Analytics Overview - Training Script

Owned by Jennifer Koerber (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Oct 22, 2018 by Allison Powers
13 min read

Trainer Preparation

You will be opening Analytics to give an overview of the Catalog. Review My Folders and Shared folders and consider what you will show to the class.

  • Create some analyses and folders in My Folders (be funny if you want)

  • Plan how you will demonstrate the searching function

  • Which analysis will you run using Open


Introduction

Welcome to Alma Analytics Overview class. In this class we will focus on reports that are already available in Alma on the Analytics menu – how to find what’s available, how to run the reports and how to export results to your desktop.

We will also open Alma Analytics and introduce you to the subject areas that are available for analysis and show you where to find additional reports available to all Analytics users at Harvard.

At the end of the class, I will show you where to find Analytics documentation, instructional videos, and also how to join the Analytics community of users at Harvard by subscribing to the Reporting Discussion Group email list.

Can I get a show of hands, how many of you are Cognos users? Cognos authors? Neither of the above?

As you will see, Analytics is an open, collaborative environment with many reports already available to you to run as is, or to use as the basis of a new analysis. Reports are available for subscription and featured under the Analytics menu in Alma, so you have the option to run reports as needed or to subscribe to a report and receive report output via email on a regular schedule.

If you viewed but did not create Cognos reports and want to continue in that role, you can request that analyses be created for you by submitting a ticket to the Alma Support Center, using the link on the Alma dashboard. For anyone who wants to learn to create analyses, I encourage you to attend the class on Creating Analytics when it’s offered..

Now, if you are not already logged in to Alma production (not sandbox), please do so.

Alma Analytics Menu

[NOTE TO TRAINERS: As you describe each step through the rest of this script, do that action on the screen you’re displaying to the class.]

Let’s start by looking at the Analytics menu.  Under this menu, you can:

  • Access Design Analytics  

  • Subscribe to Analytics that have been made available for subscription, or

  • Run any of the reports listed under the Reports menu.

We will go over all of the options on the menu, and I will start with reports that can be run directly from the Analytics menu in Alma.  

Reports menu

These are reports that were created by the Analytics and Reporting Working Group to meet Day One reporting needs. There are currently 18 reports on the list. You can see that a scroll bar appears when you move your mouse to the list. Staff with the Design Analytics role can view the complete list of reports that are available on the Analytics menu.

Naming and Description

We have a naming convention for the reports on this list. The name starts with an abbreviation for the functional area for which the analysis was created in all caps. This helps create a legible display since some of the report titles wrap to a second line. It also allows us to order the reports so that those for the same functional area are together in the list.

You can see that we have several acquisitions reports, reports for e-resources, finance, fulfillment and resource management so far. Hovering over the report title displays a pop-up with a description of the report.

Design, purpose, and vetting process

To make a report available on this menu, it needs to be designed for general use and include prompts to allow filtering output for a specific library, unit, or workflow.  The Analytics and Reporting Working Group has documented uniform practices for shared reports, especially any expected to be included on the Reports list on the Analytics menu in Alma. We’ll come back to this at the end of the class.

Running reports

To run a report on this menu click on the title.

Let’s look at the finance report FIN-Fund Ledger Flexible input report.

  1. First, click on the title of the report.

  2. The prompt page will open in a new tab, to let you filter the output.

  3. Some prompts are required, as indicated by the asterisk.

    1. In this report, there is also a default value for the current BUDGET YEAR that cannot be changed. You could run this report for all 2019 budgets, but it’s more likely that you are only interested in a certain TUB or combination of TUB and ORG code. As an example, let’s run this report for all budgets used by the Law School.

    2. To limit my report, I find the filter for TUB, select the down arrow to view the list of TUB values, scroll down to 265 and click on that code. I can also put my cursor in the box for TUB and type in ‘265’. My report is now filtered by budget year of 2019 and tub 265.

    3. Once you finish choosing from the prompts, click OK and wait for the results to appear in that same tab.

In the results you can see that there is a header section with:

  • The report title,

  • The date and time when the report ran,

  • The filters that were used, and

  • The number of rows retrieved.

Total amounts are calculated at the bottom of the report.

Any questions?

