Esploro 2024 Release Notes
Click here to view the monthly release and maintenance schedules.
June 2024 Sneak Preview
The upcoming June release will include features such as:
- POST Grant API
- Add researcher’s projects to their CV
- Adding datasets to Smart Harvesting Framework jobs
May 2024 Sneak Preview
The upcoming May release will include features such as:
- Bulk rejection of Smart Harvesting author matching tasks for provisional assets
- Publish researcher's Esploro Profile link to ORCID
- API support for Get Research Grant
April 2024 Sneak Preview
The upcoming April release will include features such as:
- New Organizational Unit homepage sections - Collections and Unit Measures
- Create activities from output using a cloud app
March 2024 Sneak Preview
The upcoming March release will include features such as:
- Adding Open Access status from UnPaywall to research assets
- Support for updating Grants using the grant loader
- Display in research assets in the portal of SDGs that were added by administrators in the hub
February 2024 Sneak Preview
The upcoming February release will include features such as:
- Enable researchers to control their letter notifications.
- Add Researcher Notes to researchers in the research hub and for Smart Harvesting.
- Enable Admins to add SDG fields to outputs.
Main Features
Assets Can Now Be Linked to Activities
Researcher Activity records now include a Related Assets section, in which assets can be linked to the activities.
For additional information, see Working with Activities.
Bulk Rejection for Smart Harvesting
The Author Matching Report for Smart Harvesting has been expanded to include more information and an option to mark matches for automated rejection (in addition to the already available option to mark them for automated approval). For this purpose, three additional columns have been added to the report:
- Additional AM Tasks – "Yes" when the asset has two or more authors that were matched to affiliated researchers, resulting in an author matching (AM) task for each. "No" when the asset has only one author that was matched to an affiliated researcher.
- Provisional Asset – "Yes" if the asset has not had at least one author-researcher match approved. "No" if at least one author-researcher match has already been approved for the asset.
An asset harvested by Smart Harvesting is considered “provisional” until the first author-researcher match is approved, because only then is it clear that the record is relevant to the repository. A provisional asset is not included in the repository of assets, and can only be found in the Author Matching Task list. - Rejected – The column in which you can reject a match (initially blank). When a match is marked for rejection, if the asset to which it is linked has no pending or approved matches to other researchers, or all of its matches are pending and are marked for rejection in the report, all its matches are rejected and the asset is deleted from the database. If these conditions are not met, all rejections for the asset are ignored.
- These enhancements are only available for Smart Harvesting input. When the report is generated for other types of input (i.e., Smart Expansion, Input profile, or SWORD), these columns are not included in the report.
- The name of the menu option for creating the Author Matching Report and uploading updates has been changed from Author Matching Report / Update Approved Matches (Researchers > Author Matching Report / Update Approved Matches) to Author Matching Report / Update Author Matches (Researches > Author Matching Report / Update Author Matches).
For additional information, see Reports and Notifications for the Smart Harvesting Framework.
Enhanced Author-Matching Algorithm
The Author Matching algorithm has been enhanced. The main change is that an updated embedding feature, which uses improved dictionaries, has been implemented. The embedding feature helps the algorithm detect the research domain of the researcher and of the incoming asset. For additional information about the Author Matching algorithm, see Author Matching Algorithm.
Links to Researchers' Esploro Portal Profiles in Their ORCID Profiles
Links to researchers' Esploro profiles can now be published to ORCID as part of the metadata sent from Esploro to ORCID by the Update Researcher ORCID scheduled job (see Scheduled Jobs). This functionality is implemented for researchers who have approved ORCID updating by Esploro, and for whom profile data from Esploro is sent to ORCID. When it is activated, the option adds a link to the researcher's ORCID profile that opens their Esploro profile. This option can be activated for the organization in a new configuration table called Orcid Record Sections Settings (Configuration menu > Repository > Integrations > ORCID Record Sections Settings). For additional information, see ORCID in Esploro.
New Digital Adoption Tool
Starting with the November 2023 release, Ex Libris has been gradually deploying Pendo, a new digital-adoption tool, across Alma and other components of our higher-education back-office suite. Pendo was previously deployed in the Esploro hub, and has now been deployed in the Esploro portal.
