August 2020 Release - Harvard Highlights (Draft)

Ex Libris Documentation

Harvard Alma Working Groups have summarized key changes below. A full list of changes for the release can be found in the official Ex Libris Release Notes:

General Enhancements

A reminder that the Alma sandbox will be refreshed on Sunday, August 9th.
Introducing Cloud Apps, customer-written add-ons for Alma, such as the HathiTrust full-text availability tool. Watch the Ex Libris Cloud Apps in Alma video (4:22 minutes), and visit our new page for Alma Cloud Apps at Harvard. (The apps are only available to users using the New Alma Menu Layout.)
New menu layout - ability to collapse right-hand summary panel. Ex Libris screen capture
Search for Titles by Call Number Range (from 050, 060, 082, 090 of the BIB RECORD, not our holding record). The range operators <, >, <=, >= were added to Advanced search when searching for Titles. The operators work for LCC, NLM, DDC, Other.
You can now use the Create Itemized Set job to identify titles in our collections–as well as those that are not–to help facilitate purchasing decisions. For example, the job report for a list of ISBNs allows you to download a list of identifiers added to the set (titles owned), along with a list of non-matched identifiers (title not in the collection). See the Ex Libris documentation for additional details.

Analytics & Reporting

Enhancements

Resolved Issues

MARC21 'Place of Publication: the 'PLACE_OF_PUBLICATION' field of the 'MMS_DISPLAY' table (used by Analytics) is populated only with the first subfield $a of field 260, although this subfield is repeatable. This was fixed. Now all subfields $a of field 260 are extracted and concatenated with a space. Note that if the record has no 260 $a, but has 264 $a, all occurrences of 264 $a will be concatenated into the 'PLACE_OF_PUBLICATION' field.

Acquisitions/Finance

Enhancements

Edit PO line from view mode - When reviewing a PO line in view mode, an Edit option is now available. The visibility of the edit button depends on PO line status and PO line assignment. For additional information, see the Ex Libris video.

Course Reserves/Leganto

Enhancements

Resolved

E-Resources

Enhancements

In CDI label change - In order to improve the understanding of the CDI information and labels, the label for In CDI: Yes has been changed to Available for CDI search activation. Additionally, an information icon has been added indicating: This collection can be activated for search independent from its full text activation status.
CDI: activate for search - improved warning messages upon activation - When activation a collection from the Community Zone which is already Active for Search in CDI in the Institution Zone, the following warning message appears:
- Please note that this electronic collection is already in use in your institution. Are you sure you want to activate it again?
CDI: history tab changes - Previously, CDI changes recorded in the History tab of the Electronic Collection only included modification dates. The history records will now include changes for the following fields:
- CDI Search activation status
- Do not show as Full Text available in CDI even if active in Alma
- Local Notes
The following search indexes in the advanced search have been added or changed as follows:
- CDI Suppress Full Text – was added to find suppressed collections
- In CDI - the operator has changed
- CDI activation required - the operator has changed
For all of these indexes, the operator is: Equals with two values: Yes and No.

Resolved

Selecting Load Portfolios from electronic service editor in view mode threw 404 error. This was fixed. Load Portfolio and Move Set of Portfolios are now hidden in view mode and only available in edit mode.
Test Access for some portfolios triggers “Some error occurred while retrieving services” error. A data corrector was created to fix these portfolios.

Fulfillment

Enhancements

Resolved

Resource Management

Enhancements

Metadata Editor Functionality Improvements. See list at New Metadata Editor (MDE).