August 2020 Release - Harvard Highlights

Owned by William Walsh
Last updated: Jul 28, 2020

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 (titles not in the collection). See the Ex Libris documentation for additional details.


Analytics & Reporting

Enhancements

  • The following fields were added to Physical Items > Holding Details dimension:
    • HOL 008 MARC – the contents of the 008 field of the MARC holdings record
    • HOL LDR MARC – the contents of the LDR field of the MARC holdings record
  • The following fields were added to Bibliographic Details shared dimension:
    • BIB 008 MARC – the contents of the 008 field of the MARC bibliographic record
    • BIB LDR MARC – the contents of the LDR field of the MARC bibliographic record
    • Government Publication – the government publication type
    • Form of Item – the form of the item
  • Event Date and Time field was added to Events > Event Keys. It contains the event date with the time stamp. This Event Date and Time field will have data for events that occur from this release and later.
  • Bibliographic IDs dimension was added to the Titles subject area. It contains the following fields that display one number per row for each MMS ID:
    • ISBN single (Normalized)
    • ISSN single (Normalized)
    • OCLC Control Number single (035a)

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.
  • The report ran on too large a time period, causing it to crash. This was fixed, and now the report runs on the past 7 days, by default.
  • If usage data was uploaded from an Excel file that had more than 100 rows, the file was cut off at the nearest hundredth row. This was fixed.
  • In Alma Analytics Dewey groups, some headings from Group 3 were located in Group 2. This was fixed.
  • Maximum field lengths in Analytics did not match field lengths in Alma. This was fixed

  • The Citation License Type field did not display data for citations in Analytics. This was fixed.

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

  • Additional guided tours have been added to Leganto. These tours have been divided into categories. For more information on guided tours, see Getting Started.

  • A number of helpful how-to Leganto videos from YouTube have been added to the guided tours, under the new Getting Started Videos section of the guided tours. The videos are viewable in an embedded window in the Leganto screen.
  • The Cite It! window now includes a link to a video that explains how to install the Cite It! button. If you opened the guide to learn about Cite It!, the movie plays automatically.

  • The labels below (found in Leganto > Configuration > General > Labels) have had their out-of-the-box values changed. If you have never changed the value of one of these labels, the value will be updated to the new value. If you have already changed a value for one of these labels, it will not be updated. You can change the value of any updated label after the update.

  • When there is a newer version of a reading list, a message will appear notifying you of this. This may happen when a list was rolled over or copied and a newer version exists.

  • When adding/editing a public note for a citation, you can now add a URL, which will show up as clickable in the public note in the brief and full view. For more information, see Working With Citations
  • The Lists view now displays the instructor(s) for the list's course. If a reading list has one instructor, that instructor's name appears.  If there are multiple instructors for the course, the number of instructors appears. For lists with multiple instructors, hovering over the number of instructors displays a tooltip with the names of the instructors.
  • You can now move a citation to a different list or section within a list, using the new Move Citation option in the citation options menu. In order for this feature to be available, you must enable it in the Citation Menu table found in Leganto Configuration > UI. For more information on configuring citation menu options, see Configuring Other Leganto UI Elements.

  • You can now lock a section for editing, using the new Lock option in the section menu. For more information on working with sections, see Working With Sections. If you click the Lock option, you will receive a notification that a locked section cannot be changed until it has been unlocked again by the owner who locked it. For this feature to be available, you must enable it in the Section Menu table found in Leganto Configuration > UI. For more information on configuring section menu options, see Configuring Other Leganto UI Elements.

  • The Leganto iFrame now includes an expand button to open Leganto in a new tab.

  • Reading lists in the Recently Deleted lists group will now be automatically removed from the system once they have spent more than 30 consecutive days in the deleted lists group. After 30 days, they will be permanently purged from the system. In addition, for each reading list in the Recently Deleted lists group, an indicator now shows you how many days are left before the list is purged.

  • The Citation Covered by Library field was added to Leganto Student Usage > Citations. It indicates if the citation has availability in the library.

  • The Reading List Reset Date field was added to the Reading Lists dimension in the Leganto Student Usage and Leganto Instructor Usage Events subject areas. It indicates the date the reading list was reset.

Resolved

  • Course searching in Leganto has been improved. For example, special characters such as commas and hyphens are now ignored.
  • When searching for courses to associate with a list in Leganto, the number of results displayed has been increased from 20 to 50.
  • The View Online or Check Availability links appeared in the citation brief view, even when all links were hidden. This has been fixed.
  • The display_report_tab flag has been added in the Leganto Features table (Leganto Configuration > Features > Leganto Features). When set to 'true', the report tab will display in the Leganto UI. 
  • The counter that displays the number of items in a section used to include notes. Now it only counts citations.

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

  • Editing a requested item will no longer trigger a printing of a new resource request slip.
    Also, previously, if an active request was deactivated as a result of a requested item becoming unavailable, when the item became available again and was scanned in to be placed on the hold shelf a resource request slip was sometimes not printed. Now the slip will print correctly in this circumstance.

Resolved

  • Updating the status of an in-process item from a work order department was not reflected in the Resource Request Monitor. This was fixed.
  • In some cases the courtesy notice was sent by the Notifications - Send Courtesy Notices and Handle Loan Renewals job after the due date has already passed. This was fixed. The courtesy notice will no longer be sent if the due date has passed.
  • In some cases, an item that was loaned remained on the Pick From Shelf list.

Resource Management

Enhancements