- Pendo is a Digital Adoption tool used by SAAS (Software as a Service) software companies to identify usage trends and to provide users with an optimized user experience. It provides information on user trends and behavioral analytics to help improve the user experience.
- The implementation of Digital Adoption on the HEP (Higher Education Platform) is designed with our business partners to ensure that no personal data is passed through to Pendo.
- As part of our ongoing effort to improve the user experience, Digital Adoption helps us identify complex workflows where users might be struggling. This gives us the input needed to improve or simplify these workflows. During 2024, we will add a new walkthrough, which provides in-app guidance. In the future, there may be additional capabilities, such as in-app help, messaging, user feedback, and more.
- For more information about Pendo, see the FAQ.
Deployment
The digital adoption is functional only for users where:
- Pendo is operating based on their country and institution’s policy.
- The Digital Adoption configuration is turned ON (see screen capture below).
- The user accepted functional and targeting cookies.
For more information about data collection, data privacy, and the anonymization process, see Pendo for Ex Libris: Higher Education Platform (HEP).
Configuration
Administrator users can activate or deactivate data collection for Pendo on the Digital Adoption page (Configuration Menu > General > General Settings > Digital Adoption).
For more information about configuration, see Configuring Digital Adoption.
Additional Grant-Investigator Roles
Idea ExchangeIt is now possible to assign roles to grant investigators. Previously, grant investigators were assigned relation types – either Principal investigator or Co-investigator. Now, instead of assigning a relation type to each grant investigator, you assign a role to them, and the relation type is automatically assigned as well (all but the Principal investigator role have relation type Co-investigator. The following roles are now defined:
- Principal investigator
- Co-investigator
- Grant Fellow
- Grant Manager
- Research and innovation associate
- Visiting researcher
- Specialist
- Technician
- Doctoral student
- Professional enabling staff
- Clinical researcher
These roles can be enabled or disabled in the Research Grant Investigator Roles table (Configuration Menu > Research Administration > Grants > Grant Investigator Roles). By default, only Principal investigator and Co-investigator are enabled. Enabled roles can be selected for a grant investigator in the Grant Details page (Research Management > Grants > Manage Grants > [edit an existing grant or select Add Grant to add a new grant]), in the Investigators section.
Configuration of Project Roles and Types
Customers can now manage their own lists of Project Participant Roles, Project Organization Roles, Date Types, and file and link Content Types. Existing values can be enabled or disabled, and their descriptions and translations can be modified. In addition, new values can be added to the Project Participant Roles, Project Organization Roles, and Date Types lists as required.
For additional information, see:
- Participant Roles – Working with Projects: Member Researchers Section
- Organization Roles – Working with Projects: Member Organizations Section
- Date Types – Working with Projects: Dates Section
- File and Link Content Types – Working with Projects: Files Section, Links Section
Collections and Metrics in Organizational Unit Homepages
We are continuing to expand the organizational-unit Homepage capabilities and two new sections are now available on the organizational unit's Homepage tab:
- Unit Collections – Links to collections that are associated with the unit
- Unit in Numbers – Unit metrics: outputs produced by researchers in the unit, and how many times they were viewed and downloaded
In order to enable the Unit Collections section to work, a new field, Academic unit, was added to the collection settings (Admin > Collection Configuration; see Working with Collections). This field makes it possible to associate collections with organizational units.
The Unit in Numbers section does not require any special configuration, but it does derive its metrics from Esploro's Analytics data, so this data must be available.
For additional information, see Configuring the Research Portal.
Cloud App for Creating Researcher Activities From Research Output
A Cloud App, Esploro Activities Loader, which automates the process of creating a researcher activity from an existing research asset, is now available on the Developer Network. This efficiency tool allows the operator to work on a set of assets and copy fields from them to newly created researcher activities. The Esploro Activities Loader Cloud App is easy to configure and can be used to create different activity categories or types.
To enable the Cloud App framework in your system, open a support ticket. For additional information about working with Cloud Apps, see Configuring Cloud Apps (in the Alma Knowledge Center).
