Esploro 2021 Release Notes
Click here to view the monthly release and maintenance schedules.
Upcoming Issues to Note
June 2021 Sneak Peek
The upcoming June release will include features such as:
- Check for duplicate assets as part of the researcher deposit.
- New Projects support in Esploro.
- Add projects brief results to Profiles.
- Add citation count to the Asset page.
- Add Open URL to the Asset page.
- ETDs publishing in MARC XML metadata format.
May 2021 Sneak Peek
The upcoming May release will include features such as:
- Integration with JISC’s IRUS-UK for usage tracking
- Integration with Handle.Net for registering handles
- New visibility flags for research assets
- New citation count fields in the Research Assets subject area
- A new organization tree will allow browsing through the institution's different units
- Researchers will be able to communicate with admins about their works via dedicated chat
- Enable reordering of topics by researcher
- Media mentions will be presented on the researcher profile
May 2021 Sneak Peek
The upcoming May release will include features such as:
- Integration with JISC’s IRUS-UK for usage tracking
- Integration with Handle.Net for registering handles
- New visibility flags for research assets
- New citation count fields in the Research Assets subject area
- A new organization tree will allow browsing through the institution's different units
- Researchers will be able to communicate with admins about their works via dedicated chat
- Enable reordering of topics by researcher
- Media mentions will be presented on the researcher profile
March 2021 Sneak Peek
The upcoming March release will include features such as:
- Social media sharing of publications.
- Researchers will be able to add files to approved assets.
- Activate My Profile button will be added to Profiles.
- Researchers will be able to highlight grants in their profiles.
- Integration with Retriever for loading media mentions.
- Auto-population of grant information from Pivot-RP when adding a grant.
- Ability to load and update profile pictures using the researchers loader and API.
- Customizable mapping tables for the SWORD and ETD Administrator integrations.
- New Analytics subject area for Smart Harvesting analysis and management.
February 2021 Sneak Peek
The upcoming February release will include features such as:
- New Media Mentions support for researchers
- Support multi language assets' descriptions and keywords when importing assets
- Support multi language assets' descriptions and keywords when retrieving assets via API
- Multi language support for organization units' name and description when loading organization units
- Asset's internal notes reportable in Esploro Analytics
- Staff can edit researchers' profiles using a link from the researcher's management
- Researchers ability to add files to approved assets
- Add Export, Send To, and Cite sections to the Asset page
- Available asset types on deposit form will be sorted by most frequently used, and will be customizable by administrators
Main Features
Researcher Communications
Researchers and administrators can now communicate directly about researcher output.



Media Mentions in Researcher Profiles
The researcher's media mentions can now be displayed on the researcher profile in the Media tab.

- profileVisibility is set to Public
- isDisplayInPublicProfile is set to yes for the researcher
- Hide mention/Unhide Mention - Hide or unhide the mention for public visibility.
To enable this feature, select yes or only for signed in users on the Mentions tab selection in Researcher Details Display. See Researcher Details Display.
Allow Researchers to Reorder Their Research Topics
Topics on the Profile Settings page can now be reordered using drag and drop.
Organizational Tree
A new organization tree was added to the new portal. it will allow portal visitors to browse through the different units of your organization to see the unit's research output. This feature is currently available only in your sandbox environment. It will be activated in production in a coming release. A new dedicated search results page design was also added to indicate the relevant unit, and to allow intuitive browsing between units.

Portal Search Configuration
You can now configure the display of the facets, sort, and general search settings for the Search Results page. This is done on the Brief Results tab of the Assets page. This feature is currently available only in your sandbox environment. It will be activated in production in a coming release. For more information, see Brief Results Tab.
Usage Integration with IRUS-UK
You can now send portal usage information to IRUS-UK. IRUS-UK (Institutional Repository Usage Statistics UK) is a national aggregation service, which provides COUNTER-conformant usage statistics for all content downloaded from participating UK institutional repositories (IRs). To enable this feature, you must opt in by enabling the IRUS-UK Tracker (Configuration Menu > Research > External Systems > IRUS-UK Tracker). Select the Customer Consent check box. You can then choose whether or not to show an alert that the usage information is being sent with the Display information message on the portal check box. By default, the option is disabled.

