Ordering materials

Introduction

Acquisitions allows you to order materials, track the expenditure of your collections funds, track invoices and set up policies for manual claiming. In this chapter, we’re going to be describing how to use the most essential functions of acquisitions in the Evergreen system.

When should libraries use acquisitions?

  • When you want to track spending of your collections budget.

  • When you want to use Evergreen to place orders electronically with your vendors.

  • When you want to import large batches of records to quickly get your on-order titles into the system.

If your library simply wants to add on-order items to the catalog so that patrons can view and place holds on titles that have not yet arrived, acquisitions may be more than you need. Adding those on-order records via cataloging is a simpler option that works well for this use case.

Below are the basic administrative settings to be configured to get started with acquisitions. At a minimum, a library must configure Funding Sources, Funds, and Providers to use acquisitions.

Managing Funds

Funding Sources (Required)

Funding sources allow you to specify the sources that contribute monies to your fund(s). You can create as few or as many funding sources as you need. These can be used to track exact amounts for accounts in your general ledger.

Example funding sources might be:

  • A municipal allocation for your materials budget;

  • A trust fund used for collections;

  • A revolving account that is used to replace lost materials;

  • Grant funds to be used for collections.

Funding sources are not tied to fiscal or calendar years, so you can continue to add money to the same funding source over multiple years, e.g. County Funding. Alternatively, you can name funding sources by year, e.g. County Funding 2010 and County Funding 2011, and apply credits each year to the matching source.

  1. To create a funding source, select Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Funding Sources. Click the New Funding Source button. Give the funding source a name, an owning library, and code. You should also identify the type of currency that is used for the fund.

  2. You must add money to the funding source before you can use it. Click the hyperlinked name of the funding source and then click the Apply Credit button. Add the amount of funds you need to add. The Note field is optional.

Funds (Required)

Funds allow you to allocate credits toward specific purchases. They typically are used to track spending and purchases for specific collections. Some libraries may choose to define very broad funds for their collections (e.g. children’s materials, adult materials) while others may choose to define more specific funds (e.g. adult non-fiction DVDs for BR1).

If your library does not wish to track fund accounting, you can create one large generic fund and use that fund for all of your purchases.

  1. To create a fund, select Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Funds. Click the New Fund button. Give the fund a name and code.

  2. The Year can either be the fiscal or calendar year for the fund.

  3. If you are a multi-branch library that will be ordering titles for multiple branches, you should select the system as the owning Org Unit, even if this fund will only be used for collections at a specific branch. If you are a one-branch library or if your branches do their own ordering, you can select the branch as the owning Org Unit.

  4. Select the Currency Type that will be used for this fund.

  5. You must select the Active checkbox to use the fund.

  6. Enter a Balance Stop Percent. The balance stop percent prevents you from making purchases when only a specified amount of the fund remains. For example, if you want to spend 95 percent of your funds, leaving a five percent balance in the fund, then you would enter 95 in the field. When the fund reaches its balance stop percent, it will appear in red when you apply funds to copies.

  7. Enter a Balance Warning Percent. The balance warning percent gives you a warning that the fund is low. You can specify any percent. For example, if you want to spend 90 percent of your funds and be warned when the fund has only 10 percent of its balance remaining, then enter 90 in the field. When the fund reaches its balance warning percent, it will appear in yellow when you apply funds to copies.

  8. Check the Propagate box to propagate funds. When you propagate a fund, the system will create a new fund for the following fiscal year with the same parameters as your current fund. All of the settings transfer except for the year and the amount of money in the fund. Propagation occurs during the fiscal year close-out operation.

  9. Check the Rollover box if you want to roll over remaining encumbrances and funds into the same fund next year. If you need the ability to roll over encumbrances without rolling over funds, go to the Library Settings Editor (Administration → Local Administration → Library Settings Editor) and set Allow funds to be rolled over without bringing the money along to True.

  10. You must add money to the fund before you can begin using it. Click the hyperlinked name of the fund. Click the Create Allocation button. Select a Funding Source from which the allocation will be drawn and then enter an amount for the allocation. The Note field is optional.

Fund Tags (Optional)

You can apply tags to funds so that you can group funds for easy reporting. For example, you have three funds for children’s materials: Children’s Board Books, Children’s DVDs, and Children’s CDs. Assign a fund tag of children’s to each fund. When you need to report on the amount that has been spent on all children’s materials, you can run a report on the fund tag to find total expenditures on children’s materials rather than reporting on each individual fund.

  1. To create a fund tag, select Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Fund Tags. Click the New Fund Tag button. Select a owning library and add the name for the fund tag.

  2. To apply a fund tag to a fund, select Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Funds. Click on the hyperlinked name for the fund. Click the Tags tab and then click the Add Tag button. Select the tag from the dropdown menu.