Displaying Labels for Activity Additional Fields
It is now possible to display labels for the local Activity Additional fields in Esploro Researcher Activities > Activity Additional Fields in analytics reports. Similar to the other local fields in analytics, now, not only the text Activity Additional Field appears, but also the label assigned to the Activity Additional field. The Activity Additional field appears as a prefix before the label. This feature makes it easier for analytics designers to choose the correct field to include in analytics reports. Also, users who review reports and dashboards that include Activity Additional fields, can immediately understand the contents of the fields based on the label.
You configure the labels for Activity Additional fields from Configuration > Researcher Administration > Activities >Activity Additional Fields.
SAML and CAS Now Available as Authentication Methods for Analytics Reports
You can now configure Analytics to use SAML and CAS as authentication methods when accessing the report URL from analytics objects. To configure SAML or CAS as the authentication method, set the analytics_auth_method parameter located in the new Analytics configuration area (Configuration > Analytics > General Configuration > Analytics Deep Link) to SAML or CAS.
Open-Access Status Field Added to Asset Records
A new field, Open Access Status, has been created in the records of certain types of assets. The possible statuses are Green, Hybrid, Gold, Bronze, and Closed. The new field augments the information in the Open access article (published version)? field, which is a flag indicating whether an asset is open-access from its publisher. (The value of this latter field would be Yes when the Open Access Status is Hybrid, Gold, or Bronze.)
For asset records that include an Article Information section (journal articles, reviews, conference proceedings, and generic assets), the new field is in that section (see Adding Staff-Mediated Research Deposits for Journal Articles). For books and book chapters, the new field is in the Additional Information section (see Adding Staff-Mediated Research Deposits for Books).
The Open Access Status field is filled in automatically when Esploro retrieves information about an asset from Unpaywall by means of the OpenAlex API. This API is invoked when an asset with a DOI is imported into Esploro via Smart Harvesting, Smart Expansion via CSV, or auto-population when the asset is added manually to the database. It may also be invoked for other Smart Expansion and import profiles, as well as SWORD imports, depending on the system settings. When this API is invoked, the value of the Open access article (published version)? field is also set automatically, and Esploro also attempts to retrieve Creative Commons license information from OpenAlex along with the open-access information.
The value of the Open Access Status field is displayed in asset records in the hub, and is available as a search index in both the simple and advanced asset search.
For assets whose Open Access Status is Hybrid, Gold, Bronze, a link to the asset is added to the asset metadata. For assets whose status is Green, a link may or may not be added, depending on the value of the esploro_create_link_for_green_oa parameter. By default, this parameter is set to false, and a link is not added. If the parameter is set to true, a link is added. The value of this parameter can be set in the Customer Parameters table (Configuration menu > General > Institution Settings > Institution Settings; see Configuring Institution Settings).
- Esploro does not monitor Unpaywall for changes to the open-access statuses of assets after Smart Harvesting is completed, so these values are not automatically updated if changes are made there.
- Esploro does not invoke the OpenAlex API when the Open Access Status is manually changed in Esploro after an asset has been imported. Thus, links to assets are not added to, or removed from, the metadata of the asset when the value of this field is modified.
New Approval Buttons in Author-Matching Task List
In the Author-Matching task list, the label on the Approve button now specifies what is being approved:
- Approve Match – Approves the researcher-author match, but not the asset
- Approve Match & Asset – Approves both the researcher-author match and the asset
- Approve Asset – Approves the asset, but not the researcher-author match
Which buttons appear for a given task depends on the settings in the Smart Harvesting Profile (Repository > Smart Harvesting > Manage Profiles; see Working with Smart Harvesting) as well as the current statuses of the asset and of the match in the database. Note that the Edit Asset button has also been moved after the approval buttons.
For additional information, see Author Matching Approval Task List.
Manually Added Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Now Displayed in the Portal
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are manually added to asset records are now displayed in the full asset page in the portal.
SDGs can be added by the admin to a deposit or an asset in the Sustainability Goals field, which appears in the Description and Research Topics section of the record. In this field, you can select one or more of the 17 SDGs that are currently defined by the UN.
