Alma November 2017 Release Notes

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This Alma release provides numerous new features and enhancements. Some of these enhancements are a result of Idea Exchange 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
Updating Community Zone Contributed Electronic Collections – This new functionality enables both contributors and users of contributed collections to benefit from ongoing updates and more accurate information in these collections.
Move PO Lines and/or Licenses from an Existing Electronic Collection to a New Electronic Collection – This new functionality enables you to move PO lines and/or licenses from an existing electronic collection to a new electronic collection facilitates publisher and content provider changes, while providing you with tools to keep your existing acquisitions records in place.
Alma Viewer Metadata Now Configurable – You can now configure the metadata fields that patrons will view alongside the digital content in the Alma Viewer, as well as the order in which these fields appear.
Customize Order of Representation Delivery Service – Using new configuration options, you can control whether digital content is displayed to patrons before electronic content, and determine the order in which digital services are displayed.
Direct Transit for Remote Storage Items – You can now further streamline the workflow for managing requested items that are shelved at a remote storage location. If you use this new option, checking in items that are shelved at the remove storage location immediately puts these items in transit to their shelving desk, rather than requiring them to first be put in transit to the owning library.
Distribute Fulfillment Units from the Network Zone – If you want to manage a single set of fulfillment configurations among institutions working with a Network Zone, you'll be interested in this new option of centrally managing fulfillment units (which comes in addition to the previously existing options to centrally manage fulfillment terms of use and policies).
Date Filters Added – Have you ever wanted to retrieve records by the last 7 days? Or perhaps by the previous fiscal year? Until now, you've needed to either hard code the date each time or write an SQL query. Now you can quickly and easily choose the new date filter in the Analytics date folders. You can automatically retrieve by predefined periods such as Current Fiscal Year, Last 30 Days, or Two Years Ago.
View Only Catalog, Repository, and Acquisitions Administrator Roles – New read-only roles for Acquisitions, Catalog and Repository Administrators allow you to expand access to configuration and setup, providing staff users with information they require.

What's New

The following sections present the new and changed features in this release of Alma.

New Alma User Interface

More than 12,000 staff users and 500 institutions worldwide are now using Alma’s new interface. If you haven't yet started using the new interface, now is the time to try it out. You can turn it on gradually for specific staff users, or decide to turn it on for your entire institution (Click here for more information about enabling the new UI).

Note that the new interface will be turned on automatically for all Alma customers in January 2018, so take advantage of the next few months to start using the new UI at your institution and share your feedback with us.

Acquisitions

Requiring ERP Numbers for POs – Alma now supports an additional option for integrating POs with your ERP. You can now require that POs have an ERP approval number before they are sent to the vendor.
Additional Acquisitions Enhancements

Resource Management

Idea Exchange: Updating Community Zone Contributed Electronic Collections – Community Zone contributed electronic collections can now be updated and maintained.
Alt+F3 Switching to F3 – The Alt+F3 function announced in August (see Browsing a Full Authority Headings List) is now accessible using F3, and the functionality accessed using F3 is now available using Alt+F3.
Deleting Holdings Using Indication Rules to Filter a Set – A new filtering option was added to the Delete holdings records with no items job that enables you to filter the set selected for the job using indication rules.
Cataloging Level Default Setting – A new customer parameter was added to Alma for setting a cataloging level default preference.
Record Format Identified in KERIS External Search Results – The information that appears in the KERIS external search results was enhanced to identify the record format (MARC 21 or KORMARC) for each record listed in the results.
Access Holdings-Level or Item-Level Records in the Browse Shelf Listing – The Browse Shelf Listing (Resources > Browse Shelf Listing) function was expanded to include holdings-level and item-level record access that can be edited in split screen mode for holdings, or the Physical Item Editor for items.
Move PO Lines and/or Licenses from an Existing Electronic Collection to a New Electronic Collection – Alma now provides the capability to move PO lines and/or licenses from the existing electronic collection to a new replacement electronic collection.
Additional Resource Management Enhancements

