Alma January 2018 Release Notes
This Alma release provides numerous new features and enhancements. Some of these enhancements are a result of Idea Exchange or NERS initiatives.
Download a PDF of the Release Notes – Note that the PDF includes the online help pages that describe the core functionality of the new features.Make the Most of This Release
| Action Items |
|---|
| Contributing SUSHI Accounts to The Community Zone – This new feature enables the entire Alma community to share SUSHI vendor details. Each institution can contribute operating SUSHI vendors to the Community Zone that other institutions will be able to copy and use. |
| Contributing Templates and Publishing Profiles to the Community Zone – These new features continue to expand the use of the Community Zone for the contribution and sharing of general publishing profile and metadata cataloging template configurations. |
| Customizable Dublin Core Record Forms – You can now customize metadata forms for staff-mediated deposit of digital records or adding digital representations. You can define the fields to be displayed, the order in which they appear, and which fields are mandatory. This is currently enabled for records cataloged using DC. |
| New Digital Inventory Subject Area – This new subject area can be used to obtain the full spectrum of trends and statistics in Alma Digital, including but not limited to the number of representations, files, file views, and file downloads. These measures can also be combined with date filters. |
| Loans and Requests Triggers for Webhooks – If loan and request information is used by an external application in your institution, you can now strengthen the integration between Alma and your institution's application by using the new Webhooks that will automatically update your application regarding changes in Alma's managed loans and requests. |
What's New
The following sections present the new and changed features in this release of Alma.
New Alma User Interface
As of this release, the new UI is enabled as the default UI for all users, including users who have opted in the past to switch back to the classic UI. These users will still be able to switch back to the classic UI for the duration of the January release.
As of the February release, users will no longer be able to use the classic UI.
Acquisitions
Idea Exchange: Contributing SUSHI Accounts to The Community Zone – You may now contribute a SUSHI account to the Community Zone.- Normalize the Title During a COUNTER Load – The Normalized Title field in the Usage Data subject area now normalizes the title that comes from the COUNTER report in the same manner that Alma normalizes the titles of bibliographic records.
- Additional Acquisitions Enhancements
Resource Management
- Publishing Authority Records – The general publishing platform was enhanced to support the publishing of authority records.
- Uniform Serial/Non-Serial Match Method – You can configure import profiles to disregard resource type (serial/non serial) when matching imported records using a single match profile.
- Contributing Templates to the Community Zone – You can now contribute templates to the Community Zone from the MD Editor.
- Contributing Publishing Profiles to the Community Zone – You can now contribute publishing profiles to the Community Zone.
- Merged Record Identifier – When merging records, you can configure Alma to take an identifier from the secondary record and place it in the primary record to keep track of the merged record.
- Additional Resource Management Enhancements
Digital Resource Management
- Customizable Dublin Core Record Forms – You can now customize forms for creating Dublin Core metadata records in Alma. The forms are used by staff when adding a representation or depositing a record.
- Additional Digital Resource Management Enhancements
Fulfillment
- Fulfillment Enhancements – Several enhancements were made to the Fulfillment functional area for the January release.
Resource Sharing
- Status Queries for Borrowing and Lending Requests – The Status Query row action was added to the borrowing and lending request task lists to send a status query to the borrowing or lending institution using an ISO message.
- Additional Resource Sharing Enhancements
Collaborative Networks
- Pricing a Multiyear Negotiation License – For acquisition networks, the Network Zone may now record price per year for multiyear licenses to allow for a price increase between years.
- Distribute SAML Integration Profiles from the Network Zone – SAML integration profiles may now be created by the Network Zone and distributed to the member institutions.
Analytics
- New Digital Inventory Subject Area – The Digital Inventory subject area allows you to create reports concerning digital inventory.
- Idea Exchange: Anonymization of Alma Analytics Reports – Fields that contain identifying information of users can be anonymized when creating Alma Analytics reports.
- Additional Analytics Enhancements
Administration and Infrastructure
- Export Users by Active Loans – The export user block action of the SIS integration profile now enables you to export users that have active loans.
- Loans and Requests Triggers for Webhooks – The Webhooks integration profile has two new check boxes in the Actions tab of the profile for Requests and Loans.
- Staff Login Option for Social Login – A new check box was added to the social/email login integration profile to control whether staff may use social logins for Alma.
- Additional Administration and Infrastructure Enhancements
APIs
- You can now set the cataloging level (cataloging_level) when creating or updating a bibliographic record using the APIs.
- A new API was created for deleting a holdings record. Note that the API also deletes the holdings from a PO line.
- The following digitization request fields were added to the RESTful API as well:
- Chapter/article title
- Chapter/article author
- Page numbers
- Chapter and full chapter indication (true/false)
Alma-Summon Integration
The following improvements were made to Alma-Summon:
- You can now provide up to five different user authentication links (previously limited to two links) on the User Login page.
Content Operations
- CSIC authorities were added to Alma Community Zone for this release.
- Library of Congress Authorities Community Zone Updates
- New Electronic Collections Added to the Alma CKB
- New External Search Resources
Known Issues
There are no known issues for the January release.
Next Release Sneak Preview
View a list of the features that are planned for the February 2018 release.