Managing Trials

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This page describes how to manage trials in Alma. For a description of the workflow see Evaluation Workflow. For information on the overall purchasing workflow see Purchasing Workflow. For an overview of working with acquisitions in Alma, including links to relevant sections such as Infrastructure, Renewals, Configuration, etc., see Introduction to Acquisitions.

To manage trials, you must have at least one of the following roles:

Trial Operator
Trial Manager

Unless noted, wherever Trial Operator is used in the following sections, the action can be performed by either a Trial Operator or Trial Manager.

For information on how to request or start a trial, see step 2 of the Evaluation Workflow.

For a trial to proceed, you must:

Enter general details of the trial, including the title of the material, the trial start and end dates, and whether the trial is public or private.
Create the survey form to be completed by the participants when evaluating the material.
Enter details of the participants in the trial, if the trial is private.

For detailed instructions, see Editing Trial Information, below.

Once the information is complete, the trial's status changes to draft. Trials cannot move from the draft stage unless the criteria for publishing a DB is met (See Why is Trial still in Draft status after I have Activated it?). To move from the draft stage, the trial must be linked to an unsuppressed bib with a collection-level URL.

After the trial has ended, analyze the trial results and record a purchasing decision. For detailed instructions, see Analyzing Trial Results, below.

For a detailed description of the various steps of a trial, see Evaluation Workflow.

Accessing Existing Trials

You manage existing trials on the Manage Trials page (Acquisitions > Purchase Order Lines > Manage Trials).

Manage Trials Page

Pre-filtering the List of Trials by Status

You can also open the Manage Trials page with the requests pre-filtered by Status by selecting one of the following tasks under Trials in the Tasks List in the persistent menu (see Tasks in the Task List):

Analysis
Draft
Requested

Opening a Trial from a PO Line

You can open the Manage Trials page for a specific PO line from the PO line task list. You can also use the Facets to filter the PO line task list for PO lines whose status (workflow step) is Under Evaluation.

POLs Under Evaluation.png

PO Line Task List, Filtered for Workflow Step Under Evaluation

To open the Manage Trials page for a PO line in the task list:

In the PO line, select the Under Evaluation status. The Manage Trials page opens in a sliding panel, with only the PO line listed.

Available Row Actions

Select one of the following options in the row actions list:

Edit – Edit trial information (see Editing Trial Information, below).
Delete – Delete the trial. Select Confirm in the confirmation dialog box.
Edit PO Line – Edit the PO line associated with the trial. Opens the Details pane of the PO line (for additional information, see Manually Creating a PO Line).
Activate – Activate the related resource. Opens the Activation Wizard, as described in Activating Electronic Resources.

After you activate the trial, the daily Trials – Start and Notify Participants job assumes control of the trial until the trial end date. On the trial end date, the trial once again appears in the task list, enabling the Trial Operator to study the analysis of the trial results and make a purchasing decision.

Editing Trial Information

You can edit a PO line’s trial information.

If you have the roles of both a Purchasing and Trial Operator, the Summary tab on the Trial Details page appears when you select the Request evaluation link on the Purchase Order Lines in Review page. Continue with step 3 in the procedure below.

To edit trial information:

On the Manage Trials page (Acquisitions > Purchase Order Lines > Manage Trials), select Edit in the row actions list for the trial you want to edit. The Trial Details page appears.

In the Summary tab, modify the displayed PO line information, as required. A description of the fields is provided in the following table.