- More granular asset types were added to dc:type.
- Repository item URL was added to dc:identifier.
Leganto CiteIt! Support
Portal visitors can now use Leganto's Cite It! to add a citation from Esploro's new asset page to a reading list in Leganto.

New Esploro Handle Management and Server
Esploro now hosts a handle server for customers to use and register handles to without the need to export the handles information to a locally installed handle server for registration. When a unique identifier is created for an asset, it can be registered directly to the handle server without running a job. For now, the registration is manual. In upcoming releases, Esploro will automatically add the handles to each asset and register the handles. To register the handle, select Register Handle from the asset's row action menu on the Research Assets list.
Asset Visibility Flags
The Asset Details page now contains the Visibility section which allows you to select if an approved asset will appear in the portal and in profiles. The section appears only on an approved/imported asset. When making a deposit the section does not appear on the form but the checkboxes are shown when doing an approve for the deposit. If Display in Profiles is not enabled, the Display in Profile selection in the Creators and Contributors section will not impact the system. This functionality replaces the asset suppress functionality previously existed. Both Display in Profiles and Display in Profile are enabled by default. If either one is disabled, it will be reflected in the asset's icon on the asset list display.

Asset Citation Count Dimension Added to Esploro Research Assets
May 2021 Analytics URM-145560
- Citations Count Source – the source of the citation count (for example: Web of Science)
- Total Citation Count – the total asset citation count for the relevant source
- Year Of Citations Count – the year for which there is a count for the relevant source
- Yearly Citations Count – the citation count for the relevant year
For more information, see Esploro Research Assets.
Grant Start Date and Grant End Date Dimensions Added to Esploro Research Grants
May 2021 Analytics URM-140103
The Grant Start Date and Grant End Date dimensions were added to the Esploro Research Grants subject area allowing to easily create break down reports of the grants according to their dates. These dimensions replace the Grant Start Date and Grant End Date fields, which were located in the Grant Details dimension.
For more information, see Esploro Research Grants.
Social Media Sharing of Publications/Assets
Social media links are now available in the Sharing section of the Assets page. You can customize which links are visible on the Assets tab of the Research Portal Configuration page.

Asset Search Results
You can now search on assets as well as researchers in the portal search by selecting either Outputs or Researchers in the search drop down list. When searching on researchers, you can type the search criteria and select to search by name or affiliation. You can also use an asterisk (*) to search as a wildcard on all items. The Outputs search includes a sort function and facets. Each facet can be excluded or included. Selected facets appear at the top of the page.

To enable the search page in your sandbox, you must set the esploro_new_search_results_page parameter to True (Configuration Menu > Research > Institution Settings > Other Settings).
While the search function is visible in the sandbox for the March release, the production release will be available as of the May release. At that time, a dedicated configuration section will be made available.
See Searching Assets.
Allow Researchers to Add Files and Links to Deposited Assets
Using the Add files and links action, researchers can now add files and links to approved assets. Files that are added to an approved asset will not display to the public until they have been reviewed by a staff member. The action is available on all assets except those in draft status.


Activate My Profile Button

A researcher can now choose to notify a staff member when they are done editing and want their profile to be published. You can define if the researcher can publish their profile independently in the esploro_profile_self_activation customer profile. When the parameter is set to True, if the researcher selects Make Your Profile Public, a confirmation message is displayed and the profile is activated. When the parameter is set to False, if the researcher selects Make Your Profile Public, a confirmation message is displayed. When confirmed, the request for activation is sent to the staff member.
Reorder Profile Links
Researchers can now reorder the links in their profiles by dragging and dropping the selected links.
Highlight Grants
Researchers can now highlight the grants of their choice. Highlighted grants are displayed in a dedicated section on the Grants page.
Auto-Populate Grant Information from Pivot-RP
Esploro now integrates with Pivot-RP to allow staff members to auto-populate grant information from Pivot-RP simplifying the process of adding grants and enriching the grant information added to Esploro. When adding a grant, as you begin typing the Grant Name, an auto-complete function now displays matching title values from Pivot-RP. When a title value is selected from the auto-complete options, available fields will be automatically populated in the grant.