Prompts

Next let’s explore other types of report output and prompt options by looking at the Acquisitions ACQ - Expenditure Transactions (Purchases) – Flexible input report.  This report is modeled on a report in Cognos that was designed to meet just about any information need by an acquisitions unit. Using the prompts for this report, you can look at expenditures by bibliographic characteristics, by library, by fund, by date, and many other criteria.

Multiple values

For example, a selector might want to look at what has been spent so far in FY19 for materials in either Arabic or Persian. We

  1. Open the prompt for MARC Language Code

  2. Scroll down to the language code for Arabic, ara, by clicking the checkbox next to it

  3. Scroll down further to the bottom and select the code for Persian, per.

    1. You might notice that the list only goes to the J’s. For very long lists of options, you can click on More/Search to open a dedicated search box for that list.

    2. In this case, we still only get to the J’s, so click More again to see the full list.

    3. Scroll down until you find per and click on it to select it.

  4. Click OK when done.

Now that our language codes are set, we can enter the TUB for Law, 265, and the current Budget Year.

Date Prompts

This report also has Date prompts, so we can also limit to materials purchased during a specific time period. The easiest way to limit by date is to click on the calendar icon and select the month, day, and year.

To look for materials purchased in the previous month:

  1. Look at the prompt for Transaction Date Between DATE and DATE

  2. Click the first calendar icon to choose a start date

    1. Choose the previous month from the month drop down list

    2. Adjust the calendar year if necessary

    3. Click on the 1st day in the calendar

    4. Don’t change the time.

  3. Click OK

  4. Now, click the second calendar icon and go through the same steps to choose the end date of the month.

At this point, we’ve entered prompts for language code, TUB, budget year, and a range for purchase dates. With all of my prompts entered, I click on OK and the results are returned that meet my criteria. There is a list of titles, and you can scroll through and see what’s been purchased.

Searching for prompt values

Prompts values can also be searched. (TRAINER: Go back to the list of reports and select the report to open the prompts page)

I might want to search on the vendor code to see all of the possible codes for BLACKWELL, instead of scrolling through a long list

  1. Click on the POL Vendor Code prompt, and
  2. Select Search/More. That opens a window where I can search for values
  3. In the dialog box, you can either
    1. Use the search box at the top to find the text you’re looking for.
      1. In this case, since vendor codes are in all caps, you can type in BLACK or BLACKWELL and leave the box next to Match Case checked. For other searches, you might want to turn Match Case off.
    2. Use the list to scroll through and find the terms you’re looking for.
      1. First, click on the binoculars icon to hide the search box and give you more space to work.
      2. Alma will bring up a set number of terms into this larger box to scroll through and choose from. If you need to see more, click on More at the bottom.
      3. Highlight more than one code by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the options you want to choose.
      4. Use the single right-facing arrow to add them to your list of prompts.
      5. You can also select the entire range using the double right-facing arrows.
      6. Once selected, terms can also be removed individually or completely using the left-facing arrows.

Once selected, codes can also be removed individually or completely.

Input a list of identifiers obtained from a search

Another way to use prompts is by entering a set of identifiers obtained in an Alma search. In the last demo, I will show you how to input a set of MMSIDs, which are bibliographic record identifiers in Alma, into a report on the Alma Analytics menu.  Let’s try this out by looking for a small list of physical item records.

  1. From the persistent search bar choose Physical Items as your search type

  2. Choose Keywords as the criteria

  3. Type in banana boat as the search terms

  4. Click Search

  5. Once the results are displayed, click on the Export icon.

    1. If you see a choice between Excel (current view) and Excel (all fields), choose the “all fields” option, to make sure that MMSIDs are included in the exported file.

  6. Open the downloaded Excel spreadsheet after export completes. The search results export includes MMSIDs, which you can copy and paste into an Analytics prompt. (TRAINER: Copy values in MMSID column in spreadsheet)

  7. With the MMSIDs copied, open the report titled RES-Physical titles with bibliographic, holdings details - Flexible input. 


To use our copied MMSIDs as input, open the MMSID prompt:

  1. Click on the down arrow, and without waiting for the prompt values to populate, select Search. The Select Values window opens.

  2. This time we will provide our own selected values.

    1. Click on the pencil icon to edit

    2. Place your cursor in the Edit box

    3. Use  the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+V, to paste in the list of MMSIDs

    4. Click OK to save the list.

  3. Now we click OK to get a report of the bibliographic records, with more details than we were able to obtain from the Alma results list.

