Organizing Work - Acquisitions

NOTIS:
In NOTIS, most titles have a one-to-one relationship with the purchase order (OPR), i.e. for every title there is one purchase order. Titles with multiple copies have a one-to-many relationship to the purchase order, i.e., for those titles there are multiple purchase orders.

Also in NOTIS the ordering process starts with the creation of a bibliographic record (either by deriving from LTLC, importing from RLIN/OCLC or keying the record).  The purchase order is created after the bibliographic record is created.

VOYAGER:
Voyager is the exact opposite of NOTIS.  In Voyager titles have a many-to-one relationship with the purchase order.  Each purchase order can have many titles attached.  By convention at Yale we will attach no more than 99 titles to a purchase order.

Also in Voyager, the ordering process starts with the creation of the purchase order.  Once the purchase order is created, titles are added to it as line items. 

WORKFLOW CHANGES:
Because Voyager is designed to have many titles per purchase order, our ordering workflows will change to take advantage of order batching. 

When preparing to create a purchase order, pull together everything that has the same order type (approval, continuation, depository, exchange, firm order or gift), that will be ordered from the same vendor, and that has the same Order, Ship To and Bill locations.

Start by creating the purchase order and indicate the order type, vendor, and locations.

Once the purchase order is created, you will search for records to attach to it as line items.   Add between 1-99 titles (line items). 

1) First, from within the new purchase order, search your entire batch of titles in Orbis to see if we already own the title. Add titles to the purchase order for additional copies or eliminate duplicate orders as per your departmental policies.

2) Next, search all the titles that were not found in Orbis against the LC Resource file (LCDB).
Add all found titles to the purchase order as line items.  Remember to disconnect from the LCDB when you have finished searching all titles.

3) Third, switch to the Voyager Cataloging module.  Search all the titles that were not found in LCDB in OCLC, RLIN or other external source according to your departmental policies.  Export and/or pass these records to your local workstation files.  Import these records into Voyager.  Remember to change your character mapping. Failure to match character mapping to the imported record source will result in corrupt records. Perform authority validation as per your departmental policies. Record the bib id for the imported records.

4) Next, while still in Voyager cataloging, create new records for any titles that were not found in the earlier searches.  Perform authority validation as per your departmental policies.
Record the bib id for the keyed records.

5) Return to Acquisitions and your purchase order.  Using the bib id, add the titles you imported into the Voyager Cataloging module from RLIN, OCLC or other external source as line items to the purchase order. Finally, using the bib id add the titles you created manually within the Cataloging module as line items.

Before the end of the day, approve all purchase orders.  Do not allow purchase orders to remain unapproved overnight.