Alma Search and Navigation

Navigating in Alma is the same as navigating on any website - use side and menu navigation to get to pages, and follow links on the page to get to related information.

Persistent (Main) Menu

The menu on the left of every page in Alma allows you to quick shift from one function to another. The menu is organized by functional areas:

Acquisitions - Everything related to orders, invoices, funds and ledgers, vendors, and electronic resource licenses.

Resources - Cataloging and inventory management for all materials, regardless of format. Includes import and publishing functions.

Fulfillment - Any function that fulfills a patron or library request: circulation, resource sharing, course reserves, temporary moves and deposits, and more.

Admin - Most staff will use this for Managing Sets and Managing Jobs, but it also includes system/functional area administrator functionality.

Analytics - Use to run or subscribe to existing reports and dashboards, or access Alma Analytics to create analyses.

Quick Links

On the main menu, you can identify Quick Links for a few functions that you use often or use so infrequently you can never find them.

To set your Quick Links:

1. Hover over the menu heading you want, and find the function you want to turn into a Quick Link
2. Hover over that function until you see a star outline to the left of it
3. Click on the star (not the name of the function) to turn the star blue. Now, it's a Quick Link.

To remove a Quick Link, click the blue star to turn it grey again.

To see your Quick Links:

1. On the main menu bar, click the icon at the top of the menu list
2. This will open your Quick Links.
3. You can choose to pin your Quick Links menu to the top of your Alma screen

Side Navigation and Facets

In Alma, there are two kinds of navigation available on the left side of a page:

• Facets are available on search results pages and monitoring lists to limit to the records by type, status, or other information.
• Left navigation is available in the Metadata Editor, Alma Analytics, and Alma Configuration to guide you to specific locations to work on or in.

Linked Information in Records

Many records contain links to related information, identified by blue text instead of black. Click on the link to go to the related information or records. Example:

Some examples:

Item records - click on the Barcode to edit the item record or view its history; click on other links for the Title record, related requests, course reserve lists, and orders.

Order records - click on Invoice, Vendor, Fund, or Title information to see those records

Fund and Vendor records - click through to see related fund, transaction, invoice, and vendor records