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)

Do not display empty accordions at this level because they are not required to successfully pay an invoice. Differentiate accordions by updating labels

UINV-391 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Discussed 2022-02-25 Acquisitions Meeting notes



27Invoices: "Add" and "New" Invoice line button labels

CLOSED

The button labels to create new invoice lines are confusing.  They are currently "Add" and "New", the meanings of which overlap (both actions create a new invoice line, both actions add an invoice line). 

 

In the Orders app, a similar button is labeled "Add PO line" which clearly describes the action.  At Duke we aren't sure if we have any use cases for the "New" pathway (we would always want an order to describe the purchase), so we're not sure how to better name that action.  Here are a few ideas:

"Add" alternate labels"New" alternate labels

Attach PO line

Create invoice line

Add PO line 


Link to PO line
10/8/2021
Julie Brannon (old account)

This has been adjusted for the Lotus release and it seems the changes have resolved the issue.

Discussed 2022-02-25 Acquisitions Meeting notes



28Invoices and Receiving: Display vendor code

CLOSED

1) The Invoices app displays the vendor name in three locations (see the 3 red boxes below - this vendor's code is "5M"), but doesn't display the vendor code anywhere. This makes it very challenging for users to visually validate that the vendor assigned to the invoice record matches the vendor on the attached POL(s).  At Duke, we maintain separate vendor records for each independent library and our users rely on the vendor code nam