2019-08-09 Meeting notes

 Announcements/Update

• from the PC

• Discussions on renewals
  • Review all related documents
• Add you questions/additional documents
• In particular look at: Workflow session on renewals
  • add examples comments there.

How are we planning to distinguish between different types of orders (standing, subscription, etc.)? What are the order attributes that differ between the various ongoing orders?

Some bibliographic information may change over time (e.g., publisher change).

Cost information could change over time (adjusted for some types of orders). Example: Each volume in a standing order may have a different cost.

Quantity changes? Example: We may have started out with 2 orders and then cancelled 1. This is not a particular feature of a type of ongoing order.

Order status? What about titles that are suspended or delayed? We don't close the order, we just mark it as suspended/delayed until it publishing again or cancelled. Delayed/suspended could happen to monographs - you place an order for a title that you think has been published but it hasn't been published yet. While not unique to ongoing orders, there needs to be a way to capture this information for orders in general. There is still some expectation of receipt that we want to note. Some serials agents allow you to "order when current" - you keep paying each year, even if you are not receiving any items. It would be good to track these. It is possible that the order might be suspended but the payment continues - we may want to also be able to suspend/delay the payment status. Basically, libraries want to be able to flag these orders for periodic review. We would want to be able to receive a credit, even if the status is suspended. Is there something different about ongoing orders that are getting to the end (i.e., they've been cancelled but we're still waiting to receive some of the material)? We need a way to keep these open until everything has been fully received. On the financial side, we don't want the subscription to rollover into a new fiscal year. If you cancel a standing order, where you pay upon receipt of material, you will usually not continue to receive items (keeping track of the cancellation communication is important). What are the data points that we need to track the differentiators so that we can avoid having too many statuses? Separate order, receipt, and payment statuses are needed. Need to be able to close order and note detailed reason for closure.

Encumbrances? Are there differences in how encumbrances should be treated? Martina's document does a good job demonstrating some of these differences. In regards to releasing encumbrances, there are cases where you want to release the encumbrance and other cases where you do not. Currently, for a one-time order the release encumbrance is checked by default. For ongoing, the default for release encumbrance is currently unchecked. You have the ability to check/uncheck as needed. Libraries occasionally need to adjust encumbrances during the year. Use case: "We have a similar scenario to deposit accounts with our approval plans. We encumber for the year the budget amount for an approval plan and manually edit the encumbrance throughout the year as shipments come in, but payment occurs at the individual item level for each book that is received." Another example: We should've been invoiced last year for an ongoing order but due to changes on the publisher side, we weren't invoiced. We now need to adjust the encumbrance to pay for both. Are there situations where the encumbrance is different depending/not directly connected to what you're receiving - it's the subscription you paid for, not the material? With a subscription, you pay for the sub and receive the sub (billable item), receipt is different?