Digital Resource Management

Alma Viewer Metadata Now Configurable – You can now configure the metadata fields that are displayed when viewing digital content in the Alma Viewer, as well as the order in which these fields appear.
Customize Order of Representation Delivery Service – You can now determine whether electronic or digital services appear first in the View It tab. Additionally, you can determine the order of digital services according to the available viewer.
Additional Digital Resource Management Enhancements

Fulfillment

Direct Transit for Remote Storage Items – A scanned remote storage item can now be sent directly to the remote storage desk for re-shelving (that is, the desk that has a re-shelving relation with the item's location), even if the scan-in desk is not the owning library.
Control Patron Renewal – A new privilege can be used if you want to limit the existing ability of users to renew a patron record when the patron record has expired, there is no patron role, or the patron role has expired. In addition, the block User does not have a patron role or the role has expired can now be controlled in Block Preferences.
Additional Fulfillment Enhancements

Resource Sharing

Copyright Payment Support for BLDSS – If the Willing to Pay field is selected on a BLDSS borrowing request, the request is now sent with the payCopyright field set to True.
View Borrowing Requests from the Fund Transactions List – It is now possible for Fund/Ledger Managers to view a borrowing request from the fund transactions list.
Update Shipping Costs with a Row Action – Borrowing requests contain a new row action, Edit Shipping Costs, which allows you to update the shipping cost without opening the full edit form for the borrowing request.
Additional Resource Sharing Enhancements

Collaborative Networks

Idea Exchange: Viewing Network Activities – The Patron Services page can now display a patron's activity across all linked institutions.
Centrally Managed Licenses in a Network Zone – The Network Zone can now define a license on behalf of its member institutions, enabling each member institution to use it for their electronic resources and related purchases.
Classification Enrichment for Network Zone Publishing to Primo – For Network Zones that have classification enrichment enabled by Support for Publishing to Primo, there is a new classification enrichment option in the Network Zone Publish bibliographic records from Network Zone to Primo profile.
Member Access to Network Zone Reminders – Member institutions may now manage reminders for Network Zone records.
Distribute Role Profiles and Role Assignment Rules from the Network Zone – User profiles and role assignment rules may now be created centrally in the Network Zone and distributed automatically to the member institutions.
Distribute Fulfillment Units from the Network Zone – Fulfillment units may now be created by centrally in the Network Zone and distributed automatically to the member institutions.
Distribute S/FTP Profiles from the Network Zone – S/FTP profiles may now be created by centrally in the Network Zone and distributed automatically to the member institutions.
Additional Collaborative Network Enhancements

Analytics

Load File and Uploading Vendor Dimensions Added to Usage Data – The Load File and Uploading Vendor dimensions were added to the Usage Data subject area.
Additional Analytics Enhancements

Mobile

Alma Mobile Logout and Language Enhancements – The Alma Mobile app now provides a logout action. In addition, the Getting Started pages are presented in the language identified as the default language on your mobile device.

Administration and Infrastructure

Idea Exchange: View Only Catalog, Repository, and Acquisitions Administrator Roles – As was added in the September release for Fulfillment and User Management, a read-only role parameter was added for the Catalog, Repository, and Acquisitions Administrator roles. A user who has this role with the role parameter enabled can view configuration options but not edit them. This feature exists in the new UI only.
Support for Multiple CAS Profiles in a Single Institution – Multiple CAS integration profiles may now be created so that a single institution can authenticate with two or more separate CAS IdPs.
Viewing a MARC Record as a BIBFRAME Record – You may now publish and view MARC records as BIBFRAME records.
Additional Administration and Infrastructure Enhancements

APIs

You can now update a borrowing resource sharing request's shipping cost and fund using a POST API.
New APIs are available to create, update, or delete licenses. For detailed information, see https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/apis/acq.
If webhook attempts fail, emails are sent to all the email addresses stipulated in the Webhooks profile's Contact Information tab.

Alma-Summon Integration

The following improvements were made to Alma-Summon patron-facing pages:

As part of the Alma Configuration menu realignment, the Discovery menu was moved between the Resources and Fulfillment menus in both the classic and new Alma UIs.
Added support for authentication via email link.