In the portal display, SDG information that is added manually is given preference over imported data from InCites (see Configuring the Research Portal). That is, if any manually added information exists, it is displayed in the portal. If no manually added information exists, but InCites data does exist, the InCites data is displayed in the portal. In the latter case, a note, Source: InCites appears below the data.
Manually added SDG information is also now incorporated in analytics reports (see Additional Enhancements, below).
Translation of Collection Names and Descriptions
For multilingual portal interfaces, it is now possible to configure collection names and descriptions for each activated interface language. This can be done, once the collection is saved, in the Research Collection Labels table (Configuration menu > Portal & Profiles > General settings > Labels). Use the Filter to select the language whose labels you want to translate, and then modify the text in the Translation column (see The Research Hub Interface) for that language.
Tip: To find the labels for a particular collection, in the Search field, select Code, and then search for the name of the collection (e.g., "New" in the illustration below).
For additional information about managing collections, see Working with Collections.
Bulk Update of Grants
It is now possible to update information about existing grants by means of bulk imports of grant data.
The bulk-import job can be configured and run from the Import research grants page (Research Management > Grants > Import Research Grants). During the process, the system checks whether each grant being imported is already in the Esploro database. An imported grant with the same Grant ID and Funder Code as an existing grant is considered to be a match to the existing grant.
To configure the bulk-import job to update existing grants with new information found in the import source-file, in the job settings, under Upon match, select Overlay. When this option is selected, existing information about a grant is overwritten by imported information of matching grants. Existing links between the grants and other entities in the system, such as assets and projects, remain unchanged.
For additional information, see Configuring Bulk Imports and Mapping of Assets in Esploro.
Displaying Labels for Researcher Engagement Fields
It is now possible to display labels for the local Researcher Engagement fields in Esploro Researchers > Researcher Engagement Fields in analytics reports. Similar to the other local fields in analytics, now, not only the text Researcher Engagement Field appears, but also the label assigned to the Researcher Engagement field. The Researcher Engagement field appears as a prefix before the label. This feature makes it easier for analytics designers to choose the correct field to include in analytics reports. Also, users who review reports and dashboards that include Researcher Engagement fields, can immediately understand the contents of the fields based on the label.
You configure the labels for Researcher Engagement fields from Configuration > Researchers > Researchers > Researcher Engagement Types. For more information, see Configuring Researcher Engagement Types.
Usage per Organization Unit (API) Report
The new new Usage per Organization Unit (API) out-of-the-box report is now available. It displays the following information, per organizational unit:
- Unit's total approved assets – the number of all assets where the unit appears and the asset is approved
- Unit's total record views – the number of times the record was viewed
- Unit's total file views/downloads – the number of times the file was viewed or downloaded
- Total open access – the number of all assets where the unit appears and the asset is approved and has open access
- % open access – the percentage of the total approved assets from the total number of open access assets
- Total peer reviewed – the number of peer reviewed assets
- % peer reviewed – the percentage of the number of peer reviewed assets from the total number of open access assets
- Total Times Cited – the sum of the times an asset of the unit was cited
Researcher Notes in the Researcher Record
Idea ExchangeIt is now possible to add researcher notes to researcher records. This makes it possible, for example, to add a note that a researcher has a Doppelganger with the same name and the same research domain at another institution.
Researcher notes can be viewed and edited in a new tab, the Researcher Notes tab, in the Researcher Details page (Researchers > Researchers > Manage Researchers > [select researcher]).
Each researcher note must be assigned a type. Four researcher-note types are defined by default: General Note, Smart Harvesting Framework, Assessment Notes, and Other. All of the researcher-note types are managed in the Researcher Notes tab of the researcher record. Smart Harvesting Framework notes can also be viewed and edited in the Author Matching Approval Task List (see Author Matching Approval Task List) when an asset is tentatively linked to a researcher whose record includes researcher notes.
To manage Smart Harvesting Framework notes from a task in the Author Matching Approval Task List, in the task's More actions menu, select Manage Researcher Notes.
For additional information, see Working with Researchers.
Researcher Notification-Letter Controls
Idea ExchangeResearchers can now directly control which notification letters they want to receive. For this purpose, a new section has been added in the portal, in the Settings page of the personal profile.