Media Mentions Approval Option
You can now approve a media mention instead of just saving it as a draft. When selecting Approve, you can select if it is for display in Portal, Profile, or both. For approved media mentions a new section with the display settings was added to allow changing the display as and if needed. The display itself on the portal and profiles is planned to be added on a future release.
Media Mentions Integration with Retriever

Add or Update Profile Pictures Using the Researchers Loader and API
You can now add or update researchers' profile pictures using the Researchers loader or API. See Importing and Synchronizing Researchers and Esploro Researchers API in the Developer Network.
Assets Import Mapping Options
You can now configure various asset fields mapping when importing assets using the SWORD Integration and ETD Admin Migration (Configuration Menu > Research > Imports > Assets Mapping).

- Assets Import to Esploro Affiliation Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro Asset Publication Language Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro Asset Type Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro Awarding Academic Unit Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro Contributor Type Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro Degree Codes Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro ETD Degree Program Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro File Types Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro License Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro Project Type Mapping
- Assets Import to Esploro Rights Mapping
- Converis to Esploro Asset Type Mapping
See Mapping Assets.
New Smart Harvesting Subject Area
March 2021 Analytics URM-141727
- What is the number of approved assets?
- What is the number of rejected (deleted) assets?
- What is the number of assets per institution, academic unit, and researcher?
- What is the number of author matches per status and rank?
- How can I create a report of rejected author matches?
- How can I display the number of approvals compared to the number of rejects?
For more information, see Esploro Smart Harvesting.
Access a Researcher Profile from the Researcher Management Page
Repository managers can now access a researcher profile and edit it on the researcher's behalf. On the Find and Manage Researchers page, there is now an Edit Profile option on the row action menu. Choosing this option opens the Researcher Profile page. The repository manager can make a change to the researcher information or to make a deposit and the audit history will record that the repository manager made the change. See Managing Researchers.

Media Mentions For Researchers



Multi-Language Support for Keywords and Abstracts in the Assets API
The Assets API has changed to accommodate the multi-language support for keywords and abstracts so that now when retrieving assets through the Retrieve Assets API, multiple keywords and abstracts are returned with their respective languages. This change will cause the structure of the keywords and abstract to change requiring any code calling the API to adjust to the change of structure. For more information, see the Developer Network.
Abstract and Keywords Multi-Language Support for Assets Imports
When importing Assets in the Esploro XML format, you can now include multiple Abstracts and Keyword fields in various languages. For more information, see the Developer Network.
Support Translations in the Internal and External Organization Units Loaders
The Import Organizations and Import External Organizations unit loaders now support loading translations for the Name and Description fields. For more information, see the Developer Network.
Export Assets Section in the New Asset Page
The Asset Page now has a Export Asset section for sharing the asset in various ways.

- Cite
- Formats: MLA (7th), MLA (8th), Chicago/Turabian (16th edition), Harvard
- Export to RIS, BibTex, RefWorks, and EndNote

Control the Asset Types Available in the Researcher Deposit Form
You can now control the display of asset types on the Researcher Deposit form. The drop-down list includes the following sort options:
- Frequently used - This list is calculated weekly from those asset types deposited most often.
- Suggested only - When selecting this option, you can restrict the asset types the researchers can select to only those that you define. This option can be helpful for institutions who wish to limit the asset types available such in cases of national assessment deposits.
- Suggested on top - As with the Suggested only option, the suggested options are pre-defined, but the suggested items display at the top of the drop-down list, with the entire list appearing below.
- Default sort - The complete list, sorted alphabetically.
Choosing Publishing Season Instead of Full Publishing Date
- Researcher Profile
- Brief Results
- Deposit
- Asset Page

