December 2022 Release - Harvard Highlights

Owned by Maureen Elizabeth Driscoll
Last updated: Nov 30, 2022

Ex Libris Documentation

Harvard Alma working groups have summarized key updates below. See the Ex Libris monthly notes for complete details: 

Acquisitions/Finance

  • Resolved

    • POs with a large number of PO lines had issues with the indexing process failing due to exceeding the maximum XML file size. This has been fixed, but the solution means that POs can no longer be searched by one of the PO line titles. 
    • A problem where adding a $t in the 853 field was not included in the 853 or in the copy has been fixed. The item's copy ID field is now supported. Note that at this point the fix only covers cases where the predicted schedule is monthly or annual, with both chronological and enumeration data. 

Analytics & Reporting

  • Enhancements

    • U.S. SuDoc Classification System is now available to be reported on in Alma Analytics. To support this feature, the U.S. SuDoc Classifications folder was added to the Other Classifications dimension in all subject areas in which it appears. The U.S. SuDoc Classification information is taken from the 086 field of the bibliographic record. For more information, see Other Classifications.
    • Five additional statistical categories are now available to be reported on in Alma Analytics in many of the locations that currently have statistical categories:
      • Analytics Objects > Created By
      • Course Reserves > Librarian
      • DARA > Assigned To
      • DARA > Modified By
      • Digital Waitlist > User Details
      • E-Inventory > Cost Usage POL Approver
      • E-Inventory > Electronic Collection PO Line Approver
      • E-Inventory > Portfolio PO Line Approver
      • Funds Expenditure > PO Line Approver
      • Leganto Student Usage > Student Details
      • Physical Items > PO Line Approver
      • Purchase Requests > 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
      • Users > User Details
      For more information, see Configuring Statistical Categories for Analytics.
    • Events subject area is deprecated and was removed. It is replaced by the System Events Subject Area to enable quicker and more efficient running of reports. This was communicated in the Alma List, the October 2022 Alma Announcements, and in the August 2022 Release Notes. If you have analytics reports, dashboards, or widgets that use the old Events subject area, these must be replaced with reports based on the new System Events subject area. Additionally, any analytics objects that you have based on reports or dashboards from the old Events subject area must be replaced with reports or dashboards from the new System Events subject area. For more information, see System Events.
    • The Has Corresponding SUSHI Account in CZ but not in Institution field was added to E-Inventory > Electronic Collection. It indicates (Y/N) if the electronic collection has a corresponding SUSHI account in the Community Zone, but is not configured in the institution.


  • Resolved

    • The Dewey classification field for analytics will be populated from field ‘676‘ subfield ‘a‘. If subfield ‘a‘ doesn‘t exist - it will be taken from subfield $c if exist. The fix will be applied for updated records from the December release. Existing data will be handled in the next semi-annual indexing job (planned for May 2023).
    • We changed the behavior of the Analytics widgets - to show reports with pagination (1000 rows per page) and not the full report.
    • The Forecast option was not working in Data Visualization Analytics. An error message Query Error More Detail was displayed. Additionally, the Show Details link did not work. This was fixed.
    • When adding the Access Right Name field (Digital Inventory > Representation Access Rights) to a report, the report did not display any data. This was fixed by the development team updating the access rights table and table name.
    • The option to Create Analysis from Simple Logical SQL after selecting Create > Analysis was missing from some environments. This was fixed.
    • When running an analytics report, an error message ‘C-runtime error occurred (std::bad_alloc)‘ sometimes appeared that prevented customers from accessing their folders, saving reports or creating new reports. This was fixed by updating an Oracle configuration file.

Course Reserves/Leganto

  • Enhancements

    • Create Master Reading Lists That Can Be Easily Discovered and Copied: Master lists can be used as templates for other lists and/or courses. When the parameter mark_as_master (Configuration Menu > Leganto > Features > Leganto Features) is set to true (default), the edit list form in Leganto includes a checkbox to Mark as master list.
    • When copying a citation, the Created by on the new citation is attributed to the user who copied the citation.

    • For consistency and clarity, the Brief Display Request Status label is now labeled Citation Status to match the Citation Status facet label and the data in analytics.

    • The List Last Set to Complete Date field was added to the Reading Lists dimension in the Leganto Student Usage, Leganto Instructor Usage Events, and Course Reserves subject areas. It displays the most recent date that the reading list was set to complete.

E-Resources

  • Resolved

    • In the Upload Electronic Holdings job, there were some cases where if two titles were related to each other and one title was already activated in the institution, but the other ones was not yet activated, instead of activating the missing title, the job would update the existing portfolio with coverage from the missing portfolio. This is fixed and now the missing portfolio is activated (each portfolio with its correct coverage). 
    • When utilizing the extended export of the electronic collection portfolio list in the Community Zone, sometimes the file would not open. This has been fixed. 

Resource Management

  • Resolved

  • New Metadata Editor - Pane re-sizer appears on the scroll bar from the right side when the left records pane is pinned. This was fixed.
  • Improved visibility of the row actions button in the New Metadata Editor editing pane > specific line when moving with 'TAB' between elements.
  • Improved speed for editing holdings and viewing version history of holdings
  • A non-Arabic comma is added to bib records in the Arabic language during the Preferred Terms Correction job and F3. This was fixed.
  • Items List: when filtering the list by Year by typing a value and pressing the ‘Enter‘ key, a misleading error message is displayed. This has been corrected.