Changes to notification settings that are made through this option in the portal are automatically updated in the researcher settings in the hub, and vice versa. In the hub, these settings can be seen in the Researcher Details page (Researchers > Researchers > Manage Researchers > [select researcher]), in the Researcher Profile tab, under Researcher Details, by selecting Researcher Notifications.
For additional information, see Managing Researcher Profiles.
Asset-File Replacement Without Changing Metadata
It is now possible to replace an asset file without changing the file's metadata or link address. This is useful if you want to replace a file, but you want existing links in indexes (such as Google Scholar) and other locations, to continue to work. Deleting a file and adding a new one in its place would cause the file ID to change, which would cause existing links to fail.
To replace an asset file, in the Asset Details page, in the Files section, in the More actions menu, select Replace. The replacement file must be of the same type as the original file. In order to preserve the link, the file name will not be changed in Esploro; the name of the original file will be retained, even if the replacement file has a different name.
For additional information, see Working with Research Assets.
New Sustainability Goals Field for Assets
It is now possible to manually add UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to deposit and asset records. The new Sustainability Goals field appears in the Description and Research Topics section of the record. In it, you can select one or more of the 17 SDGs that are currently defined by the UN.
The new Sustainability Goals field augments the existing support for SDG information, which enables subscribers of InCites to automatically import SDG data to Esploro assets (see Configuring the Research Portal). Manual entry is available to all customers, and SDG information that is added manually is given preference over imported data from InCites.
Manually added SDG information is included in the CSV loader. At present, it cannot be displayed in the portal, and is not incorporated in analytics reports, but this functionality is expected to be added to Esploro in the next release. When it is, manually added SDG information will be given preference over InCites data in the Portal display.
CSV lists of assets with manually-added SDG data can be exported and imported (see Working with Research Assets).
Advanced searches for assets can also use manually added SDG data in search conditions. (For information about advanced searching, see Searching in the Esploro Research Hub.)
Pop-Up Notifications when Manual Jobs Finish
Real-time notification pop-ups are now provided when a manually-run job is completed. These notifications appear regardless of which page in the Esploro hub UI is currently open. This means it is no longer necessary keep the Monitor Jobs page open, and refresh it manually, in order to see when a manual job completes.
Past notifications of completed jobs can also be viewed in the Notifications panel. To open this panel, select the bell icon (
).
Users can opt out of these pop-up notifications in the Notifications panel's settings. To do so, when the panel is open, select the Settings icon (
).
Then, under Customize your notifications, expand Jobs and Notification Preferences, and clear the Pop-up (immediate) checkbox.
For additional information, see The Research Hub Interface.
Importing of Alma Records via Smart Expansion
Smart Expansion via Alma, a form of Smart Expansion in which Alma MARC bibliographic records are copied in bulk into Esploro, is now available. This feature streamlines the process of creating assets in Esploro when their bibliographic records are already included in the Alma repository, and are therefore known to belong to particular researchers. In addition, when Alma has digital copies of these assets, they can also be copied to Esploro as part of the Smart Expansion process. Note that once the bibliographic records are copied from Alma to Esploro, the Alma and Esploro records are managed separately, so changes made in one system have no impact on the records in the other system.
For additional information, see Smart Expansion via Alma.
Display of Researcher Metrics in their Profiles
Researcher metrics providing aggregate usage and impact data about all of a researcher's output – the total number of times the researcher's works have been cited, viewed, and/or downloaded – can now be included in researcher profiles in the portal. When enabled, this information appears under Metrics in the researcher's profile.
Each of these metrics must be enabled by the institution, which can choose whether they are enabled for public viewing, only for logged-in users, or only for individual researchers when they are logged into their own profiles; see Configuring Researcher Profiles. If public display of researcher metrics is enabled in the organization, researchers can choose whether to include each one in their public profiles or hide them; see Managing Researcher Profiles.
The Total file downloads and Total output views metrics are from Esploro's records. The Total times cited metric is based on Web of Science data and analysis.
