Summer Cleaning:�Polish Up Your Terms of Use

and Fulfillment Unit Rules

Presented by the Fulfillment Standing Group (FSG)

Agenda

1. Who are we?
2. Disclaimer
3. Terminology crash course
4. Best Practices
5. Scenarios
1. Request
2. Loan
6. Activity
• Hands-on work on your local configuration�OR
• Watch and learn about a sandbox problem

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Who are we?

The Fulfillment Standing Group (FSG) is at your service!

You want documentation? Oh we’ve GOT documentation.

Creation, maintenance, standardization, best practices, etc.

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Sara

Chrissy

Ruby

Matthew

Victoria

Kaitlin

Caveat, Disclaimer, Word of Warning….

Celebrate the wisdom of WAIT and CHOOSE

• Wait to enable
• Wait to delete
• Choose a time that is not busy for your users
• Choose a time that you are available for repairs and troubleshooting

Crash Course: Desk vs Library vs Institution

• Circulation Desk or Circ Desk
• A working location defined by Alma that manages circulation activities (check outs, returns, holds) at an associated library
• Library Level Configuration
• Configurations that apply only to one library under an institution, and must be modified/created in that specific library in Alma Configuration
• Institution Level Configuration
• Configurations that apply to all libraries under one institution

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Crash Course: TOUs and FURs

• Terms Of Use (TOU)
• Policies that modify the usage of items in the following categories: Booking, Borrowing Resource Sharing, Lending Resource Sharing, Loan, Request, User Registration
• Fulfillment Units
• Location-based units
• Have policies that enable circulation, resource sharing, requesting, and more
• Fulfillment Unit Rules (FUR)
• Policies that apply to a Fulfillment Unit, modifying a booking, loaning, and requesting of all the locations in that Fulfillment Unit
• Formed out of Terms Of Use

Best Practices for Terms of Use

1. Develop a consistent naming and description convention.��You should be able to see what each TOU does before you open it.��

Name

Description

Best Practices for Terms of Use

2. Create a base set of TOUs that cover the core combinations of requestability/loanability/bookability at your institution.��This example uses Requesting TOUs.

Best Practices for Fulfillment Unit Rules

1. Develop a consistent naming and description convention. You should be able to see what each FUR does before you open it.��

Best Practices for Fulfillment Unit Rules

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2. Create FURs based on (1) output parameter (the TOU that is in use) and (2) the input parameter that scopes the rule, such as User Group, Item Policy, or Location.

Best Practices for Fulfillment Unit Rules

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3. Rules are applied in order, so the most restrictive rules should be at the top of the list.

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Nothing for anyone ever :(

Let them eat cake!

Best Practices for Fulfillment Unit Rules

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4. Make the Default rule for the Fulfillment Unit represent the most common outcome.

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Best Practices for Fulfillment Unit Rules

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5. FURs must apply to the locations in their Fulfillment Unit.

If the locations referred to in a rule are not in the Fulfillment Unit, the rule will not do anything.

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And now for a few examples…

Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

1. Choose one Fulfillment Unit (such as General or Regular).
2. Begin with capturing its current FURs by exporting them to Excel.

Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

3. On the spreadsheet, add a “Parameters” column and edit the “Output” column to be “TOU Meaning”.

Changed this column header from “Output”

Added this column

Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

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4. Next (back in Alma config) click on each rule in the FUR list to see what its Input Parameters are and enter them into the spreadsheet.

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In this screenshot, we are looking at a FUR named “3 week Regular Regular” and its “Input Parameter” is “User Group”:

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Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

5. After matching each Parameter to its FUR, you are ready to analyze the Excel spreadsheet to assist in grouping. HOW? Determine which rules are applied by which parameters. For this example, we can see that rules 1, 4, 5, and 6 block requesting, which is based on the Item Policy parameter:

1

4

5

6

Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

Which means… the Non Circulating, 2 Day Reserves, 7 Day Reserves, and 2 Hour Reserves rules could be combined into one rule for efficiency!

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Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

We can combine some of the remaining rules in the list into another two rules.

1. No requesting by location - Blocks requests for items whose location is in Eugene or HCSPANISH using the No Requesting TOU.

Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

2. Local only requesting by user group - Allows users to place local requests only if they fall into a certain User Group such as Guest or Alumni, using the Local Requesting Only TOU.

Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

In line with the best practices recommendations, FSG also created a new Default FUR that allowed both local and resource sharing requests (i.e. “All physical requesting allowed”). WHY? The majority of items in this Fulfillment Unit are available for both types of requesting.

Example Scenario #1: Cleaning Up Request FURs

Here are the Request FURs after applying Best Practices.

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The work of combining and cleaning up request rules will need to be done in the other Fulfillment Units at your institution.

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Each unit has different restrictions or requirements so look closely at the existing FURs before you make edits.

Questions?

Example Scenario #2: Cleaning Up Loan FURs

Choose one Fulfillment Unit (such as General). Begin with capturing the current FURs in place by exporting them to Excel.

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Example Scenario #2: Cleaning Up Loan FURs

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Example Scenario #2: Cleaning Up Loan FURs

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Next, look at the parameter(s) and TOU output for each rule to see if any rules can be combined. Do any rules have the same TOU output based on the same type of parameter?

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Example Scenario #2: Cleaning Up Loan FURs

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3 week Regular Regular rule:

Example Scenario #2: Cleaning Up Loan FURs

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ELCStudents rule:

Example Scenario #2: Cleaning Up Loan FURs

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“Combine” the rules by adding the Early Learning Community User Group to the list in the 3 Week Regular Regular rule, and disabling the ELCStudents rule.

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Example Scenario #2: Cleaning Up Loan FURs

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New combined rule:

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Questions?

Getting your hands dirty!

For the remainder of our time together, we may either:

Work Hands On - work on your own configuration following our guided exercises

or

Watch & Learn - follow along as we guide you through a sandbox activity

Which do you prefer?

Hands Up For Hands On

Stay Silent for the Sandbox Watch & Learn

Hands On Activity - Loan Rules

• Some Fulfillment Units may have rules that are holdovers from migration that don’t work with the rules anymore.
• In this exercise we’ll look for: �(1) Rules that don’t apply to the locations that are in the Fulfillment Unit, �(2) Rules that share parameters and TOUs that we could combine, and �(3) Determine our most logical Default rule.
• Start with the configuration menu; Fulfillment then click on Fulfillment Units.
• For the rest of the activity we’ll switch to screen-sharing from one of the shared anonymized sandboxes.

Sandbox Activity - Trimming the Request Rules

• In some Fulfillment Units, there may be request rules that are remnants from migration that either don’t belong, or are no longer needed.
• We’ll guide you through how to resolve this using a sandbox that is stacked with some messy examples.
• We’ll be looking at the configuration menu; Fulfillment, and clicking on Fulfillment Units.
• For the rest of the activity we’ll switch to screen-sharing from one of the shared, anonymized sandboxes.

Wanna join us?? We’re recruiting!

The Fulfillment Standing Group will have four openings for the 2024-2025 year and we would love to have you!