Re: Acquisitions Reporting?

Elizabeth, 

At Harvard, we also use Alma as our main system, and we make extensive use of Alma Analytics reporting and dashboards to handle a lot of our acquisitions and funding information. I have spent a lot of time with the "Funds Expenditure" dimension while working on Acquisitions reporting in our Information and Technical Services department. I know that our library finance office as well as our bibliographers make use of Analytics and dashboards to track fund encumbrances, expenditures and free balances throughout the year, with particular attention on remaining balances toward the end of each fiscal year.

I don't know if BU's Alma differs substantially from Harvard's, but I find that Analytics reporting combined with some occasional exporting of data to Excel for further refinement meets most of our needs (though I cannot speak for everyone at Harvard, of course!). We also have a sort of "community of practice" of analytics users who share questions and tips on our internal lists, and on our staff wikis. If it is helpful, maybe we can find a way to share some of what we have learned more widely (and hopefully learn from others as well).

-Gerry


Gerald Walden
Metadata and Dataloads Analyst | Metadata Management & Project Strategy
Harvard Library Information and Technical Services
625 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139



-----Original Message-----
From: ACQNET Email List <ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG> On Behalf Of Burton, John
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2023 5:17 PM
To: ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG
Subject: Re: Acquisitions Reporting?

Elizabeth
We are a WMS (OCLC) library.  One of our programmers is working on an API that will pull that information from the WMS budget.  But until they are able to get it written and working for us I have been printing out the budget and entering the information in a spreadsheet that lets me track the information that you are looking to track.  I track the budget information for the main library and our art library. I can share the information with you if you would like.


John Burton
Library Specialist
Department Manager
Standing Order/Monographic Acquisitions
University of Louisville
Ekstrom Library
Technical Services and Collection Development
2301 S. 3rd Street
Louisville, KY 40292

john.burton_at_louisville.edu
502-852-8716



-----Original Message-----
From: ACQNET Email List <ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG> On Behalf Of Elizabeth Johnson
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2023 3:16 PM
To: ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG
Subject: Acquisitions Reporting?

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Hello,

I work in acquisitions at Boston University, and I'm trying to build an internal reporting system that looks at expenditures, encumbrances, what we have left to pay for, specifically for renewing resources in a fiscal year, and I'm trying to explore what other libraries use! I've made a rough draft using Excel Power Query (our data is coming from Alma and Ariba SAP for non-Harrassowitz resources) but I figure it's worth asking around to see what other libraries are doing in terms of reports. Any advice or examples would be appreciated! I don't think we've really had a system here in the past, other than just listing all the resources on a spreadsheet and keeping track that way, and this is the first time I've looked into making reports.

Best,
Elizabeth

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