Customizable Facets
The facet display in the Projects (Research Management > Manage Projects) and Activities (Research Management > Manage Activities) pages of the hub can now be customized. The order in which the facets appear can be changed, and individual facets can be hidden from the Facets panel. The organization can set default settings for all users, and individual users can modify those defaults as desired.
Facet customization for a page is performed in the Facets Customization window, which can be opened from the Projects or Activities pages by selecting the Customize button (
– or 
if any of the settings are already customized). For additional information, see Hiding and Reordering Information for Research Management.
Additional Enhancements
-
May 2024 Research Portal URM-213103
When the system is configured such that the default page for organizational units is their homepage, if a particular organizational unit does not have a homepage, the Outputs page is automatically opened instead. The process of opening the Outputs in this case has been improved, so that it now opens seamlessly and more quickly. For additional information about configuring organizational-unit display, see Configuring the Research Portal. -
May 2024 Data URM-213112
When assets or grants are moved from one researcher to another, if the original researcher's account had an ORCID token associated with it, the token is now automatically moved as well. ORCID tokens are used for authenticating and gaining access to the researcher’s ORCID profile. For additional information, see Working with Researchers -
May 2024 Data URM-215494
Documentation of the Post API for creating organizational units, and the organizational unit schema, have been added to the Developer Network. For additional information, see Esploro API Docs: Create organization in the Developer Network. - April 2024 Research PortalURM-216097
The Esploro portal now complies with the current Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) standards. The scope of the test was expanded to cover more portal pages and sections, and the portal now complies with the Section 508 standard in addition to the WCAG 2.1 standard to which it applied previously. For additional information, see Esploro Accessibility Statement. - April 2024 Data URM-213635
To improve performance, asset data required for analytics is now processed in a background job and not in real-time. The job is called “Research Asset Flattening” and runs every 6 hours. For additional information about scheduled jobs, see Viewing Scheduled Jobs. - April 2024 Data URM-213880
The Activity API now has the ability to create a relation between a new activity and an existing research asset. For additional information, see Esploro Activities in the Developer Network. - April 2024 Analytics and Insights SF: 06870146 URM-205949
The Proxy For User Type field was added to Users > Proxy For. It indicates the area for which the proxy was created – Researchers, Circulation, or Fulfillment. This is useful for customers of both Alma and Esploro to determine if the proxy displayed in a report is relevant for Esploro (Researchers) or Alma (Circulation / Fulfillment). - March 2024 Management URM-182221
It is now possible to create new organizational units – internal or external – via the API (XML or JSON). For additional information, see Esploro Organizations in the Developer Network. - March 2024 Analytics and Insights URM-210445
The SDG Name field was added to Esploro Research Assets > Asset Details. It displays the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) configured for an asset, which is an InCites Integration feature. For more information, see UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). - March 2024 Analytics and Insights URM-211083
In the Usage per Researcher (API) report, the Total Citation Count field was renamed to Total Citation Count from Web of Science to indicate that the source is Web of Science. - March 2024 Management URM-210128
In project records, it is now possible to choose the Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) list to use for the Research Topics lookup – FOR (Fields of Research – the default) or SEO (Socio-economic Objective). The choice can be made by selecting a value for the esploro_project_anz_type customer parameter at Configuration Menu > General > Institution Settings > Institution Settings. For additional information, see Configuring Institution Settings. - February 2024 Research Portal URM-206698
In the Organizational Unit Tree configuration (Configuration Menu > Portal & Profiles > Organizational Unit Tree Configuration), it is now possible to select a unit's homepage as its default tab. Note that the option to select the default tab has been moved into the Tabs section, under the new Default Tab column. For additional information, see Configuring the Research Portal. - February 2024 Data URM-208301
Esploro now integrates with SwePub 4.0. - February 2024 Analytics and Insights URM-209575
The following Esploro Analytics fields for InCites in the Esploro Research Assets subject area were renamed to better describe the information they display:New Name Old Name Dimension CNCI CNCI Average InCites Metrics Details Journal Impact Factor (JIF) Impact Factor InCites Metrics Details Category Expected Citations Normalized Impact InCites Metrics Details Is Domestic Collaboration Is Institutional Collaboration InCites Metrics Details Number of Domestic Collaborations (InCites) Number of Institutional Collaborations (InCites) InCites Metrics Measures CNCI (category level) CNRI InCites Metrics Schema Details For more information on the InCites fields in analytics, see the Esploro Research Assets subject area. - January 2024 Data URM-199372
It is now possible to upload files to Esploro from Google Drive. - January 2024 Research Portal URM-209625
In the InCites Highlights section of an asset page, the name of the collaboration type that was previously called "Institutional Collaboration" has been changed to "Domestic Collaboration." For additional information about InCites Highlights, see Configuring the Research Portal. - January 2024 Research Portal URM-190632
The copyright year in the default portal footer has been updated to 2024. This field can be edited in Configuration menu > Portal and Profiles > Labels > Researcher Footer under research.footer.rights.
