Vendor Management until we go live on Alma

Vendor records were extracted from Aleph on November 22, 2023 and then loaded to Alma by the ExLibris migration team in December. This process won’t be repeated during our cutover phase in June, 2024, so the vendor information that currently exists in Alma is our “go-live” production data. Only new vendors that are added to Aleph between November 22 and mid-June 2024 will be migrated to Alma during cutover in June.

I need to add a new vendor. Where should I add it? Add new vendors to Aleph. The ExLibris team has agreed to extract new vendors from Aleph in June and load them to Alma so that they’ll be in the system when orders and invoices are migrated. If you also want to add it to Alma that should be OK as long as you set it up with the same vendor code and other information so that any migrating orders/invoices will link up to the correct vendor.
I need to edit a vendor that existed in Aleph before Nov 22, 2023 (add notes, change address information, set it to inactive etc.). Where should I make those changes? Updates need to be made in both systems, Aleph and Alma. The Alma changes can be made at any time between now and June 14, 2024 which is our “freeze” data for Alma vendor and configuration changes until we go live on July 10, 2024.

The rest of this page contains step-by-step instructions to update existing vendors in Alma.

Edit an existing vendor

Open a browser and navigate to our instance of Alma: https://duke.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/SAML
Login using your Duke NetID and password. The Alma landing page opens and you should see a menu option on the left side for Acquisitions.

Click on the Acquisitions icon. The list of available acquisitions functions varies based on permissions. Under Acquisitions Infrastructure, select Vendors as seen below.

A result list window opens containing the list of all vendors, as indicated by the text “1-20 of 7,655” at the top left of the result list. To search for a specific vendor that you need to edit, use the persistent search bar at the top of your screen, as seen below. Search by the vendor code or name assigned in Aleph.

To refine your search, click on the second drop-down list, All, and choose a different search facet. The available facets for vendor records are All (which will interrogate all of the following facets), Code, Interface Name, Libraries, Name, or SUSHI Account Name.

It’s also important to notice that the search looks for Active vendors. This means you might search for a vendor that’s inactive and not find them. If you’re unsure of the status of the vendor you need, change the “Vendor Status” filter to “All.”

In the example below, the search “amalivre” returned one result. Alma highlights the text “amalivre” in yellow so it’s easy to see why this record was returned. To edit the record, click on the elipses button on the far right of the vendor row as shown with the arrow below. Click Edit to open the vendor record for editing.

The record opens on the Summary tab containing general info about the vendor. Use the Status field to change the vendor to Inactive or Active. The Additional code field contains the Duke AP/SAP identifier for this vendor.

To make changes to the vendor address, email, or phone information, click on the Contact Information tab at the top and you’ll see the screen below. Notice that the contact information is arranged differently than Aleph. All addresses are listed together with a category listed (EDI, Order, Payment, etc). Use the “…” button to edit the addresses, emails, phone numbers, and web addresses.

You might notice that the email address contain the text “SCRUBBED.” ExLibris inserted this text to avoid inadvertant communications with vendors during our testing/implementation phase. They’ll remove that text during our cutover period in June.

The Web Addresses edit screen includes an area for notes related to the web address:

To add general notes about the vendor, choose the Notes tab.

You’ll see notes that were migrated from Aleph and you can add a new note by clicking Add Note as seen below.

When you’re done adding note text, click Add.
When you’re done making changes to vendor Summary, Contact Information, or Notes tabs be sure to click Save.
If you don’t want to retain any changes to the vendor, click Cancel.