Asset Notes Dimension Added to Esploro Research Assets
February 2021 Analytics URM-129742
It is now possible to create reports that include the notes on the asset. For that purpose, the Asset Notes dimension was added to the Esploro Research Asserts subject area. It contains fields concerning the notes on the asset, for example the note itself, when and who added it, etc.
For more information, see Asset Notes.
New Asset Page
The new Esploro full Asset page is now available. The Full Asset page is the first part of the new Esploro Portal to be rolled out. With this release, the following sections can be configured and used:
- Metadata
- Abstract and keywords
- Files and links
- Related assets
- Metrics
- Asset Details
Esploro Header and Footer
A new customized header and footer has been added for the Research Portal and the Researcher Profile. The portal header includes configurable logo and links, as well as a search box for portal navigation.
Researcher Record Audit Trail
The Researcher management page now includes an audit trail for changes that are made to the researcher. The audit trail includes:
- Date and time
- Operator
- Field or element updated
- Where the change was made
This information is available in the History tab of the Researcher Details page.

This functionality will be available from the production installment date.
See Editing Researchers.
ROR ID Support for Organization Units
The ROR (Research Organization Registry) ID is now available in both the internal and external Organization Unit. When entering the identifier, ROR is available in the Identifier Type drop-down list. When the ID is included in an organization unit associated with an asset with a DataCite registered DOI, the ROR ID will be sent to DataCite as part of the asset's metadata.
Load the Researcher Identifiers with the Researchers Loader in Researcher Only Mode
You can now load researcher identifiers as part of the Researchers Only option in the Researchers loader. Any type of identifier can be included in the load except Primary ID. To mark an identifier you are adding manually to the researcher as managed by Esploro, select the Add as a researcher ID flag on the Researcher Identifiers list. This selection will cause it to be updated when the Researcher loader is run with the Researchers Only option.When configuring your Researchers loader in Researchers Only mode, be sure to select the Identifiers you will be managing from the list of Identifiers that is displayed. Identifiers that are selected will be updated by the loader when it is set to update the researcher data and not the user data.
Allow to Reorder the Researcher Website URLs

Repository Managers can now change the order of URLs displayed on the Researcher Profile. To do this, on the Researcher Details page in the research repository, drag the URL rows in the Researcher Website URLs list to reorder them as you want them to appear on the Researcher Profile page.
Multi-language Support for Asset Abstracts and Keywords
On the Asset Details page in the research repository, the Abstract and Additional Subjects fields can now be maintained in multiple languages. When a default language has been defined in the Multi-Lingual Data Elements configuration page, a globe icon appears next to the fields. Selecting the icon displays a window where you can input values in up to five languages. The languages displayed by default are the languages configured in the Additional Languages field.
Add View Assets to Grants

