South Dakota Library Network

South Dakota Library Network ALEPH Acquisitions Overview South Dakota Library Network 1200 University, Unit 9672 Spearfish, SD 57799 www.sdln.net © South Dakota Library Network, 2008 ©Ex Libris (USA), 2004 Modified for SDLN Version 16.02

ALEPH Acquisitions Prerequisites for Acquisitions • A bibliographic record • Currencies defined • Vendors defined • Budgets defined

ALEPH Acquisitions Acquisitions Processes • Creating a bibliographic record • Order initiation • Creation of subscriptions (for serials only) • Invoice registration and payment • (if using budget control) • Material arrival • Claiming

ALEPH Acquisitions Currency The Currency function enables you to define values for the currencies used by your vendors. You must define a currency before you are able to place any orders. The local currency is defined in the system table aleph_start. This ratio is always 1.000. Users are not able to add, replace or delete a ratio for the defined local currency.

ALEPH Acquisitions Currency To define a new currency, click Add Currency. A form will be displayed for you to edit. After you have defined a new currency, you can define a ratio for it by highlighting it and clicking Add Ratio.

ALEPH Acquisitions Vendors To create a new vendor record, click New

ALEPH Acquisitions Vendors After completing the first three tabs of the vendor record, click Add, which can be found on each of these tabs.

ALEPH Acquisitions Vendors Once a vendor record has been created, you are able to attach addresses to it. At least one vendor address is required for ordering. To add an address, highlight the appropriate vendor name and click Address

ALEPH Acquisitions Vendors Aleph provides the capability of using five different address types, including order, claim, payment, return and EDI. The system will default to the information in the Order Address tab if any of the other address tabs are not completed. After filling in the appropriate information, click on Update.

ALEPH Acquisitions Budgets Budgets are used for encumbering orders and paying invoices, and are an optional feature of the Acquisitions module. Budgets may be defined as annual ones, allowing them to take part in the end-of-year services, such as automatically creating a budget for the new year, and moving last year’s encumbrances to it. Budgets may be associated with specific sublibraries or order units, as well as to specific object codes (such as books or videos).

ALEPH Acquisitions Budgets To add a new budget, click on New

ALEPH Acquisitions Budgets After completing the first two tabs of the budget record, click Add, which can be found on either of these two tabs. Before we can go on to allocate funds to the budget, you must be given appropriate password authority to do so.

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders Once you’ve established a currency, vendor and budget (optional), you are ready to place orders. The final prerequisite is that a bibliographic record must already exist within YOUR catalog in which to attach the order.

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders After choosing a record “push” it into acquisitions by clicking Orders

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders To create an order for the bibliographic record, click Add

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders You will be prompted to select the order type you wish to create: monograph, serial or standing order. The Order No. Counter Code allows the system to automatically assign an Order Number.

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders After selecting the order type, the second, third and fourth tab of the order form in the lower pane will become active.

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders When you have completed the order form, click Refresh (rather than Add). Clicking the “Refresh” button will calculate and display the local cost based on the effective currency exchange rates and also serves as a check routine for validating the data you have entered.

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders If you have not entered all of the mandatory information and/or have entered data erroneously, an error message will display as a text ‘bubble’ that will hover near the field in question.

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders Clicking Add saves the order form to the system, however, it does not send it to the vendor nor does it encumber the budget if one was designated during order creation. Order records at this point in the process are assigned the process status of “New.”

ALEPH Acquisitions Orders – Encumber Budget If you are using budget control, you must encumber a budget before sending the order to the vendor by clicking Send. The budget can be encumbered via the order form during the order creation, or via the Encumber node within the Order Tab of the Navigation pane after the order has been created. If you attempt to send an order to the Vendor by clicking the Send button without first encumbering a budget for the order, the system will respond with a Remote Service Error message. The order status will change from NEW to DNB (Delayed No Budget), and will not allow you to send the order to the vendor until a valid budget(s) has been assigned. If you are not using budget control, be certain the CHECK-ORDER- BUDGET switch in tab100 is set to N. You will then not be stopped from sending the order.

