"Lost Items Found Yesterday" report

(updated 8/19/2021)

About this Report

This daily report (generated by CARLI staff and uploaded to your CARLI FTP folder) lists the items whose "Process Type" was updated to "Found Item" when the item was returned the day before (aka discharged from the user’s account) and includes the associated borrowing user’s information.

• Differences in lost workflows:
  • Items migrated from Voyager to Alma as Lost:
    • Some items were migrated from Voyager to Alma with the Lost status already applied.
    • When these materials are returned or are manually marked "found" in Alma, Alma will update the lost item's status, but Alma cannot automatically forgive the lost replacement fine.
    • Staff will want to review the "Lost Items Found Yesterday" report for returned items with a loan date before 6/2020. For these items, staff will need to manually waive the lost replacement fine.
  • Items that became Lost in Alma:
    • Items may become lost in Alma, either by staff manually setting them to Lost or by Alma applying the lost status automatically per the settings in the configured lost profiles.
    • When these materials are returned or are manually marked "found" in Alma, Alma will update the lost item's status, and assuming the library is following best practices will automatically forgive the lost replacement fine for the item.
• Uses for this report:
  • Staff will want to review the "Lost Items Found Yesterday" report for returned items with a loan date before 6/2020; these items were loaned in Voyager and there is not currently a way in Analytics to identify when they went into Lost status. For these items, staff will need to manually waive the lost replacement fine as Alma cannot waive the fine automatically when the item is returned or manually marked found.
  • Use the report to perform manual (non-Alma-initiated) bursar refunds or transcript hold blocks, as appropriate.
• Report generation details:
  • CARLI generates "Lost Items Found Yesterday" report daily at approximately 7:15am, and places it into your library's FTP account with the filename Lost Items Found Yesterday XXX yyyymmdd.xlsx.
  • The report is exported as a Microsoft Excel report.
  • The report will still be generated even if no lost items were charged or discharged; on those days, the report will say "No Lost Items Found Yesterday for  yyyymmdd".
• Important Notes about the data:
  • This report ONLY includes items that were updated as FOUND_ITEM when staff returned/discharged the item from the user's account. It does NOT include any items that were manually updated to FOUND_ITEM, if the item remains checked out to the patron.
    • Why? There is currently no date in Alma Analytics that can be used to report when the Process Status of FOUND_ITEM was applied to the transaction.
      • As such, CARLI Office staff needed to use the Return Date field for the "daily" date metric for this report.
      • Since Return Date only includes data when the item is returned/discharged from the user's account, only items that are updated as FOUND_ITEM when the item is returned/discharged will be contained in this report.
  • The Lost Items Found Yesterday report is created from a combination of two reports in Alma, combining data gathered across two days.
    • CARLI Office staff run both reports, use magic to combine the reports together, and then export the data for each I-Share institution.
    • NOTE that if "today" is Monday:
      • The first report that CARLI runs to create the Lost Items Found Yesterday report includes the borrowing patron information for all items that have a LOST or a CLAIMS_RETURNED process. This data is exported from Alma "the day before yesterday" aka, as of Saturday night at 6/7pm.
      • The second report that CARLI runs to create the Lost Items Found Yesterday report includes the information about items that were returned in Alma, and subsequently have their process status updated to FOUND_ITEM. This data is exported from Alma "yesterday" aka, as of Sunday night at 6/7pm.
  • Most transactions reported will have the associated patron's information. Use this information to double-check fines and fees forgiven, and to make manual (outside of Alma) bursar refunds or transcript hold changes, as applicable.
  • Due to Alma Analytics not being "real-time" data, there will be transactions missing or not fully recorded in this report.
    • Example scenarios:
      • The "Loans- Overdue and Lost Loans" job runs every night at 10pm; this is the job that automatically sets an item to Lost status in Alma. Since the 10pm run of the job is AFTER the 6/7pm export of data from Alma for Analytics, items that go Lost are not able to be included as Lost until the following day's report. As such, if the patron returns the item the day after it goes to lost status, the Found process update will be recorded before the patron data could be included in the report. In this case, the item will be included in the report, but without borrowing patron information.
      • It is possible that an item was on loan to one patron in Lost process, returned, and is now checked out to a different patron; if the transactions happen within a two day span,
      • If an item that was in Claims Returned process is manually updated by staff to be "Found" in Alma, rather than returned, the item will not be included in the report. This is because we needed to use the "Return" date to generate the "daily" report.
      • If an item that was in Lost process is manually updated by staff to be "Found" in Alma, rather than returned, the item will not be included in the report. This is because we needed to use the "Return" date to generate the "daily" report.

Data included in Report

Report Columns

1. Institution Code - Your institution's 3 letter I-Share code.
2. Institution Name - Your institution's name as recorded in Alma.
3. Data Available As Of - The date that the FOUND information values were exported from Alma for import into Alma Analytics; this is the date and time the date is "current" as of.
4. Data Updated As Of - The date that the FOUND information values were imported into Alma Analytics.
5. Item ID - The unique identifier number in Alma for the item.
6. Barcode - The barcode for the item.
7. Process Type - This will contain the status of either LOST or CLAIMS_RETURNED, as, those are the only two process types included in this report.
8. Library Name - The name of the library at your institution where the item was located at time of loan.
9. Location Name - The name of the location at your institution where the item was located at time of loan.
10. Call Number - The call number of the item at time of loan.
11. Item Loan ID - The unique identifier number in Alma for the loan transaction.
12. Process Status - This will contain the value FOUND_ITEM for all rows, indicating that the item has been "found" in Alma when the item was returned/discharged from the user's account.
13. Loan Status - This will contain the value COMPLETE for all rows, indicating that the item has been returned/discharged from the user's account.
14. Loan Date - The date that the item was originally loaned/charged to the user's account.
15. Due Date - The current due date for the item.
16. Return Date - The date the item was returned/discharged from the user's account. This date is the value for the "Today" used to calculate the "Lost Items Found Today" list each day.
17. Item Description - May contain the volume number, copy number, issue number, etc. for the item.
18. User - Linked from Institution Name - If the user is a local patron for your home institution, this value will be blank. If the user is from another I-Share library, their home institution will be listed in this column.
19. User Primary ID - The user's primary ID in your Alma IZ. If the user is an I-Share patron, this identifier was randomly generated by Alma, and is NOT the patron's primary ID in their home institution. If the user is a local patron, this identifier will be the user's regular primary ID.
20. User Group - The user's user group at time of charge.
21. Last Name - The user's last name as recorded in Alma.
22. First Name - The user's first name as recorded in Alma.
23. Middle Name - The user's middle name as recorded in Alma.
24. Preferred Last Name - The user's preferred last name as recorded in Alma.
25. Preferred First Name - The user's preferred first name as recorded in Alma.
26. Preferred Middle Name - The user's preferred middle name as recorded in Alma.
27. User Last Activity Date - The last date that the user performed activity in your Alma environment (loan, renewal, request, etc.)
28. Expiry Date - The user record's expiration date.
29. Purge Date - The user record's purge date.
30. Preferred Email - The user's preferred email address as recorded in Alma.
31. Title - The title of the item that was on loan and in a lost or claims returned status.

Additional information

Follow the How To: Lost Processes in Alma when dealing with lost items.

Send any questions or comments about this report to support@carli.illinois.edu.