Folder Locations and What is Stored Where
My Folders
- My Folders: A workspace accessible only to you, for storing analyses in development or very specialized analyses (such as ones geared to a specific project).
Shared Folders
- Shared Folders > Alma: Analyses created by Ex Libris. A good starting point to find existing analyses, but most require modification to be applicable to the Harvard environment.
- Shared Folders > Community: Analyses created and shared by other Alma peer libraries. A good source of ideas and potentially usable or modifiable analyses, but use with caution, as other libraries’ definitions and workflows may be very different.
- Shared Folders > Harvard University > _Collaboration: A place to temporarily put an analysis in development so that you can work on it with another Harvard colleague or colleagues. You may create subfolders in this folder as needed.
- Shared Folders > Harvard University > _Departmental Reports: A place for analyses developed for use by a particular department. Folders can be added.
- Shared Folders > Harvard University > [Subject Area Folders]: “Canned reports” created for general use by Harvard Library report writers. Although customized for our environment, please still confirm that they apply to your unit’s workflow. Subject area folders are sorted alphabetically.
Where to Save Your Analysis
Analyses in Shared Folders > Harvard University are designed to meet a broad set of needs and may not be modified. If you want to use an analysis in Harvard University folders as the basis of a new analysis, first save a copy to My Folders.
Shared Folders > Harvard University is accessible by all Analytics users at Harvard, and subject to guidelines on folder structure, naming, and description.
My Folders: Whether modified or new-from-scratch, if you are working on an analysis is in process (not yet working, not yet fully formatted, or not yet described), save it in My Folders.
This is your folder to do with as you wish. The contents are not accessible to other Analytics users. You may save multiple versions of analyses as needed during analysis development and use your own naming convention to distinguish drafts.
You can also create subfolders for different projects, types of analyses, or analyses on different Analytics subject areas.
If an analysis is in development and you wish to share it with a Harvard colleague in order to collaborate, save it in Shared Folders > Harvard University > _Collaboration. If you work on analyses in the _Collaboration folder, you may want to keep a backup in My Folders, since analyses in this folder may be changed or deleted by others.
Analysis Name/Title Best Practices
Required: <what you’re measuring> by <what you have as detail>
Optional add-ons to name if you have multiple versions of the analysis or if otherwise appropriate:
– summary / detail
– chart / list / summary
– with prompt / without prompt
– print format / download format
Note: Version numbers are helpful when developing an analysis but do not include them in the name of the analysis in Shared Folders. You are encouraged to add the version number to the Description area of the analysis.
Analysis Description Best Practices
The Description area appears under the analysis title in the Analytics Catalog. Description text is searchable.
Include this information, in this order:
Purpose of the analysis: This should be brief, and understandable to a reader who does not create analyses themselves.
Technical details: These are things that will help other analysis creators understand how the analysis was constructed. This may include notes about what dimensions, measures, filters and/or prompts are included, particularly any fields, measures, formulas that are not visible on the Criteria tab.
Version history: If the analysis is a modified version of an analysis from Alma or Community shared folders, include the original name (so that it is possible to go back and look at the original if desired).
Creator: Record author and date in parentheses (first and last name YYYY-MM-DD) at the end of description
Description Area Format
Separate the different elements of the description with dash-dash (i.e. -- )
Avoid the use of initials, special characters, or abbreviations.
Look at how the description appears in the Catalog, which shows only the first few lines of the description. The full description will show up if you go into Properties, but most people will view it in the Catalog index.
Examples of Well-Named and -Described Analyses
These are three different examples of well-named and well-described analyses, using the Best Practices above:
