Dealing with not received or missing serial issues during binding

Alma role needed for deletion: Physical Inventory Operator Extended

Important disambiguation of the term Withdrawal as used in Alma: In Alma, withdrawing and deleting an item are the same thing. These procedures cover scenarios where the item records are unneeded for retention purposes, not for what we have traditionally considered as Withdrawals.

Options

Alma’s bind tool will not allow you to choose Not Received issues for binding. For example, if you have Issue 1 and Issue 3-6, but have never Received Issue 2 or you Received it, but it’s gone missing, and you want to bind Issues 1-6 around it, you will have to choose one of these options:

1. Delete the gapped Not Received issue
   
   1. Delete the Not Received predicted Issue 2 record
   2. Select the remaining Received Issues 1 and 3-6, and use the bind tool to delete those items and create a new Bound Issue Item record
   3. Append '(lacks [missing issue(s)])' to the Description to note gaps; e.g. v.57 (2021) (lacks v.57:2)
   4. You can, of course, still Receive the missing issue Ad Hoc, if it arrives someday

2. Keep the Not Received predicted or Received but missing gapped issue active
   
   1. Choose only the Issues you’re going to put into the bind set (i.e. do not check the box for the issue you’re gapping) and use the bind tool to create Bound Issue Item
   2. Make sure you set the Description to cover the real bundle, including the lacks note
   3. You’ll still have the gapped Issue Item pending receipt or Received/missing. 
      
      1. If this issue never arrives and you’ve exhausted the claims period, eventually it too should be Deleted
      2. If the gapped issue was legitimately Received, but has gone missing and eventually exhausted the search process, do NOT include it within the bind set or or manually Delete it; you will follow a different process to remove a Received but lost Issue record from appearing available (forthcoming)

Deleting

Note that Alma does not allow you to delete Items (predicted or received) from within the Receive module. You can only delete Items from within a List of Items. To delete the Item(s) you need to delete according to your decision above:

1. Search Physical Titles by Title or ISSN to pull up the serial in question
2. Click on the Items link in the Physical Holdings area of the screen or, depending on your customized view, either click on the Items button or choose Items from the ellipses More Actions menu
3. You can use the filters to narrow down the list of Items to choose from, for example using the Year or Volume filter to show only those Items that fall in the range you’re gapping
4. Best practice is also to change the Receive Date filter to the appropriate setting you’re looking for (Received or Not Received) to avoid accidentally deleting a different issue
5. In the List of Items, find the Item(s) you need to delete
   
   1. To delete a single Item
      
      1. Make sure you’re choosing carefully because you will not be given details about the item you’re deleting in the Confirmation message
      2. From the ellipses menu select Withdraw
         1. If the confirmation message reads simply “Are you sure you want to withdraw the item” click Confirm
         2. If you get a different confirmation message, such as one that says the Item is in a Work order, you should hit Cancel and investigate the situation before deciding if you really should delete the item
      3. If you have clicked Confirm, you should see a green message pop up on the right side of your screen saying “Item has been successfully deleted”
      4. The Item should have disappeared from the List of Items
   2. To delete multiple Items
      
      1. Check the box to the left of each Item you need to delete (Note that you will not be given a warning list of the Items you’re about to delete, so make sure you are very careful about which Items you’re marking!!!)
      2. Click on the Manage Selected link at the top of the page and choose Withdraw Items
         1. If the confirmation message reads simply “Are you sure you want to withdraw the item” click Confirm
         2. If you get a different confirmation message, such as one that says the Item is in a Work order, you should hit Cancel and investigate the situation before deciding if you really should delete the item
      3. If you have clicked Confirm, you should see a green message pop up on the right side of your screen saying “Item has been successfully deleted”
      4. The Items should have disappeared from the List of Items