On the Manage Grants list, the row options menu now includes a View Assets option. Selecting this option shows the list of assets associated with the grant.
Asset Creators and Contributors Dimension Added to Esploro Researchers Subject Area
January 2021 Analytics URM-124854
The Asset Creators and Contributors dimension was added to the Esploro Researchers subject area. It contains fields related to the authors of assets. This dimension is similar to the one that exists in the Esploro Research Assets subject area. For more information, see Esploro Researchers.
Teaching and Learning Asset Fields Added to Esploro Analytics
January 2021 Analytics URM-115702
The following dedicated teaching and learning asset fields were added to all Esploro Analytics subject areas:
- Under Asset Description:
- Has Audience – indicates if the asset has an audience description
- Has Education Level – indicates if the asset has an educational level description
- Has Instructional Method – indicates if the asset has an instructional method description
- New Folder: Asset Teaching and Learning:
- Mobile Compatibility – indicates if the asset is mobile compatible
- Source code availability – indicates if the asset source code is available
- Typical learning time – the typical learning time expected for the teaching material’s audience
- Course name – the course name to which the asset relates
- Course number – the course number to which the asset relates
Additional Enhancements
- May 2021 Portal URM-146926
HTML Tags are now accepted in the Asset title. - May 2021 Researcher Profiles URM-145147
The width of the Profiles Data area is now wider to allow for more entry. - May 2021 Analytics URM-146133
The following fields were added to the Asset Details dimension for all subject areas.- Asset Input Status – indicates the asset's status (for example: approved or draft)
- Display in Profile – indicates if the asset is displayed in the Researcher Profile
- Display in Portal – indicates if the asset is displayed in the Research Portal
- May 2021 Analytics URM-143232
The fields of the Researcher Identifiers dimension in the Esploro Researchers subject area can now display multiple values in reports. - March 2021 Management URM-139634
When publishing assets in the Esploro format, the resulting XML includes the asset type for related assets. For more information, see the Developer Network. - March 2021 Management URM-143351
The option to upload images is no longer available on the Researcher Details page. The option is available when editing the profile. - March 2021 Management URM-144081
When selecting Users and Researchers in the SIS loader configuration (Configuration Menu > General > External Systems > Integration Profiles), a warning is now displayed to indicate that the entire user and researcher record will be replaced. - March 2021 Researcher Profile URM-136752
You can now add a title for the researcher that overrides the value of the first affiliation position. - March 2021 Portal URM-142404
When viewing files and links on an asset, the file is now displayed directly in the asset rather in Primo VE. - March 2021 Portal URM-148358
OpenURL is now available on the asset page. - March 2021 Analytics URM-145730
The Deposit Creation Date and Deposit Modification Date dimensions were added to the Esploro Research Assets Usage subject area. They include fields relating to the date of the creation and the modification of the deposit. - February 2021 Management URM-138255
Repository managers using the Central Discovery Index source in the import profile, can now choose if the imported assets are either approved or draft. When the Central Discovery Index is chosen as the source on the import profile, the Import record as field is now available to select whether import records are uploaded as Approved asset or Draft deposit. See Importing Research Assets in Bulk. - February 2021 Management URM-140900
On the Run a Job page, a new job type, Research Repository Cleanup, replaces a previous job type, Delete set of assets. - February 2021 Research Portal URM-117160
In the file viewer for a research asset, the metadata now includes the roles of the creators and contributors that appear, if the role exists. - February 2021 Management URM-136751
On the Run a Job page, a new job type, Repository managers can now enter a display title for the Researcher's Profile to display instead of the researcher's position and first affiliation. For that purpose the Researcher Details page contains a new field, Display Title. The display itself on the researcher profile will be added on the next release. - January 2021 Management URM-134508
It is now possible to configure the domain name used when generating links to the assets on the Research Portal and to the Researcher Profiles. For example when publishing to Google and Google Scholar or to a DOI Registration Agency. To use this option, please contact Ex Libris customer support. - January 2021 Management URM-141192
The job for exporting handles, Export Esploro Handles, was moved to be a Publishing Profile (Research > Publishing Profiles) and now includes an option to schedule it in addition to running it manually. See Adding Handle Identifiers. - January 2021 Management URM-106973
A Code column is now available on the External Research Organizations and Organization Academic Units lists. When exporting to Excel, the code is now exported along with the other data. - January 2021 Management URM-128041