The maximum number of values can vary. For barcodes the maximum is 9,999. For other identifiers there doesn't seem to be a consistent limit. 

The same approach can be used for Barcodes, Order numbers, Aleph record numbers, and others types of identifiers.

When the report finishes running, you can review your results.

Exporting results from Analytics via Alma     

After a report is run from the Analytics tab in Alma, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and see three options: Print, Export, Refresh.

Print will open up a dialog box to print the report without exporting/saving it first, either as a PDF or printable HTML file.

Export will allow you to export and save the report in the following format options:

  • PDF

  • Excel 2007+

  • Powerpoint 2007+

  • Web Archive (.mht)

  • Data

    • CSV

    • Tab delimited format

    • XML

Refresh is not useful in our environment because our Analytics data is a daily snapshot of Alma.

Row limits

There are limits on how many rows can be exported: to Excel.  The limit is 65,000 rows, however 500,000 can be exported using CSV format clicking on the Data option in the dropdown menu.             

Subscribing to reports

From the Alma menu under Analytics, users can subscribe to reports and receive an automated email with the results.

To subscribe to a scheduled report:

  1. Click on the Analytics menu

  2. Click on Subscribe to Analytics 

  3. Activate the subscription by clicking on the yellow tick sign to the right hand side of the report title

Reports can be requested to be added to the list of scheduled reports by submitting a footprint to the LTS Alma Support Center.

Widgets

Analytics widgets can be charts, graphs and tables, etc. You can add an Analytics widget to your Alma dashboard by clicking the plus sign on the upper right of your dashboard. The list of Analytics widgets you will see differs depending on your user role.

Data update information

As you’re running these reports, it can be useful to know the last time when Alma data was updated in Analytics. A snapshot of data is taken from Alma every 24 hours.

At the bottom of the Analytics dropdown menu, you can view the status of the Alma data: 

  • Data updated as of shows when data was last pulled from Alma

  • Data available as of tells you when that Alma data was made available in Analytics

Preview of Analytics

Reports available on the Analytics menu in Alma are only a subset of the analyses available to you. There are many more in Analytics itself. In this last part of the class I will introduce you to the Analytics interface, and show you how to find and run reports from within Analytics.

First, to get to the Analytics module, go to the Analytics menu in Alma and click on Design Analytics. The Analytics module will open in a new tab or window, depending on your browser settings.

(TRAINER: Click on Catalog and show the Folders. For each section that follows, click on the folder title to reveal the sub-folders or analyses in that folder as you describe it. For the Alma/Ex Libris or Community folders, click on some sub-folders to give an idea of what’s there.)

Analytics opens to the Analytics Dashboard screen. I don’t happen to have a dashboard yet (if you do, you can describe briefly). There are several menus across the top. Click on Catalog to open the set of folders where analyses are stored.

Catalog

At the top level, the Catalog has two folders My Folders and Shared Folders.

My Folders is private.  Any analysis you create or are working on should be stored here.  Only you can see the analysis in My Folder. In My Folders, you can create any folder structure or naming system you like.

Analyses available to everyone with a Design Analytics role are in the Shared Folders area. The Alma folder and the Leganto folder have analyses created by Ex Libris and shared with all customers, the Community folder contains analyses created and shared by other Alma institutions, and the Harvard University folder has analyses created by and for Harvard staff only.

The first place to go when you are looking for an analysis is the Harvard University folder. Analyses in Harvard University are available for shared use. Many were created by Analytics and Reporting Working Group at the request of other Alma working groups. They were written to meet day one reporting needs, and are designed to be useful to a broad set of staff.

Analyses in the Alma folder address very broad information needs. These analyses often fail to complete successfully because the Harvard data set is so large. Analytics and Reporting Working Group reviewed all of the analyses in Alma, and any that were useful have been adapted for Harvard use and saved in the Harvard University folder.

Community folder contains analyses created by other Alma institutions and saved to an institution folder for shared use. Harvard has a folder in Community were we would copy any analyses we want to share with other institutions.

