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WorldShare Acquisitions release notes, May 2021

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Release Date: May 27, 2021

Introducción

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:

  • Enhanced support for bulk subscription renewal workflows
  • Use of institution currency grid for the exchange rate on orders and invoices
  • Displaying notes for merged serials when receiving
  • HTTP order notification configuration

Many of these enhancements are the direct result of your feedback.

Recommended actions

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.

Administrative actions

These items require immediate action or decisions.

Acción

None at this time.

Follow-up actions

In an effort to keep your staff informed of new features and changes, you may also want to consider these items.

Acción

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.

New features and enhancements

Enhanced support for bulk subscription renewal workflows

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. 

Add items to one order per vendor

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:

  1. Open the renewal list in question (Orders > Renewal Lists)
  2. In the Renewal List Setting accordion, select "One order per vendor" under Order Creation.

    one-order-per-vendor.png

  3. Save the renewal list by clicking on the Save button at the top of the page.
  4. When you renew the renewal list, it will place all new order items in one new order per vendor.

Clear remaining encumbrances

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:

  1. Open the renewal list in question (Orders > Renewal Lists)
  2. In the Renewal List Setting accordion, select "Clear any remaining encumbrance" under Encumbrances.

    clear-enc.png

  3. Save the renewal list by clicking on the Save button at the top of the page.
  4. When you renew the renewal list, it will clear any remaining encumbrance for the subscription items being renewed as long as the item is both paid by the amount and has at least one invoice.

Complete monographic series

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.

  1. Open the renewal list in question (Orders > Renewal Lists)
  2. In the Renewal List Setting accordion, select "Complete monographic series" under Monographic Series.

    complete-mono.png

  3. Save the renewal list by clicking on the Save button at the top of the page.
  4. When you renew the renewal list, it will complete any monographic series that are among the subscription items being renewed, as long as all added volumes are received.

Warning when renewing items from multiple vendors and using the single order option

 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:

  1. Open a renewal list (Orders > Renewal Lists) that uses the "Add items to a single order" option under Order Creation (in the Renewal List Settings).
  2. Add items from multiple vendors to this list.
  3. Click Actions at top of the renewal list page and select Renew Item(s). The warning will appear in the resulting confirmation dialog.multiple-vendors.png

Use of institution currency grid for the exchange rate on orders and invoices

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:

  1. Log into WMS with a user that has the Acquisitions Admin role. 
  2. Go to Settings > Exchange Rates in the left-hand menu. 

    exchange-rates.png

  3. The Exchange Rates page will display.  If you have previously entered exchange rates, they will display.  Otherwise, the table will be empty.
  4. To create a new rate, click Create Rate.
  5. A dialog will appear.  Select the foreign currency for which you want to enter an exchange rate.  Then enter the exchange rate between that currency and your home institution's currency.  (This would be the exchange rate you have arranged to use when ordering or invoicing a vendor.)  

    create-rate.png

  6. Once you have entered the values, click Save at the bottom of the dialog.

    create-rate-2.png

  7. The rate will display in the table of Exchange Rates, along with the date and user who last modified the exchange rate.

    exchange-rates-2.png

  8. You can sort Exchange Rates by Foreign Currency, Exchange Rate value, and Last Modified Date.
  9. To edit an existing exchange rate, click on the Foreign Currency you want to edit in the Exchange Rates table.

    foreign-currency.png

  10. To delete a rate, check the box for the row(s) you want to delete, then select Delete at the top of the page.

    delete-rate.png

  11. To use a rate previously entered, simply click on the Use Current Rate next to the Exchange Rate on an order or invoice.

    use-current-rate.png

  12. This will take the value from the Exchange Rates table first, and then, if this currency is not in the Exchange Rates table, it will retrieve the current exchange rate from our exchange rate service layer.

Display notes for merged serials when receiving

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:

  1. Search Discover Items for a serial OCLC Number that has been merged.
  2. This OCLC Number will now turn up the new record that the old record was merged into.
  3. Open this serial title.
  4. The notes at the top of the Issues page will display both notes from the old serial record as well as the new serial record.

Configure HTTP Order notification

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:

  1. Log into WorldShare Acquisitions using a user with the Acquisitions Admin role.
  2. Click on Settings > Administration in the left-hand menu.settings.png
  3. Click on the Order Notification accordion.
  4. In this accordion, enter the URL, username, and password for the server where you want HTTP place order notifications to be posted.order-notification.png
  5. Once you have entered a valid URL, username, and password, the system will post an HTTP message with a link to the order to the URL you have provided whenever an order is placed.

Bug fixes

Expended link on the budget page now working

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.

Import of fund codes is now case insensitive

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. 

Known issues

Warning about multiple vendors always displays when the single order option is selected.

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.

Important links

Support website(s)

Support information for this product and related products can be found at: