June 2019 Release - Harvard Highlights

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

Alma Known Issues Fix Schedule - The Alma Known Issues Fix Schedule lists known issues that are planned to be corrected in upcoming releases. This feature enables libraries to have a clear view of upcoming corrections. The list includes a description and case numbers and has a number of filters to allow for easy review. This feature can be viewed on the Alma Known Issues Fix Schedule page, which can be accessed by selecting Alma Known Issues Fix Schedule in the Help menu while on any page. To view this page, a user must have the Known Issues Operator role. For more information, see the Alma Known Issues: Q&A.

Analytics & Reporting

Enhancements

A new out-of-the-box report, Top 10 Users Running Analytics Reports in the Last 365 Days, was added to the Analytics Usage Tracking subject area. It list the 10 users who have ran the most reports in the last 365 days.
The Last Loan Date (in house) and Last Loan Date (Not in house) fields were added to Physical Items > Physical Item Details. These fields are available only for loans that were handled in Alma and do not include migrated loans.
The following fields were added to the Physical Items > Holdings Details:
- Creation Date
- Creator
- Modification Date
- Modified by
- These fields already exist in the Bibliographic Details folder.
- Currently, these fields have data only from new records. During the month of July, historical data will be added to these fields.
The following fields were added to the Bibiographic Details folder in all subject areas in which it appears:
- Bibliographic Source of Acquisition Note – the name of the people or organization that is the source of the material (from MARC field 541 $a).
- Bibliographic Acquisition Accession Number Note – the identification code assigned to materials acquired in a single and separate transfer of custody (from MARC field 541 $e).
Currently, these fields have data only from new records. During the month of July, historical data will be added to these fields.
The following fields were added to Course Reserves > Reading List:
- Leganto List Num of Library Discussions
- Leganto List Library Discussion Last Update
The following field was added to Funds Expenditure > Fund Ledger:
- Fund Description
In addition, the Leganto Num of Library Discussions field in the Reading List Citation folder was renamed to Leganto Citation Num of Library Discussions.

Resolved

SF: 00624998 00525448
If two or more COUNTER reports had the same identifier for different titles, then only one of those titles appeared in Alma Analytics Usage Data for that identifier. This was fixed.
SF: 00612889
The Titles subject area did not included holdings that did not have active physical items. This was fixed.
SF: 00636846
In Analytics, a View Display Error occurred when creating a MAX(RCOUNT(1)) column. This was fixed.

Acquisitions/Finance

Enhancements

Type-Ahead for Funds and Vendors in Purchase Requests - Type-ahead functionality is now available for the Fund and Vendor fields in Purchase Requests.
Free Text Note in ORDERS EDI Message - You can now add additional PO Line fields to the ORDERS EDI file. The available fields are shown in the EDI Vendor Note Fields table. The options are:
- Fund Description
- PO Line Type
- Receiving Note
- Rush
- Reporting Code
- Secondary Reporting Code
- Tertiary Reporting Code
You can define which of these fields are added to the file at the vendor level. On the EDI Information tab of the Vendor page, select POs. The EDI Vendor Note Fields drop down box appears. The selected fields appear in the Note To Vendor field of the EDI file.
List of Items Table - The List of Items tables now have the following filters: Year, Volume, Description, and Receive Date. See Working with the List of Items for more information.
Interested Users - A new notification option is available when adding interested users on the PO Line. Selecting Notify upon cancellation notifies the user when the order is canceled.

Resolved

The October 2018 Release introduced an enhancement which allowed users to specify how bibliographic records should be handled when a PO line is canceled and the inventory has been deleted. Due to a bug, the suppress option suppressed the bibliographic record, regardless of whether additional items/holdings were attached. This has been fixed and the enhancement implemented.
A fund with Overencumbrance Allowed or Overexpenditure Allowed set to No can no longer have a negative available balance
The funding percent rounded to 0.0% after entering a list price value of 0.01 when creating a PO line from a template that already included a fund. This was fixed.
Prediction patterns with combined issues did not work as expected if the combined enumeration level had 3 or more digits. This was fixed

Course Reserves/Leganto

Enhancements

When editing a reading list, you can now change the order of the citations in the list using the Sort by field. You can sort the citations by citation title (ascending), author (ascending), last modified/created, or call number. If you are implementing Leganto, you can select to sort by instructor order, which is the order that the instructor sorted the citations.
The default search field for the secondary search on the Courses page (Fulfillment > Course Reserves > Courses) is now All, by default.
You can configure rl_auto_assign to determine whether a reading list is automatically assigned to the librarian that works on it. See Configuring Other Settings.
You can now copy a citation to the same or another reading list using the Copy citation option in the citation main menu.
When enabled by your library, instructors can delete a file uploaded to a citation or My Collection. Select the trash icon and select OK in the confirmation dialog box. Note that you cannot delete the file if a copyright request was approved for the citation (a librarian can always remove the file).
The Open Access indication now appears in Leganto, where relevant. Note that these are the same indications that appear in Primo/Primo VE/Summon.

