October 2018 Release - Harvard Highlights
- William Walsh
- Corinna Baksik
- Leila Smith
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.
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/010_2018/Alma_2018_Release_Notes
E-Resources
Enhancements
- CZ Now Available during Weekly Maintenance - You can now do the following while maintenance is run:
- Search from the Community Zone tab
- Export search results from the Community Zone search tab
- Activate electronic collections and/or portfolios from the Community Zone
- Link local portfolios to the Community Zone
- Synchronize changes with the Community Zone using the Synchronize Changes from CZ job
- New Electronic Collections Added to the CKB
Resolved
- When loading a SUSHI report of type PR1 or DB1 an error appeared for metric types searches_reg (instead of search_reg) and searches_fed (instead of search_fed). This was fixed, and these types are now supported.
- SUSHI reported success even when the harvesting process failed. Now if the harvesting process has errors in one or more files, the process status is Completed with Errors.
Acquisitions/Finance
Enhancements
- Receive All PO Lines in a Receive Batch - You can now receive all items for one-time PO lines listed on the Receive New Material page, up to 1,000 records. Parameters such as Keep in Department and receiving date are inherited by all items received. Note that Receive All triggers a system job, so items listed on the Receive New Material page will not display as received until after the job has finished and the page is refreshed.
- In addition, a new filter was added to the Receive New Materials page: Filter by owning library. Please note that this is a filter for POL Owner, which in some cases may differ from the holding library.
- In addition, a new filter was added to the Receive New Materials page: Filter by owning library. Please note that this is a filter for POL Owner, which in some cases may differ from the holding library.
- Handling Itemless Bibs when Cancelling a POL - You can now define how an itemless bibliographic record is handled when a PO line is canceled and the item and holdings have been deleted. (Note: Due to a bug, this enhancement suppresses the bibliographic record, regardless of whether additional, active items are attached. It will be activated once this has been fixed in the June 2019 release.)
- Preview of Create Invoice API - As with Real Time Acquisitions for placing orders (e.g., GOBI API), will allow specific vendors to use the API to create invoices, potentially replacing manual and EDI creation. Full implementation scheduled for the January 2019 Alma release.
- New Option for Purchasing Operators and Invoice Operators to Reassign PO Lines and Invoices - This was previously limited to those with a higher level of privileges.
- Receive All PO Lines in a Receive Batch - You can now receive all items for one-time PO lines listed on the Receive New Material page, up to 1,000 records. Parameters such as Keep in Department and receiving date are inherited by all items received. Note that Receive All triggers a system job, so items listed on the Receive New Material page will not display as received until after the job has finished and the page is refreshed.
Resolved
- When an item is received for a PO Line with an interested user and a hold request needed to be created, Alma created the hold request every time the item left the receiving department, instead of only the first time (the item could be returned to the department after the user returned the item). This was fixed.
Resource Management
Enhancements
Resolved
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00488117 00499898 00437732
In Browse Bibliographic Headings (Resources > Cataloging > Browse Bibliographic Headings), the 130, 630, and 730 Uniform Title fields are now indexed under the Title headings type.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00374502 00389169 00566262
When changing a physical item location and saving, the location did not update immediately on the List of Items page. This was solved for holdings with 50 items or less. For holdings with more than 50 items, the issue will continue, since the update is done by a background process.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00525803 00525295
Additional indications about suppression were added in relevant places. In addition, tool tips next to the suppression icon now describe exactly what is suppressed regarding the bibliographic record, holdings, or item.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00557241
Whenever a record was serial (Enumeration A/Chronology I) the availability was not checked when setting the icon content indicator. This was fixed, and now the icon toggles based on availability for serials, as well.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00484290
Changing Help URL in metadata configuration for certain MARC bibliographic record field did not work. This was fixed, and now extended fields which are not part of the out-of-the-box MARC21 fields are populated with the modified help URL, if it exists.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00347064 00353594 00584648 00366637 00464064 00434038 00540974 00434038 00540974
In the MD Editor, the last updated date did not appear, unless looking at versions. Instead, the creation date appeared. This was fixed.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00527514 00456525
Some bibliographic records were published with $6 for 245 264, 250, and 505, when these fields did not appear in the MD Editor. This was fixed, and $6 is no longer published for these fields.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00517253
In the MD Editor, when opening a record that has long fields and then opening another panel alongside it (for example, the versions panel), the long fields were not displayed correctly after the resizing the panels. This was fixed.
October 2018 Resource Management SF: 00529020 00523542
In View Inventory in the MD Editor, longer fields are cut off. This was fixed.