For convenience when propagating or rolling over a fund for a new fiscal year, fund tags will be copied from the current fund to the new year’s fund.

Ordering

Providers (Required)

Providers are the vendors from whom you order titles.

  1. To add a provider record, select Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Providers. Alternatively, you can access this from Acquisitions → Provider Search.

  2. Enter information about the provider. At a minimum, you need to add a Provider Name, Code, Owner, and Currency. You also need to select the Active checkbox to use the provider.

Distribution Formulas (Optional)

If you are ordering for a multi-branch library system, distribution formulas are a useful way to specify the number of items that should be distributed to specific branches and item locations.

  1. To create a distribution formula, select Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Distribution Formulas. Click the New Formula button. Enter the formula name and select the owning library. Ignore the Skip Count field.

  2. Click New Entry. Select an Owning Library from the drop down menu. This indicates the branch that will receive the items.

  3. Select a Shelving Location from the drop down menu.

  4. In the Item Count field, enter the number of items that should be distributed to that branch and copy location. You can enter the number or use the arrows on the right side of the field.

  5. Keep adding entries until the distribution formula is complete.

Helpful acquisitions Library Settings

There are several acquisitions Library Settings available that will help with acquisitions workflow. These settings can be found at Administration → Local Administration → Library Settings Editor.

  • Default circulation modifier - Automatically applies a default circulation modifier to all of your acquisitions items. Useful if you use a specific circulation modifier for on-order items.

  • Default copy location - Automatically applies a default item location (e.g. On Order) to acquisitions items.

  • Temporary barcode prefix - Applies a unique prefix to the barcode that is automatically generated during the acquisitions process.

  • Temporary call number prefix - Applies a unique prefix to the start of the call number that is automatically generated during the acquisitions process.

Preparing for order record loading

If your library is planning to upload order records in a batch, you need to add some information to your provider records so that Evergreen knows how to map the item data contained in the order record.

  1. Retrieve the record for the provider that has supplied the order records by selecting Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Providers. Alternatively, you can access this from Acquisitions → Provider Search.

  2. Double-click the Provider name in the results grid to retrieve the Provider.

  3. Select the Holdings Definitions tab.

  4. Add the MARC tag that contains your holdings data in the Holdings Tag field.

  5. To map the tag’s subfields to the appropriate copy data, select the New Holding Subfield button. Add the appropriate subfield and name, and select Save.

  6. If your vendor is sending other data in a MARC tag that needs to be mapped to a field in acquisitions, you can do so by selecting the Attribute Definitions tab. As an example, if you need to import the PO Name, you could set up an attribute definition by adding an XPath similar to:

    code => purchase_order
xpath => //*[@tag="962"]/*[@code="p"]
Is Identifier => false

    where 962 is the holdings tag and p is the subfield that contains the PO Name.

Preparing to send electronic orders from Evergreen

If your library wants to transmit electronic order information to a vendor, you will need to configure your server to use EDI. You need to install the EDI translator and EDI scripts on your server by following the instructions in the command line system administration manual.

Configure your provider’s EDI information by selecting Administration → Acquisitions Administration → EDI Accounts. Alternatively, you can add a new EDI Account from the EDI tab in the Provider Details interface. Click New EDI Account Button. Give the account a name in the Label box.

  1. Host is the vendor-assigned FTP/SFTP/SSH hostname.

  2. Username is the vendor-assigned FTP/SFTP/SSH username.

  3. Password is the vendor-assigned FTP/SFTP/SSH password.

  4. Account This field enables you to add a supplemental password for entry to a remote system after log in has been completed. This field is optional for the ILS but may be required by your provider.

  5. Owner is the organizational unit who owns the EDI account

  6. Last Activity is the date of last activity for the account

  7. Provider is a link to the codes for the Provider record.

  8. Path is the path on the vendor’s server where Evergreen will deposit its outgoing order files.

  9. Incoming Directory is the path on the vendor’s server where Evergreen will retrieve incoming order responses and invoices.

  10. Vendor Account Number is the Vendor assigned account number.

  11. Vendor Assigned Code is usually a sub-account designation. It can be used with or without the Vendor Account Number.

You now need to add this EDI Account and the SAN code to the provider’s record.

  1. Select Administration → Acquisitions Administration → Providers. Alternatively, you can access this from Acquisitions → Provider Search.

  2. Double-click the Provider name in the results grid to retrieve the Provider.

  3. Select the account you just created in the EDI Default field.

  4. Add the vendor-provided SAN code to the SAN field.

  5. Select Save to save your changes.

The last step is to add your library’s SAN code to Evergreen.

  1. Select Administration → Server Administration → Organizational Units.

  2. Select your library from the organizational hierarchy in the left pane.

  3. Click the Addresses tab and add your library’s SAN code to the SAN field.

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