Alma Reviews & Product Details

Alma allows a library good access to their own data - the Alma Analytics tool is pretty accessible for all staff to use and can let us create most of the reports we want. The implementation team that we worked with was excellent. Some tasks are easier in Alma than they were in our previous system (Sierra). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The customer service is not good. We regularly open tickets that take more than a week to get a substantive response, and occasionally have tickets open for months that we can't get answers on even with multiple requests for updates.

Customer service relies heavily on the enhancements process - if something isn't working the way a library expects, they tell us to submit an enhancement request for it. Because this happens so often, there are far too many important features that don't get developed.

They offer chat support, which is occasionally helpful. More often than not, though, their response is that they will open a ticket to investigate further. In those cases it would be better to have a chatbot that could open a ticket for you - at least the response times would be faster.

We've also had support issues where, a few days after the ticket is opened, they will ask for information about the issue that has already been provided in the initial ticket. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It gave a customized product. Report cards and progress reports were made to our specifications. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The reports section was awful. Unless you knew the name of the report you had scroll through all the reports in order to find the one you wanted. Nothing felt organized. I've worked with many LMS and of all of them, Alma was the least intuitive. At the time that I began using alma, they didn't even have a transcript function for schools. Later, it was full of errors and had to be checked constantly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I am able to track library patron "checkout" history, as well as manage my inventory to see what items are outstanding at the end of a given day Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface is not very user friendly. Only with the guidance of my boss, was I able to figure out how to run certain report functions. I was hoping I would have been able to figure it out on my own, but it was almost impossible. There are too many options to select in the system Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love the ability to add notes to accounts and it makes item circulation very simple. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

With every update that fixes or augments the software, some unrelated problems seems to pop up. Right now, we have to wait for the quick print pop up to go away before we can scan another book in and it slows down our process. Also, whenever I access the calendar, the copy option pops up and blocks the view of some of the calendar's contents (mainly the month). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

To my opinion Alma supports the entire suite of library operations, selection, acquisition, metadata management, digitization, and fulfillment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Alma is serving our library operations just as we thought it should and therefore i haven't experienced any disappointment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

To start with i surely enjoy the user friendly interface provided by this software. It is email enabled and this communication is simple, quick and cheap. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I hard for me to point out any dislikes for now about this software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Customization of quick links on the main page allows for easy access to most-used tools and pages. Tools for various departments can be in the same place while allowing differing levels of access based on user. There is lots of customization available to best fit our needs, and we are able to link new patrons to pre-existing institutional records. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Instead of circulation staff having their own log-in, we had to switch to one log-in for each of the two circulation computers because there was a limited number of users allowed within our budget. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Alma makes it easy to organize requested books by their location, which largely increases efficiency and productivity. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sometimes Alma generates duplicate slips, which can cause an employee to mark a book as missing, when in reality it has just been checked out already. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

As a circulation desk assistant, I use this software every day at work. It is much more modern than the last system we used, and I enjoy the functionality. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It was difficult to understand it all at first, and there were some issues that arose that had to be worked out. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

At the end of the day I get to leave it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It takes more time to do everything now. It is by far less efficient than our last system, aleph. We work with many different languages but our pick list cannot separate the languages so they are all mixed up and they are horribly ordered. Also, the simplest of things like discharging and checking out to patrons, which is by far the greatest volume of work done, is much slower than before. Simply terrible. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.