Trial Summary Tab Fields
Section	Field	Description
Details	Name (Required)	The name of the trial as entered by the Purchasing Operator.
	Title	The title of the trial material.
	Start date (Required)	The start date for the trial, selected from the Calendar dialog box. The date must be later than the current date. The trial’s status changes to Active on this date.
	End date (Required)	The end date for the trial, selected from the Calendar dialog box. This date must be later than the start date. The trial’s status changes to In Analysis on this date if the Trials - Start and Notify Participants job is active.
	Remind participants before trial ends	The number of days before the end of the trial that you want an email reminder sent to trial participants. For emails to be sent, the Trials – Start and Notify Participants job must be Active; see Viewing All Scheduled Jobs. The notification sent is the Trial Letter and can be configured; see Configuring Alma Letters.
	Available to public	When selected, indicates that the trial is available to the public (open to anyone). By default, this check box is not selected, and the trial is a private trial. This means that the trial is limited to the trial participants whom you invite to participate in the trial (in the Participants tab).
	Contact	The name of the contact person in the institution who is responsible for the trial.
	Participant page URL	The path to the trial survey. Filled in automatically after the start and end dates are entered, and cannot be edited. The URL for the trial includes the Participant Page URL field, as follows: https://<Alma domain>/<participant page url>
	Copy to Clipboard	The full URL can be copied to the clipboard to use it outside of Alma without the need to copy the partial URL and add the server name. For more information, watch the Get Full URL for Survey of an E-Resource Public Trial video (1:07 min).
	View Form	A link that displays the trial survey.
Analysis and Results	This section is completed by the Trial Operator after reviewing and analyzing the results of the trial (see Analyzing Trial Results).

In the Survey Form tab, create the questions for the survey.
In the Form Configuration section, select the Hide Portfolio Tab and/or Hide Collection Tab check boxes if you want those tabs to be suppressed from the survey form sent to the users. Select the Add Survey Prefix check box to include an explanatory message that appears at the top of the survey. Enter the message in the Prefix Message field.

Add questions to the survey for either the General Information or Questions sections using one or both of the following methods:
- In Add from list, select a question from a list of existing questions. The Survey Form Question List page opens. Select the questions you want to use for the survey and select Select. The questions are added to the form.
- Select Add Question. The Add Question dialog box appears. Enter the question information as follows:
  
  Add Question Dialog Box
  1. From the Type drop-down list, select one of the following types of questions: Scale of satisfied (for example, 1-5), Yes/No, Free text, Multi choice, or Single choice.
  2. Enter the text of the question in the Question field.
  3. For Multi choice or Single choice questions, enter a Question code. This code will associate the values you enter back to the question.
  4. For Multi choice or Single choice questions, select Add Value. Enter a Value and select Add. Repeat this step until you have entered all the values for the question.
    Values for the Multi choice and Single Choice questions can also be maintained in the Survey Question Multiple Choice mapping table. See Configuring Multiple Choice Survey Questions.
  5. Select the Answer for this question is mandatory check box to require the user to answer the question.
  6. Select the Add comment check box to add a comment field to the question. Another field appears to enter the label for the comment.
  7. Select Add to add the question to the survey and leave the dialog box open to add an additional question, or select Add and Close to add the question to the survey and close the dialog box. The question is added to the form.
To edit a question, select Edit in the row actions list for the question you want to edit. Modify the question as required and select OK.
To rearrange the order of questions, use the Move Down and Move Up arrows.

To delete a question, select Delete in the row actions list for the question you want to delete, and select Confirm in the confirmation box.
If you are defining a private trial, select the Participants tab to select the participants in the trial.
Use the secondary search to search for the participants you have added to the trial.

To add participants, select Select participants to search for and select users on the Find and Manage Users page (see Searching in Alma). Select the users and select Select. The selected participants are added to the trial.

To load a participant from a set, select Load from a set and select a set from the set list. At the top of the Trial Details page, a message displays to indicate the number of participants that were added out of the possible set size. Duplicates and deleted users will not be loaded.

If a checkmark appears in the Is Notified column, the user has already received a notification. Another notification will not be sent to the user when notifications are sent out. To reset a user so that they will receive another notification, either select Reset Notification on the row action list, or select a group of users and select Reset All Notifications from the view action list.

