Release Date: May 27, 2021
This release of WorldShare Acquisitions provides 4 new features and enhancements in addition to numerous bug fixes. These features will help you manage more complex workflows, including:
Many of these enhancements are the direct result of your feedback.
For this release, we recommend that you review the following checklists and complete the relevant tasks so that you can adjust your policies and workflows and train your staff. These checklists identify updates that we have determined as significant for most institutions. We encourage you to review all of the items in the release notes to determine whether there are other items that might require additional action or follow up by your institution.
These items require immediate action or decisions.
Action |
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None at this time. |
In an effort to keep your staff informed of new features and changes, you may also want to consider these items.
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Consider adjusting internal documentation for subscription renewal based on new subscription renewal features. |
Consider adding exchange rates for any currency hedges your institution has arranged. |
There are a number of features this release that enhance the bulk subscription renewal process. Please use these features to more easily renew subscriptions that are ready for renewal.
When renewing a renewal list, you can now add all new items to a single order per vendor. This enables you to group items by another method besides grouping them all in one order or using the same order structure as the order items being renewed. With this option, the system creates one order per vendor during renewal, naming each order Subscription order - [Vendor Name] - [Date]. Previously, you could add items from the renewal list to orders that mirrored the orders being renewed or you could add orders to a single order, but you could not add them to one order per vendor. Now, you can.
To add items to one order per vendor during renewal:
During renewal, you can now clear remaining encumbrances for subscriptions that are invoiced by amount and that have at least one invoice. This saves you the time and effort of manually finding subscriptions with remaining encumbrances and clearing them after renewal. Previously, to clear encumbrances, you either needed to clear the encumbrance when you added the final invoice item to a subscription, or you needed to search for order items that were disencumbered by the amount and had a remaining encumbrance and clear them one-by-one. Now, you can clear encumbrances as part of the renewal process, since presumably most subscriptions are fully invoiced by the time they are renewed.
To clear remaining encumbrances for subscription items:
You can now mark receiving as complete for monographic series subscriptions where all added volumes are received. This saves you the time and effort of manually finding these uncompleted monographic series and completing them one-by-one. Previously, to complete monographic series, you either needed to complete the series when you received the final volume of the series, or you needed to search for monographic series that were received and complete them one-by-one. Now, you can complete monographic series as part of the renewal process, since presumably most monographic series are completely received at renewal time.
Note: Due to a last-minute issue discovered with this functionality, this warning incorrectly displays even if the order items for the renewal list uses only a single vendor. This is listed under Known Issues and will be fixed in the next release.
You will now receive a warning when renewing items from multiple vendors and using the single order option under Order Creation. This will prevent potential errors when renewing items. Previously, when using the "Add items to a single order" option under Order Creation, the system would not warn you when the items being renewed were from multiple vendors. Now, the system will warn you that you may want to select another Order Creation option or remove some items from your renewal list if you have selected the single order option but the items being renewed are from multiple vendors.
To be warned when renewing items from multiple vendors:
You can now enter pre-established exchange rates for various currencies and use these on orders and invoices that are in foreign currencies. This helps ensure that your institution uses the exchange rate that the institution has arranged for each foreign currency on all orders and invoices. This is especially helpful when the institution has purchased currency "hedges" that ensure a certain exchange rate is used when paying invoices in foreign currencies. Previously, the user had to note any such exchange rates outside of WMS and then copy that exchange rate into the order or invoice. Now, you simply need to enter the pre-determined exchange rate on the Exchange Rates screen and then click the Use Current Rate button on the order or invoice page.
To configure exchange rates and use them on the order and invoice:
You can now view the notes for serial titles that have been merged into the current serial title. This is part of a feature that will be released in the coming months to allow transfer of serials data (e.g. most recent issue, publication pattern, and receiving status) to a new serial record that is replacing a deleted record. This new feature will allow you to easily keep receiving issues on the new serial record without manually recreating the data on the new record. Previously, you had to recreate notes on a new serial record that is replacing an older record. Now, notes for both the new serial record and the old serial record will display together. As always, you can edit these notes, if you desire.
To view notes from a merged serial record:
You can now configure the HTTP order notification feature, rather than having to ask OCLC Support staff to do this for you. This saves you the time and effort of communicating changes to OCLC staff for this service. Previously, you had to contact OCLC Support Staff to configure HTTP order notification for WorldShare Acquisitions. Now, you can simply configure this setting yourself.
Note: This HTTP order notification feature, once configured by the library, will result in the system posting a HTTP message to the URL provided whenever an order is placed. This can allow the library to set up a piece of software to listen for these messages, retrieving the order and synchronizing it with a campus financial system.
To configure the HTTP order notification feature:
You can now click on the Expended amount on a budget and be taken to the invoice items that are paid for this fund code. Previously, some institutions would click on the Expended amount, but the invoice item search would not return any results. The only way to see these results was to remove the Invoice Status filter from the search. Now, when clicking on the Expended link, the invoice items that are paid for that fund code will always display.
You can now import fund codes using the MARC order import, and the fund codes provided in the file will match to fund codes in the system regardless of the case of the fund code. A problem was introduced with the last release that made the matching logic for the order import case sensitive when it comes to fund codes. This meant that if the fund code in the MARC file was all upper case and the fund code in WMS was all lower case, the fund codes would not match. However, we have removed the case sensitivity when it comes to matching incoming fund codes, and now as long as the characters between the fund codes are the same (regardless of case) the system will match to the correct fund.
When renewing a renewal list with order items from multiple vendors, a warning should display when the single order option is selected. However, this warning is always displaying even if the order items are only from a single vendor. We will fix this in an upcoming release.
Support information for this product and related products can be found at: