The following page is a list of lessons learned during RMIT University Library's migration from Equella to Alma-Digital.

We hope this list of tips and tricks help others with their data migrations. 

File matching

Alma matches the filename to the record in a similar way for both Dublin Core and MARC records. During the creation of the import profile, you nominate which field to extract the file name from.

In a MARC digital import profile, the default is 856 $u:

For DCXML import, the file name needs to be in the dc:identifier field, e.g.

<dc:identifier>Chapter 1.pdf</dc:identifier>

Information about the DC file format can be found here:

https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com...digital/ingest

File upload times

For APAC users files upload quicker if there are no spaces in the file name.

For example, chapter_1.pdf will upload more quickly than chapter 1.pdf. The difference is enough that it’s worth the time spent taking out the spaces, especially with Alma’s 60 min time outs.

File naming conventions

If you are bulk loading items ensure you have unique filenames.

Example problem: In our legacy system (Equella) files in one collection were given the chapter number as the filename for example Chapter1.pdf

When these files were extracted from Equella we had a lot of files with the same filename. Not only is this a logistical nightmare to map files back to their related records but in order to bulk load all records and files, and to ensure files correctly matched the desired record, we had to update all files to ensure they has a unique filename.