To remove a participant, select Delete in the row actions list for the user.
The Analysis tab appears only after the trial is created. In the Alerts tab, view the alerts generated for the trial.
In the Attachments tab, add, update, or delete attachments for the survey. For details on working with attachments, see Attachments Tab.
In the Notes tab, add, update, or delete notes for the survey. For details on working with notes, see Notes Tab.
When you have modified the PO line information for the trial as required, select Save.

Analyzing Trial Results

As responses are completed and submitted by the trial participants, they are recorded and analyzed in the Analysis tab. The Trial Operator reviews the results, makes a purchasing decision, and enters the decision in the Analysis and Results section of the Summary tab (see Entering and Saving Trial Results, above).

After the results of the trial are entered, the Trial Operator saves the trial. If no purchasing decision was taken, a dialog box appears asking for confirmation that the trial can be saved without this information. The trial then remains on the Manage Trials page.

If the decision is not to purchase, the Purchasing Operator can decide to cancel the PO line. For more information on canceling the PO line, see Canceling PO Lines.

It is not possible to edit or delete a recorded response for trials.

When answering a survey, the survey will time out after approximately 10-15 minutes of non activity.

If a purchasing decision was taken:

The trial information is normalized and validated.
An alert is generated indicating that there is a purchasing decision for the trial.

The PO line is sent to the review PO lines task list (see step 2 in Purchasing Workflow). The Purchasing Operator can then proceed to process the PO line as part of the normal purchasing workflow.

To view the trial analysis:

On the Manage Trials page (Acquisitions > Purchase Order Lines > Manage Trials), select Edit in the row actions list for the trial you want to edit. The Trial Details page appears on the Summary tab (see Editing Trial Information, above).
Select the Analysis tab to open the Trial Analysis page.

The Analysis tab contains the following sections:

General Information – The number of surveys sent out to participants as well as the number of responses returned (with totals for each category of respondent).
Questions – Grouped according to the ranges (described in Editing Trial Information, above).

Within each range, the following information is displayed:

Question Number
Question
Responses
Average — For Yes/No questions, the number of yes/no responses is shown. For Scale of satisfied questions, the average of all responses is shown. For questions where the answers are in free text, the number of responses is shown, as well as a list of each response.

In addition to response totals, you can view graphical representations for the answers to each question and for the total of each range of questions. Yes/No and single or multi choice questions will display a pie chart with a table listing the results per option and comments. Scale of satisfaction questions will display a bar chart and average score.

Entering and Saving Trial Results

After analyzing the responses to the trial, the Trial Operator enters the results and the purchasing decision in the Analysis and Results section of the Summary tab. The minimum information that the Trial Operator must enter in this section is the Result and Result Date.

After the results are entered, the PO line is saved. If the decision was made to purchase the material, the PO line continues with step 2 of the purchasing workflow (see Purchasing Workflow). If the decision was made not to purchase the material, the Purchasing Operator can decide to cancel the PO line on the Purchase Order Lines in Review page (see Canceling PO Lines).

To enter the analysis and results of the trial:

On the Manage Trials page (Acquisitions > Purchase Order Lines > Manage Trials), select Edit in the row actions list for the trial you want to edit. The Trial Details page appears on the Summary tab (see Editing Trial Information).

Enter the analysis and results of the trial in the Analysis section. A description of the fields in this section is provided in the following table.

Analysis and Results Fields
Section	Field	Description
Analysis and Results	Result	Select the trial result.
	Result date	Select the date on which the trial result decision is taken from the Calendar dialog box.
	Result reason	Select the reason for the result. To customize the list, contact Ex Libris support.
	Purchase decision	Select No or Yes from the drop down list.

Select one of the following buttons:
- Save — Store the results of the trial. If you decided to purchase the material, the PO line continues with step 2 of the purchasing workflow (see Purchasing Workflow). If you decided not to purchase the material, the PO line can be canceled, as described in Canceling PO Lines.
- Export Survey Feedback — Exports a summary of the trial, with one tab each for the results of General Information and Questions, to an Excel spreadsheet.