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices In order to record the invoicing of materials from a vendor, you must create a General Invoice and assign the Line Items that correspond to individual title orders to this invoice (called the Invoice Path). If the vendor’s invoice only has one line item, you may chose an alternative method, which is initiated by clicking the Invoice node from the Order List Window (called the Order Path).

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices To create a General Invoice, you must first select a vendor from the Invoice Index field, enter (or choose from the right-expand arrow) an invoice number and hit enter or click the button.

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices Since you are creating a new invoice, you will most likely receive the following pop-up window: Click “Yes” to activate the two-tabbed General Invoice form in the upper pane. Vendor information will appear in the lower pane.

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices In tab 1, The General Invoice form serves as an invoice header, summarizing information about the line items.

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices In tab 2, The General Invoice form has payment information about the invoice.

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices To pay an invoice: The Payment tab on the General Invoice form has to be filled, changing the Status to ‘P’ (paid). Other intermediary statuses are also available. The payment of an invoice will zero the encumbrance, and the amount is taken from the budget (Expended).

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices Once you have completed and saved the General Invoice, you will want to append Line Item(s). ALEPH allows you to create both bibliographic and nonbibliographic Line Items. A bibliographic line item refers to a specific title-level order that you “link” to the invoice whereas a non-bibliographic line item is one that you do not wish to expend from the same budget as the bib item, and therefore will not link to a specific order. This is useful in cases where shipping and handling, for example, are expended out of a separate (overhead) budget.

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices Add line items by clicking the ‘Add’ button on the General Invoice and Line Items form. Line Items can be linked to an order or not. You may re-check (and update, if necessary) the budgets you have encumbered, and view the order by clicking Order

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices To add a bibliographic line item (linked to an order), click Add: Fill in order number, click OK:

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices To add a non-bibliographic line item (not linked to an order), click Add: Do Not fill in order number, click IGNORE:

ALEPH Acquisitions Invoices It is possible to receive or “arrive” an item during the invoicing process. Upon saving a line item form, you will be prompted to record the material as arrived. If you select yes, any rush arrival note or Library note will display in a subsequent window.

ALEPH Acquisitions Arrival Registering arrivals (receiving) can occur as a separate step or as part of invoices, as noted earlier. To register an arrival, highlight an order in the order list window and click on the Arrival node in the order tab of the Navigation pane.

ALEPH Acquisitions Arrival The arrival list window displays. Register the arrival by clicking Add. If the order has a library or rush note, they will display before the arrival form displays.

ALEPH Acquisitions Arrival The arrival form becomes active in the lower pane.

ALEPH Acquisitions Arrival Once you’ve completed the arrival form, click Add. The arrival list window redisplays with the new information, the order list is also updated.

ALEPH Acquisitions Claiming Claims are usually sent to the vendor if an ordered item does not arrive when expected. It is possible to send claims to vendors for monograph orders by running the Claim Report & Letters for Monograph Orders (acq-12) service. Claims for standing orders are sent by running the service Claim Report for Standing Orders (acq-11). It is also possible to send claims manually, one at a time. The procedures that must be followed for claiming depend, first of all, on the information provided on the order form when the order was first created. The two relevant fields are Claim Date and Batch Claiming.

ALEPH Acquisitions Claiming Unless you enter your own date, the system calculates the claim date when the order is sent, according to the material delivery type and its delay as defined in the vendor record. Thereafter, the system will continue to update the claim date automatically if the order’s claims are being handled by batch claiming. If claims are being handled manually, then the claim date will be updated only if the librarian changes it on the claim form.

ALEPH Acquisitions Claiming If you select the Batch Claiming option in the order form, the system will send claims for this order when the Claim Report & Letters for Monograph Orders (acq-12) service is run. If you do not select this option, the only way to send a claim for the order is to send it manually.

ALEPH Acquisitions Claiming To send an individual claim manually, highlight an order in the order list, and select the claims node in the Order Tab of the Navigation pane.

ALEPH Acquisitions Claiming To register a claim, click New Claim

ALEPH Acquisitions Claiming A claim form becomes active in the lower pane: After completing the claim form, click Add to register the claim.

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