Ex Libris Documentation

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

• Alma May 2022 Release Notes
• Leganto May 2022 Release Notes

General

Enhancements

• Added New Cloud App - Print Bib Records
•  Item Description Confirmation message has been DISABLED through a new configuration option. This message appeared anytime you saved an item with any enum/chron data, to remind you that you may need to change the Description field. This pop-up will no longer occur. This will increase efficiency when editing items. 
  • If the Description is empty when you save the item, and there is data in any enum/chron field, Alma will auto-populate the Description field based on templates configured by Harvard. 
• New search field for items: In process type.
  • This new field allows you to search for items in any Work Order Type (e.g. On exhibit, Borrow Direct Work Order).
  • There is a separate index call "Process type" which is different – it allows you to search any of the Alma predefined process types such as Acquisitions, Missing, Lost, Transit, etc. 

Resolved

• Export Physical Holding - advanced search results exported to Excel failed. This was fixed
• Physical Items Advanced Search
  • the "Contains exact phrase starting with" search operator is now available for the Barcode field. This means that barcodes can be searched according to the first 2 - 15 characters, e.g. Barcode containing the exact phrase starting with ‘123‘ will retrieve an item with barcode ‘1234567‘. This will be gradually deployed during the May+June 2022 semi-annual inventory.

Analytics & Reporting

Enhancements

• The following fields were added to Titles > Title Measures. They indicate the number of titles that were linked to the Community Zone or Network Zone or not linked to either:
  • Number of Titles linked to CZ
  • Number of Titles linked to NZ
  • Number of Titles not linked to CZ or NZ
• The Role Product field was added to Users > Role. It indicates the specific Ex Libris product for which the role is assigned.
• The names of the following fields were changed to have the word User added as a prefix to indicate that the information comes from the user record. Therefore, no data is displayed for these fields for institutions that anonymize their user records. These fields are located in subject areas that contain user related fields, such as Fulfillment > Borrower Details.
  • User - Linked From Institution Code
  • User - Linked From Institution Name
  • User - Linked From Other Institution

  For this development, the following new version of these fields was added to Fulfillment > Loan Details. The information for these fields comes from the loan record. Therefore, data is displayed for these fields even for institutions that anonymize their user records.

  • Loans - Linked From Institution Code
  • Loans - Linked From Institution Name
  • Loans - Linked From Other Institution

Resolved

• The List of Analytics Objects (Analytics > Analytics Object List ) did not display all of the items in the list. This was fixed.
• Certain link resolver usage data was erroneously included in analytics reports. This was fixed.
• The Num of Digital Accesses field (Borrowing Requests > Partner Level Measurements) was not calculated correctly. This was fixed.

Acquisitions/Finance

Enhancements

• New menu option: Ready to be Paid. This option appears in Acq > Receiving & Invoicing. It presents the user with a list of invoices that are approved and are ready to be sent to AP through the nightly batch process. (The Ready to Be Paid status is not new, it just didn't have a menu option before.)
• Note to Vendor Added to the Excel File When Exporting List of PO Lines to Excel. Use the Export all fields option to include the Note to Vendor. 

Resolved

• When saving a PO line, there was no verifying if the transaction fields were changed. This was fixed. There is a verification if the transaction fields were changed and if so, there are validations and updates on the transactions.
• Staff creating a PO line is able to see and use vendors and funds not available for the owning library of the PO line, or for the staff user's roles. This was fixed.
• Saving changes in vendor and/or vendor accounts did not index the related PO lines in SOLR. This was fixed.
• In EDI orders, the ISBN was not added to the EDI message when there was a trailing space character at the end. This was fixed.

Course Reserves/Leganto

Enhancements

• When an instructor creates an assignment by uploading a file that requires copyright approval, the citation status now updates to Ready for processing, sending the citation to the library for review.

• Cite It! now supports the following sites:

  • Web of Science

  • Aurora

Resolved

• Previously, courses with long names only showed part of the course name. This was fixed.

E-Resources

Enhancements

• Save and Test Access option when creating new portfolios. This functionality saves the user from the need to save the portfolio and then test the access as a separate step. 
• Batch job to update Electronic Collection information.
  • Update attributes of a set of electronic collections in batch using a dedicated job. (Contact LTS to run this job)
• New field 'COUNTER Platform derived from Interface' for Future Optimization of Cost/Usage Reports.
  • The field is displayed in the Electronic Collection Editor and the Electronic Portfolio Editor. The field is a read-only field and is displayed in the 'General' tab of the Electronic Collection/Electronic Portfolio. Content of the field includes the Counter Platform for the resources and is calculated based on the Interface of the electronic resource to which it belongs. In an upcoming release the COUNTER Platform derived from Interface will be used in the following way: For cases in which there is more than one COUNTER report for the same resource, Alma uses the 'COUNTER platform' set by the library at the level of the electronic collection/portfolio. If it is not defined, Alma will use the value in the COUNTER Platform derived from Interface field.

Resolved

• CZ searches were showing gray house icons for database e-collections even if they had an active locally-created service. This was fixed.

Fulfillment

Enhancements

• In courtesy letters, a new field element for loan date now includes time. This added field's format appears as follows:
  <new_loan_date_str>05/20/2021 22:00:00 PDT</new_loan_date_str>.

Resolved

• Fulfillment network requests on the expired hold shelf were sometimes not put into transit back to the home institution when the Transit button was clicked. This happened for example when the item had a fulfillment note. This was fixed.

Resource Management

Enhancements

•  Indication Rules - It is now possible to create indication rules using a structured form. The new format enables entering the different fields and subfields and values in a wizard-like fashion, and provides popup assistance when entering tags and tag names. Watch the Creating Filtered Sets Using Indication Rules video (5:57 minutes). When creating the rule, choose "Form" instead of "Drools" to use the new Form option. 

Resolved

• When editing an item record with no info in ENUM/CHRON, opening the tab, and then leaving it; the blue marker that indicates the tab has information was incorrectly displayed. This was fixed.
• New Metadata Editor > Relink holdings: It is not possible to see the holdings and the new BIB - side by side when you use the search box. This was fixed
• Authority Management: Authority Preferred Term Correction job and New Metadata Editor's F3 incorrectly removed punctuation from field 100 $$d, as it is followed by $$e. This was fixed.