Resolved

After selecting Manage Fulfillment Options for a citation and performing any action, the Back button and back navigation icon did not function correctly. This was fixed.
Reading lists export to Excel failed when more than 1000 reading lists existed. This was fixed.
Citation alerts were not updated immediately in the facets on the Edit Citations page. This was fixed.
When associating a citation with the DCS, Alma now splits multiple ISBNs, normalizes them to ISBN-13, and removes meaningless characters.
On the Edit Citations or Edit Reading List pages, if you selected a portfolio link in the Electronic tab of a citation, and then selected to go back, Alma displayed a null page. The portfolios in this tab are no longer links; to properly view the portfolios, select Portfolio List from the row actions list
In the Edit Citations and Reading Lists Tasks page, facets did not appear if only one value existed. This was fixed.
The notification A submit lists by date was added to your course was created every time a course was saved. This was fixed.
There was no way to edit the words Title or Description for when the instructor creates a section. Labels were added for these.
The URL appeared to students in some cases when the citation was declined. This was fixed.
When a librarian marked a citation as Complete in Leganto, Leganto removed the material visibility end date. This was fixed.
On the Find Lists page, when filtering by Publication Status = All, selecting a list, and then selecting Back, the publication status of the list changed to Published. This was fixed.
In Leganto, when force_direct_uresolver was set to true, the View Online link did not appear when the first available electronic link was hidden. This was fixed.
A user with the Leganto Course Operator role could not add or remove a collaborator to/from a reading list and could not find lists that were published to students of the course. This was fixed.

E-Resources

Enhancements

Icon Indicators for Electronic Portfolios and Electronic Collections in Community and Network Tab Search Results - Icon indicators that show the status of electronic collections (activated/not activated, available/not available) were added to the Community tabs in the Electronic portfolios and Electronic titles search results. With these indicators, you can now more easily identify portfolios that are part of active collections.
Reload SUSHI file - It is now possible to reload a COUNTER report from the Load Usage Data list for invalid and partially loaded SUSHI files. The data related to the existing report, as determined by file_id, is deleted and the load process is rerun. A Reload row action now appears for rows on the Load Usage Data list. The action is visible only for Invalid and Partially Loaded SUSHI files. When the user confirms the reload, the data of the existing file is deleted and the data is sent again. (See also this video overview.)
Add Error Description and Resolution to File Upload Data - COUNTER reports that end with load errors now include error messages with a recommended solution, and an action, if available.
Distributed Electronic Resource Management – Support for Upload Electronic Holdings - Distributed electronic resource management support is now available for the Elsevier, Ovid, and Springer Upload Electronic Holdings integration profiles. With these new options, you can create multiple integration profiles of the same type and schedule them to run at the same time. For more information, see Upload Electronic Holdings from Elsevier, Upload Electronic Holdings from Ovid, and Upload Electronic Holdings from Springer.

Resolved

An electronic collection URL is limited to 255 characters. It was changed to 1,000 characters.
The Report to Ex Libris button did not work from the list of portfolios in the Electronic Collection Editor. This was fixed.
There was an error when trying to link an electronic collection with a long name to the Community Zone. This was fixed.

Fulfillment

Enhancements

New Options for Closed Library Due Date Management: The Closed Library Due Date Management policy includes the following new values to support keeping the original time and change only the date if the due date falls on a closed day:
- Move to next open day (same hour) - When Alma calculates a loan due date that falls on a closed day (loan, recall, or renew), the due date is set to the next open date with the original due date time.
- Move to previous open day (same hour) - Alma sets the due date to the previous open date with the original time.

Resolved

Sometimes when paying a fine the currency appeared as null. This was fixed.
Sometimes a duplicate loan to the same patron appeared. This was fixed
Selecting Toggle Missing Status for a physical item did not trigger a recalculation of the fulfillment request. This was fixed.
(Resource Sharing) When updating a borrowing request and changing its title, the title of the fulfillment request attached to the borrowing request was not updated. This was fixed.

Resource Management

Enhancements

List of Items Table - The List of Items tables now have the following filters: Year, Volume, Description, and Receive Date. See Working with the List of Items for more information.
You may now search for Original Cataloging Agency in bib records (040 $a)
PENDING DECISION: 380, 385, 386, and 388 fields now undergo authority control (preferred-term correction), as well as F3 linking from the MD Editor. These are published to Primo with headings enrichment (search by non-preferred terms).

Resolved

A bibliographic heading that linked to the preferred term was not updated with correct punctuation (because Authorities - preferred term correction job did not run on it). This was fixed, and now the same job makes corrections even if the heading is linked to the preferred authority heading. Please note that the job runtime is expected to be increased.
In the Authority Control Task List, the content of subfield 6 no longer appears in the BIB Heading Before and BIB Heading After columns for the Preferred Term Correction - BIB heading updated report type.