Using a Shared Analysis  

Most folders in Harvard University are named for Analytics subject areas. Subject area is the term for the data sets available for analyses.  Ex Libris has organized data that they extract from Alma into subject areas such as Fulfillment, Physical Items, E-Inventory, Requests, Funds Expenditure, and more. Folders are named for subject areas so you know where to look for analyses that retrieve the data you are interested in. Analyses in the subject area folders are written for shared use across Harvard. Following ARWG recommended practices, they have multiple prompts, a well formed title, and a full description with the name of the author and date.

They are to be used, but not altered. If you want to modify a shared analysis, please make a copy to your My Folders space first. You will learn how to do this in the Creating Analytics class.

Folders where the name begins with an underscore are created for other purposes. _Departmental Reports have analyses for use by a specific unit. _Collaboration is where you can copy an analysis if you want to work on it with someone else.  

Searching for existing analyses  

The best way to find an existing analysis is to search the Harvard University folder.

  1. First click on the folder so that the Location bar has the correct path

  2. Click on the binoculars icon

  3. Click in the Search box and type loans

The term is searched in title and description. Look at the descriptions for more information about the analysis: if the ARWG guidelines have been followed it will have an informative title, and information in the description about prompts and data included in the output.

When you find an analysis that looks useful, click on the Open link. Open will bring up a prompt page, if there is one. If there isn’t a prompt page the analysis will run. It’s best to click on Open so you can see if there are prompts for the analysis. Once you have output from the report, you have the options to Export results. You also have the option to Edit the analysis.

Analyses in the Harvard University folder can be edited by anyone with permission to use Analytics. If you select Edit and want to make changes to an analysis, it’s very important that you first save a copy of it to My Folders.

To save an analysis to My Folders:

  1. Find a shared analysis you want to save

  2. Click on Edit to see how it’s put together

  3. Click on the Save As icon in the upper right corner

  4. Choose My Folders or the sub-folder in there that you want to store it in

  5. Click OK

Once you have saved and renamed your copy in My Folders, make any changes you want.  It is now your analysis and you can feel free to customize it in any way you would like. And we will show you how to do that in Creating Analytics.

Again, do not alter any analysis in a Shared Folder that you didn’t create, even if you have permission to do so. Always save a copy (Save As) to your private My Folders folder first and modify that.

More Information About Alma Analytics

Open wiki page: https://harvardwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/x/kYKUAg

The Analytics & Reporting section of the Alma wiki is a good place to start for information regarding Alma Analytics.

 Harvard Staff Documentation

The Harvard staff documentation includes step-by-step instructions on a variety of topics from running reports in Alma to formatting the layout of a report.

Field Descriptions by Subject Area

There is a section on field descriptions for all Subject Areas, if you want to see how data is organized.

Ex Libris Training and Documentation

The wiki includes links to Ex Libris training videos, documentation and tips.

Support Materials from Other libraries. We have selected materials from other Alma institutions that we have found useful.

Collaboration and Best Practices

If you are saving reports in the shared folders, please refer to the Analytics Uniform Practices wiki page. https://harvardwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/x/lICUAg

Reporting Discussion Group email list

The HL-reporting-discussion list is used for internal communication between Harvard Library staff engaged in activities related to reporting and/or analyses, across Harvard’s available systems, including work done in Alma Analytics and Cognos.

The list is intended for informal peer support: asking questions, troubleshooting, sharing discoveries, exploring tools and resources, and other discussions about reports, analyses, and their use in Harvard Library. The link for subscribing to the HL-reporting-discussion list is on your handout.

 https://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/hl-reporting-discussion 

Look for announcements for future Reporting Discussion Group meetings on a topic in which you are interested. You can also bring your reporting questions to these meetings.

Closing

Today, we’ve explored how to run existing reports. We hope you are able to make use of the Harvard shared reports and if you’d like to learn more, look for classes on Creating Alma Analytics coming soon in the Harvard Training Portal.

Once again, if you have any questions about Alma or Analytics, please use the link to the LTS Alma Support Center in the Notifications widget to send them to the Support team. This will get your question answered and will add to the LTS Support knowledge base about Alma.

Any last questions?

Thank you for coming. After today, you’ll receive an email with a link to an evaluation form. Please take a few minutes to fill it out; your feedback will be invaluable in helping refine these trainings for the long-term training to come.