July 2021 Release - Harvard Highlights

Owned by William Walsh
Last updated: Jun 29, 2021
5 min read

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 / Resolved Issues

  • (blue star) Resolved: Disconnection issues occurred in the middle of working in Alma. This was fixed.
  • The Alma sandbox will be refreshed on Sunday, August 8th.
  • Accessibility improvements: increased color contrast for elements that were previously low-contrast, indication for active state/hover to additional elements, support for 200% zoom with no content loss, support for increase text spacing, keyboard navigation for recent entities, improved keyboard navigation for date pickers. 
  • Enhanced Ability to Filter a Set Using an Indication Rule: 
    • For Title searches, the Save Query button has been changed to Save and Filter Query. This allows you to choose a filter for the set immediately, without having to save it as a separate set first. The main set is created in the background. 
    • A filtered set now includes a link back to the primary set from which the filtered set was produced
    • A set that has been filtered now includes a link to the filtered version of the set


Analytics & Reporting

Enhancements

The following fields were added to the E-Inventory subject area:

  • No. of Portfolio (In Repository Contributed to CZ) – the number of portfolios in the repository contributed to the Community Zone
  • Portfolio Contributed to CZ – indicates if portfolios were contributed to the Community Zone
  • No. of Electronic Collections (In Repository Contributed to CZ) – the number of electronic collections in the repository contributed to the Community Zone
  • Electronic Collection Contributed To CZ – indicates if electronic collections were contributed to the Community Zone
  • The Num of Locate Failed Requests field was added to Lending Requests > Lending Request Details and Borrowing Requests > Borrowing Request Details. It indicates the number of failed locate requests.

The following fields were added to User dimensions located in subject areas besides the Users subject area:

  • Cataloger Level
  • Has Role other than Patron
  • Has Role other than Patron and Instructor
  • Is Blocked
  • Patron Letters Opt In
  • Patron Letters Opt Out

These fields were added to:

  • Borrowing Requests > Requester
  • Course Reserves > Librarian
  • E-Inventory > Cost Usage POL Approver
  • E-Inventory > Electronic Collection PO Line Approver
  • E-Inventory > Portfolio PO Line Approver
  • Fines and Fees > User Details
  • Fulfillment > Borrower Details
  • Funds Expenditure > PO Line Approver
  • Leganto Student Usage > Student Details
  • Physical Items > PO Line Approver
  • Purchase Requests > Purchase Request Approver
  • Purchase Requests > Purchase Request Assigned To
  • Purchase Requests > Purchase Request Creator
  • Purchase Requests > Purchase Request Modified By
  • Purchase Requests > Purchase Request Requester
  • Requests > Requester
  • On the Alma Analytics Object page (Analytics > Analytics Objects > Analytics Objects List), the Analytics Folder and Name fields are now on their own lines which gives these fields additional space to display values.


Resolved

  • In the Fulfillment subject area under the Loan Details folder, the Loan Note field contained no data even when the loan had a note. This was fixed.
  • The Analytics report for DARA for the Identical system control number displayed an error when run in the Network Zone. This was fixed.
  • Electronic Collections that no longer have CDI information in Alma, still have this data showing in Alma Analytics. This was fixed.
  • The out-of-the-box report for SCONUL '4.1 Total unique loans with prompt by loan date (does not include in-house loans)' did not work properly. This was fixed.
  • The Event Date and Time field (System Events > Event Date) was not working properly. This was fixed.

Acquisitions/Finance

Enhancements

  • New Interested User options available for EOD import profiles. In addition, an Update PO Lines Interested Users job has been added for bulk updating the Interested User options (e.g., Notify upon cancellation) on a set of POLs.
  • You can now set a default PO line type for disabled PO line types when orders are created via API or purchase request. (See the release notes for details.)
  • Fund Management APIs can now create, modify, and delete funds/ledgers.

Resolved

  • Creating an invoice from PO with hundreds of POLs generated an error. This was fixed.

Course Reserves/Leganto

Enhancements

  • Leganto now provides the option to select which users can view each of your useful links by selecting All, Instructor, or Student from the Visibility dropdown list (Configuration > Leganto > Features > Links).

  • You can now add or remove a specific reading list owner or collaborator using the Reading List Bulk Update job (Admin > Run a Job). The job parameters now include new options to:

  • Previously, if all citations on a reading list were automatically set to complete, the list was still sent to the library with a Ready for Processing status. Now, the library can configure reading lists to automatically be set to Complete when they are sent to the library if all of the citations on the reading list are complete.

  • Leganto now includes the parameter concat_mapping_fields (Configuration Menu > Leganto > Discovery > Primo Settings).  When set to true, this option enables you to combine several fields and output them in one field by entering the concat operation to the corresponding Primo mapping field.
  • Alma now includes the option to update the citation type using the Reading List Citation Update task (Admin > Run a Job). 

  • The parameter display_digital_in_collection was added to the Leganto Customer Settings mapping table (Configuration Menu > Leganto > General > Settings). When set to true (default), copying a citation with a digital representation to your collection also copies the digital representations. When set to false, Leganto only the metadata is copied.

Resolved

E-Resources

Enhancements

  • A new field, CDI Last Market Update, has been added to indicate the last time an electronic collection was updated for CDI.
    • In addition, the following fields have been added to the Electronic Collection advanced search:
      • CDI Provider Coverage
      • CDI Type

Fulfillment

Enhancements

  • Add/Renew Patron Role from Circulation Desk: Alma now enables staff operators to easily add a patron role to a user, as well as view and update the patron role's expiration date. Previously, this functionality was only possible by User Managers and is now attainable by operators in the circulation desk. 

  • Description Column Added to the Patron Services Workbench

  • Alma can now use ILLiad APIs to push user records to ILLiad (a resource sharing management system). The push will only occur if this is configured by the library and the user does not already exist in ILLiad. Before pushing a request to ILLiad, Alma will verify that the account exists and create a user account if not.

Resolved

Resource Management

Enhancements

Resolved

  • (blue star) New Metadata Editor: After the user collapsed a record that was already saved, the Draft icon appeared for this record. This was fixed.
  • Discontinued codes with a hyphen have been removed from the dropdown for fixed field 008 Place of Publication (15-17). Discontinued codes now appear with the suffix '(old code).'