Alma July 2016 Release Notes
The Alma July release provides numerous new features and enhancements. Some of these enhancements are a result of the NERS or 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 |
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| Enhancements to Fulfillment Networks - If you are working with a fulfillment network that wants to offer full, direct borrowing services, you can now take advantage of a new, full end-to-end workflow. With the addition of a Request for pickup anywhere option, your patrons can request items from any institution, for pickup at any institution. |
| Managing Automatic Patron-Linked Account Creation - If you are working in a fulfillment network that shares Primo as a discovery platform, this new feature is of interest to you. Using this feature, it is now possible to retrieve another institution's holdings information without copying over the patron information from the original institution and without creating a linked account. |
| Dublin Core Support for Bulk Ingest of Bibliographic Records - This new feature supports loading Dublin Core records and keeping them as the descriptive records for digital resources. If you are interested in moving some of your digital collections from an existing system to Alma, this feature enables you to easily export and import resources from your system to Alma, with no cross-walking of metadata required. |
| Support for Publishing in Linked Data Format - Linked data can greatly enrich a discovery experience. With this new option, libraries that publish their catalog information using the general publishing platform can include linked data enrichments as part of the published data. |
What's New?
The following sections present the new and changed features in this release of Alma.
Acquisitions
- Item Search in Amazon - Search within Alma for an item in Amazon and then create a PO line for the item.
- Additional Acquisitions Enhancements
Resource Management
- Brief Record Levels - Phase 2 - The second phase of the new brief record levels feature.
- Semi-Annual Re-indexing - Several new enhancements made available as a result of the re-indexing process starting at the beginning of July.
- Browse by Bibliographic Call Number/Classification - Browsing bibliographic call number/classification is now available from Resource Management > Cataloging > Browse Bibliographic Headings.
- Cataloging Levels for Contribution to Externally Managed Authorities - New configuration options for aligning Alma's user-based cataloger permission levels with the cataloging levels in the GND and BARE external systems.
- Additional Resource Management Enhancements
Digital Resource Management
- Dublin Core Support for Bulk Ingest of Bibliographic Records - Configure a digital import profile to accept Dublin Core as the source and target formats.
- Enhanced Issue Information for Representations - Additional issue-related metadata fields are now available for digital representations.
- Export Digital Titles Job - A new job is now available to export digital bibliographic records with detailed information on files and how to access their specific storage location.
- Additional Digital Resource Management Enhancements
Fulfillment
- Additional Copyright Clearance Features - Additional fields and options were added to the copyright clearance process.
- Fulfillment Jobs Management - Several jobs were added to the Fulfillment Jobs configuration page.
- Additional Fulfillment Enhancements
Resource Sharing
- Receive Multiple Items for A Broker-Managed Request - Receive multiple items for a broker-managed resource sharing request.
- New Options for Add from External Search - Submit an external search according to a phrase search, keywords search, "starts with" search, ISBN, and ISSN. Watch the New Options for Add from External Search video
- Resource Sharing Request Fee Policy - A new terms of use policy, Resource Request Fee, can be used to apply a fee when a borrowing request is created.
Collaborative Networks
- Enhancements to Fulfillment Networks - Institutions working in a fulfillment network can now enable patrons to pick up requested items at any institution within the network. Watch the Enhancements to Fulfillment Networks video
- Managing Automatic Patron-Linked Account Creation - When using a shared Primo discovery across a fulfillment network, it is now possible to retrieve another institution's holdings information without copying over the patron information from the original institution and without creating a linked account.
- Enhanced Network Search Results 'Held By' Details - The Held By Details page, available from the Network tab of the Alma repository search, was enhanced to include more information related to the inventory held by each member institution.
Analytics
A NERS Enhancement: Fund Information Added to Physical Items - This new dimension enables you to report on fund information together with physical item information.- Receiving Date (Latest in POL) Added to PO Line - This new field enables you to retrieve the latest receiving date for an item in a PO line.
- As part of the plans to increase the export size of CSV reports in Analytics, the Analytics OBIEE will be upgraded to version 11.1.1.9. This will be handled in Europe on July 10, North America on July 17, and Asia Pacific on July 24. Initially, the exported number of rows from Analytics to a CSV report will be increased to 250,000. At a later stage, this number will be increased to 500,000.
- Due to an upgrade of the OBIEE used by Alma Analytics, the export option for reports from Alma Analytics to Excel 2003 was removed. Only export to an .xslx format is available, and not export to an .xls format.
Administration, Infrastructure, and Language Support
- Enhancements to Code Table Translations - Editing translations for code tables was simplified for multi-language institutions.
- Customization Level Indication Added to Code and Mapping Tables - The Customization mode field was added to code and mapping tables to indicate whether the table is updated automatically by Ex Libris in new releases of Alma.
- Additional Administration and Infrastructure Enhancements
APIs
- An API was created to add a title to a collection or remove a title from a collection: POST /bibs/collections/\[COLLECTION_ID\]/bibs with bib> payload containing only MMS_IDFor more information, see https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/apis/bibs.
DELETE /bibs/collections/\[COLLECTION_ID\]/bibs/\[MMS_ID\] - It is now possible to search for a linked bibliographic record using its Network Zone MMS ID (GET /bibs?nz_mms_id=[MMS ID of the NZ Bib]). For more information, see https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/apis/bibs.
- The Linked Data BIB API now includes links to local authorities. For more information, see https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/integrations/linked_data.
Known Issues
- When importing an EOD file using the New Order profile, if the location of the item does not have a call number type, the call number type of the institution should be used as the alternative call number type. Currently, however, no alternative call number is used.
- Related to merging bibliographic records in the MD Editor, if there are no requests, the Merge Records and Combine Inventory pop-up window does not display a count of 0 (zero) requests. The count appears for requests only when it is greater than 0 (zero). The count should also appear as 0 (zero) requests when they occur.
- Regarding the autocomplete/pop-up assistance being provided for several UNIMARC fields in the MD Editor, there is a known issue related to UNIMARC 327 $a and 327 $b. These subfields are based on the same functionality and as a result, the pop-up suggestions in the MD Editor suggests both subfields’ values when entering content in either the 327 $a or the 327 $b.
- Fixed position fields cannot be modified using the extension loader (extension packs) at this time.
- When creating an OCLC Connexion import profile in a Network Zone member institution with the Use NZ option selected, the Use NZ record option is used upon finding a match. Currently, there is no possibility to select the Merge, Overlay, or Do not import options instead.
- When a record is deleted in Alma, the headings associated with the record are still available when browsing bibliographic headings.
- The Total electronic portfolios imported count in the MD import report does not take into account the portfolios imported in the first file that is imported when the import is split into several files.
- When LDAP is used for authentication, and one or more fields values in the LDAP integration profile are missing, the values from a previously defined LDAP integration profile are used. If there is no previously defined LDAP profile, or if this profile also contains missing values for these fields, authentication will fail. In the future, mandatory fields will be enforced and the previous LDAP profile values won’t be used. In the meantime, it is recommended that you fix your LDAP profile if you have missing field values.
- The URL condition that was added as an advanced search option under Electronic Collection when searching for electronic titles is not functioning properly.