[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Acquisitions issues

[Frances Dean McNamara]

One other top level issue has been brought to my attention.  In the Evergreen Acq demo system you always start with a picklist.  While starting with a picklist or selection list may be the workflow in many libraries, we do not use it at all.  We start, as someone in the webinar mentions, by finding a bib in OCLC, downloading it and using it to create a PO, or we start with orders from a vendor where our selectors have gotten on the vendor site and chosen books and the file gets loaded and produces POs, as well as bibs and items.

That is a significant difference that we would need to accommodate to use the acquisitions features.

Frances McNamara
University of Chicago

________________________________
From: open-ils-dev-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-dev-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Frances Dean McNamara
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:33 AM
To: Evergreen Development Discussion List; Evergreen Discussion Group
Cc: James Mouw
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-DEV] Acquisitions issues

I was not sure which list to write to.  Following a CIC meeting with some Equinox folks we have been riffling through old sets of specs for Acquisitions that we have used in the past.  We are also taking a look at the King County specs, and I looked at the Webinar on the Acq development, which is very helpful.  We are interested in contributing to the discussion, although we would not expect to have all of our requirements met in the v. 2.0 due out next spring.  I think the idea is to contribute to the discussion of the underlying design so things we need to do could be accommodated by the system eventually.  As a first pass after reviewing the webinar, I would like to raise a few issues.  I was happy to hear the voice of Anne Marie from YBP on that webinar, as we work with that vendor a lot.

1.  One PO one Title.  I realize a lot of libraries create a PO and then add lines for individual titles.  We have always had a separate PO for each title.  In part this may be because we order things that may not come in for a long time but we still keep the order open, and also we order more than just straightforward monographs and other types of orders may stay open for years.  It might be possible for us to change to a workflow that did not require one title one PO but there might be unforeseen problems with that.  If we didn't change it would be particularly important for us to be able to get a file from the vendor of order information and when we loaded it have it create separate POs for each title.  The majority of our orders are started in the vendor's system and then file loads create the POs in our system.  We also use file loads to create the invoices which link to the POs, and we batch approve an invoice, or note one or two as not OK and approve the rest for vouchering and payment.

2.  Order types.  The examples in the webinar seemed to be straightforward orders for mongraphs.  However we have found there are different order types:  Firm, Multivolume, Standing Orders, Subscriptions, Memberships, EResources.  I believe we may have written up some information about how these differ. A firm order gets received and it is completed.  A standing order can stay open for years as additional volumes are received on it.  A membership may have numerous titles received on it, for us for Subscriptions we do not renew every year, we just open one, maintain it till we cancel it and post payments to it every year or whenever.  Is there a concept of different order types in this system?

3.  Funds need External IDs.  For us we may have separate library funds for History and English, but when we create a voucher to send to the comptroller to write a check for payment, they both may draw on the same fund in the Comptroller's system.  So we need to keep that information.

4.  Vouchers need to allow us to assign the voucher number.  We used to produce printed vouchers for all payments.  For the voucher numbers we MUST use a number from a range given to us by the Comptroller every year.  So we need to be able to assign that number to a voucher.  Currently we don't print vouchers, we output a file to the Comptroller's specifications and it must include one of these voucher numbers from that assigned range.

5.  A significant portion of our budget is spent on foreign materials.  In addition to recording the currency of the price we need to be able to load a currency table daily and adjust the encumbrances to reflect changes in currencies.  This is a big issue for us as it can take a while to fill orders and what we thought we had encumbered and how much is left can change.  As we post invoice charges they need to get converted to the most recent amounts to reflect what we really are spending.

If we gather some of the more detailed type of information we use, like we have a document on Fiscal Year Rollover, and a spec for the file we output for the Comptroller, and a list of individual features, etc., I wonder where we should put them.  Should we post something that detailed to the list?  Or put them up on a web page and point to them?

Frances McNamara
University of Chicago
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