What do the various request statuses mean in Alma Analytics?
Answer
When viewing requests in Alma Analytics, request status is an important dimension for understanding what happened or is happening with the request.
Ex Libris provides the following explanation of the various loan statuses:
- Active
- The request is activated and there is an available item to fulfill the request.
- Completed
- The request is completed (for example, for hold requests, when the item is loaned).
- Failed
- The request has failed. (Alma failed to match an item to the Fulfillment request.)
- Ready
- The request is still in the queue, not activated yet. Currently, there is no available item to fulfill the request.
- Rejected
- The operator canceled an activated request from Alma.
- Rejected by Library
- The request is canceled. The cancellation reason is Canceled at patron's request.
- Rejected by Patron
- The request is canceled. The cancellation reason is Patron no longer interested.
We were thrown by some of this and are working on understanding it better. Here is how we currently understand all this.
First, failed status does not appear in our data. It is likely related to Resource Sharing, which we have not implemented.
Ready and Active are very, very different
Ready is very helpful for determining when we do not have enough items to meet requests. When users put in a patron physical item request, it needs to get matched to an available item. That usually happens via the pick from shelf list, but it might also happen through an item-level request, or there might be just one item that matches the loan period or pickup destination indicated. If none of that happens, then the item is Ready.
Normally we should only see Ready status on patron physical item requests. However, if there are multiple work orders on an item, or if a work order request is made on an item that is currently checked out or otherwise unavailable, the status will be Ready.
When an item is scanned in to fill a request, the request becomes Active. Many other types of requests such as work orders will typically be Active.
Rejected, or canceled, requests: three flavors
There are three different statuses referring to canceled requests.
If a patron cancels a request via Primo VE, the status in Analytics is Rejected by the Library, and the cancellation reason given is "Cancelled at patron's request". (Thanks to Erika Boardman at UNC Charlotte for providing this info!) Presumably this is considered rejected by the library because the initiator of the cancellation is "System". If a staff operator cancels the request and gives that same reason in the drop-down menu, the result is the same, Rejected by the Library.
If a staff operator cancels a request with the reason "Patron is no longer interested", the status it shows as Rejected by the Patron.
Any other cancellation, i.e. with a different cancellation reason chosen from the drop-down, results in the status of simply Rejected.
Note that Analytics allows us to combine things in various ways if we want to. As we explore our data, we might want to consider whether the various Rejected statuses satisfy our needs, or if we should be combining some of them.
Completed status would seem to have less need for explanation, though perhaps we'll find a reason why it does.
As we learn more about all this, we'll update this page.