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About branch-based acquisitions

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Discover an overview of branch-based acquisitions, including a detailed explanation of how enabling the feature affects areas of WorldShare Acquisitions.

 Caution: Enabling branch-based acquisitions is a permanent change in WMS, and it cannot be disabled. Please pay close attention to the changes that this feature makes, as this change impacts almost every screen in the standard Acquisitions workflow.

Overview

The branch-based acquisitions feature allows branches to manage their own acquisition data and workflows autonomously. When enabled, each branch is able to manage all of its own processes and functionality, including ordering, receiving, invoicing, importing, and purchase requests.

Summary of branch-based functionality across Acquisitions:

  • All data is prefiltered by your login branch
  • You can view data for all branches, but can only edit data for branches where you have the appropriate roles or permissions
  • Branch consistency is required for transactions
    • Purchase requests, orders, and invoices must all match to the same branch
    • The system will provide a warning if the branches do not match

 Learn more in a Community Center presentation: WorldShare Acquisitions branch-based acquisitions overview (Requires Community Center login)

 Note: The branch-based functionality differs from claiming by branch and must be enabled separately. For more details, see Claiming by branch.

Enable branch-based acquisitions

If you are sure that branch-based acquisitions is right for your library's needs, please contact OCLC staff for next steps. You can do this by contacting OCLC Support in your region, or reaching out to your implementation team.

Roles

There are several roles specific to branch-based acquisitions. To view full details of available roles and information on how to manage and assign roles, see Branch-based acquisitions roles.

Important notes about branch roles:

  • Each user can have institution roles, branch roles, or both
  • Branch-based roles only have editing permissions at their specific branch
  • Institution roles do not automatically cover branch-only actions, and branch roles do not override institution roles
  • Most libraries utilizing this functionality will assign each user roles only for the branch they work at

Departments

Departments function as sub-units of a branch. You can set up departments to represent different areas of a branch. For example: monographs department, serials department, etc. 

To add a new Acquisitions department:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Administration > Acquisitions Departments.
  2. From the Branch drop-down menu, select the branch that you would like to add the department to.
  3. Click Add Acquisitions Department.
  4. On the Add Acquisitions Department screen, fill in the information:
    1. Name of department.
    2. Department ID.
    3. Choose a status:
      • Active
      • Inactive

         Note: Only active departments are available for selection.

    4. (Optional) Add a description.
  5. Click Add. 

Sign in to WorldShare

  • When you have permission for more than one branch, you will see the option to choose a branch when logging into WorldShare
  • When you choose a branch on login, the rest of your session will be for that branch until you log out

For more information, see Sign in to Acquisitions. 

Branch-based acquisitions functionality

When using branch-based acquisitions, many areas of functionality default to your specific login branch. The changes to functionality when using branch-based acquisitions are listed below by area.

Budgets

  • Information on budget pages is filtered by the login branch
  • Funds displayed on budget pages are associated with the login branch
  • When creating a parent fund, you can select one or more branches where the fund should be available
  • All child funds will automatically be assigned to the branch of the parent fund

For more information, see Budgets and funds.

Purchase requests

  • When creating a purchase request:
    • The Acquisitions Branch defaults to the login branch
  • When searching purchase requests:
    • Pending requests are prefiltered to the login branch
    • Purchase requests for all branches in your institution can be viewed but not edited, unless you have permissions for that branch

For more information, see Purchase requests.

Orders

  • The Existing Orders list is prefiltered to orders assigned to the login branch
  • When creating an order: 
    • The Acquisitions Branch defaults to the login branch
    • Optionally, you can add an Acquisitions Department if you have created any
    • Funds are prefiltered to the login branch
  • You cannot change the Acquisitions Branch after creating an order
  • The branch of an invoice and the branch of an order must match each other to place the order

For more information, see Orders and order items.

Order item templates

  • When applying an order item template:
    • The list of available order item templates is prefiltered to the login branch

For more information, see Manage order item templates.

Invoices and invoice items

  • When adding an item to an invoice:
    • The Acquisitions Branch defaults to the login branch
    • Optionally, you can add an Acquisitions Department if you have created any
  • When searching invoices:
    • The Acquisitions Branch filter defaults to the login branch
    • Invoices for all branches in your institution can be viewed but not edited, unless you have permissions for that branch
  • When searching invoice items:
    • The Acquisitions Branch filter defaults to the login branch
    • Invoice items for all branches in your institution can be viewed but not edited, unless you have permissions for that branch

For more information, see Invoices.

Automated jobs

  • You can select an Acquisitions Branch when creating jobs of the following types:
    • Invoice Import (EDIFACT)
    • Order Import (MARC)
    • Invoice and Shelf-ready Import (MARC)
  • If you have roles for multiple branches, you can import data for multiple branches for jobs of the following types:
    • Import order response data (EDIFACT)
    • Shelf Ready Import (EDIFACT)

For more information, see Import.

Vendor pages

  • Under Links and Logins, each link can belong to a single branch
  • Vendor contacts can belong to one or multiple branches
  • You can filter Import/Export by branch
  • Customer account numbers can be branch-specific
  • You can set up branch-based notification and EDIFACT settings in a new section on the vendor page
  • The My Branch filter on a vendor page:
    • Defaults to your login branch
    • Allows you to choose which branch's information you would like to view
    • Updates all vendor page content to show data for the chosen branch

For more information, see Vendors.