The Asset Relationships section is now available for ETD Assets, similar to all other assets. See Viewing Additional Asset Details. - January 2021 Analytics URM-115702
The Previously affiliated field was added to Esploro Research Assets > Asset Creators and Contributors and Esploro Researchers > Researcher Details. It indicates if the researcher was previously affiliated with the institution. - January 2021 Analytics URM-139405
Researcher Profile is now a possible value for the Requester Type field under Esploro Research Asset Usage > Asset Usage Details. It indicates that the asset usage originating from the researcher profiles.
Resolved Issues
- May 2021 Portal SF: 00853307 00854212 URM-132069
Some resource types were incorrectly displayed in the Research Portal. This was fixed. - May 2021 Portal URM-146314
The order of abstracts and keywords on the Asset page could not be controlled. This was fixed. - May 2021 Portal SF: 00903373 URM-141401
ISBN validation was removed from the asset. The warning regarding an invalid ISBN has also been removed. - May 2021 Portal SF: 00868170 URM-139377
When a subtitle in an asset ended with a period, the PDF cover page contained duplicate periods. This was fixed. - May 2021 Researcher Profiles SF: 00862647 URM-140799
Some assets were displayed in the Research Portal without publication details. This was fixed. - May 2021 Management SF: 00859971 URM-142731
The conference date on an asset used the wrong time zone. This was fixed. - May 2021 Management SF: 00925555 URM-147266
In some cases, the Author field was not being populated. This was fixed. - May 2021 Management URM-114851
In some cases, when auto-populating a book chapter with a book publication, the book subtitle incorrectly populated the chapter subtitle. This was fixed. - May 2021 Management SF: 00818649 URM-129825
In Grant Details, the Amount was automatically changing a whole number to a decimal. This was fixed. - May 2021 Analytics SF: 00915177 URM-146823
The Deposit Creation Date and Deposit Modification Date fields were deleted from the Deposit Details folder in Esploro Research Asset Usage SA because they are now in separate folders. - May 2021 Analytics SF: 00915191 URM-146933
The Peer Reviewed Journal field was changed to Peer Reviewed in in the Asset Details folder. - May 2021 Analytics SF: 00899508 URM-141106
In some cases, some of the asset files were missing from Analytics reporting. This was fixed. - April 2021 Portal SF: 00920435 URM-149206
The complete description list has been added back to the full Asset page. - April 2021 Portal URM-147893
The Include sign-in in the header check box has been removed from the Header/Footer configuration.. - March 2021 Management SF: 00863397 URM-141997
In some cases, importing assets via CSV failed. This was fixed. - March 2021 Management URM-142253
In some cases, when an asset had more than 50 files not all were imported. This was fixed. - March 2021 Management SF: 00868168 URM-142659
The asset title was limited to 253 characters. This was fixed. The title length is now 4000 characters. - March 2021 Management SF: 00910626 URM-143846
In some cases, the Publish Research Assets to Primo job failed with errors for bad records. This was fixed. - March 2021 Portal URM-147893
When deactivating Include sign-in in the header in the Header/Footer Settings, the sign-in still appeared. This was fixed. - March 2021 Analytics SF: 00889050 URM-141903
In analytics Research Assets SA, the Non-Affiliated primary identifier was missing from the Asset Authors List. This was fixed. - March 2021 Analytics SF: 00891355 URM-145179
In analytics Research Assets SA, the Researcher Preferred Name Suffix returned an error when used. This was fixed. - February 2021 Researcher Profiles URM-132173
In some cases, loading files for deposit was unsuccessful. This was fixed. - February 2021 Researcher Profiles SF: 00845684 URM-131786
In some cases, the Save button did not appear on the Edit Profile page. This was fixed. - February 2021 Research Portal
In the Research Portal, Author sorts sorted by first name instead of last name. This was fixed. - February 2021 Analytics URM-141010
The Assets without a match in the Alma catalog by ISBN and Assets without a match in the Alma catalog by ISSN reports now display the data per asset and not per ISBN or ISSN, taking into consideration all of the asset’s ISBNs and ISSNs. - February 2021 Analytics SF: 00860040 URM-142238
Researcher's drafts not submitted to the repository were appearing in Analytics. This was fixed. - January 2021 Management SF: 00881177 URM-137858
User notifications incorrectly appeared in the Attachment tab of the Researcher. This was fixed going forward so that only researcher notifications will appear. - January 2021 Management SF: 00871408 URM-138840
In some cases, when more than one page of deposits was available in Manage Deposits, one of the deposits was duplicated. This was fixed. - January 2021 Management URM-139324
When generating a list of authors and their affiliations for an asset, not all affiliations were displayed. This was fixed. - January 2021 Management SF: 00882301 URM-139522
Assets retrieved by the Smart Harvesting with pending approval status appeared in Analytics. This was fixed. - January 2021 Management SF: 00890255 URM-139840
The ISSN/e-ISSN fields validation was removed to allow saving an asset with more than one value in a field.