- January 2024 Analytics URM-208403
The new Esploro organizational structure is now reflected in Esploro analytics. - January 2024 Analytics SF: 06864371 URM-205916
The Number of Deleted Tasks (SH) field was added to Esploro Smart Harvesting > Smart Harvesting Measures. It displays the number of smart harvesting deleted tasks. - January 2024 Analytics URM-197763
Previously, when creating analytics reports with local fields, the field labels did not appear in the report. This made it difficult to know the purpose of the field. Now, the labels of local fields appear in the reports, so that the purpose of the field is clear.
Resolved Issues
- May 2024 Data SF: 06553431URM-181782
When conference metadata was exported to RiS or BibTeX, the event fields were not included. This was fixed. - May 2024 Smart Harvesting SF: 07026089URM-214249
An author match that is approved by a researcher creates a task that informs the admins of the approval. These tasks did not appear in the Tasks widget as they should have. This was fixed. - May 2024 Smart Harvesting SF: 07015939URM-214296
When authors were edited using the Manage Creators option to update or approve author affiliations, asset affiliations were incorrectly added from previously edited provisional assets. This was fixed. - May 2024 Management SF: 06737082URM-192202
The Research ORCID Letter was sent to researchers after every run of the Update Researchers' ORCID job, even when the job did not attempt to update their ORCID profiles. This was fixed; only researchers for whom the job attempted to update their ORCID profiles now receive the letter. - May 2024 Management SF: 07118271 07010404 06937662 06925182URM-211700
When operators sent messages to researchers from the Asset Details page, the messages appeared in the Communications tab and in the researcher's profile in the portal, but they were not sent as emails to the researchers. This was fixed; these communications are now sent to the researchers by email as well as appearing in the researchers' profiles in the portal. - May 2024 Research Portal SF: 06986281URM-212548
Files with local access-rights only – such as files that could only be accessed from on campus – appeared with an Open Access label in the portal when the portal was accessed from within the specified local area. Now, when a file only has local access-rights, the Open Access label is never displayed – only the name of the license is displayed when the portal is accessed from within the specified area. - May 2024 Research Portal URM-211804
Translation of the page and section names of General pages was not working. This was fixed. - May 2024 Research Portal SF: 06961952URM-211694
Activities on researcher profiles displayed the researcher member names with the prefix "by." This prefix was removed. - May 2024 Management SF: 06989331URM-215824
Republishing of a subset of a set of assets republished the entire set. This was fixed; republishing a subset now only republishes the subset. - May 2024 Analytics and Insights SF: 06870934URM-207515
Scheduled analytics reports were sent out with the Alma layout and logo. This was fixed; these reports are now formatted correctly for Esploro. - May 2024 Analytics and Insights SF: 07020946URM-214162
In the Research Assets Dashboard, the Assets per Journal title tab displayed no data. This was fixed. - April 2024 Management SF: 06902142 06797256 06763176 06763176URM-187098
Centrally managed external research organizations were not updated when they should have been – changes related to names, acronyms and websites were out of date. This was fixed. - April 2024 Management SF: 06961009URM-210763
The Description fields of Academic Unit Description Types could not be modified. This was fixed. - April 2024 Management SF: 06972404URM-212300
The Users Synchronization job report for the SIS integration used for creating and updating researchers showed non-existent identifiers under primary ID. This was fixed; the report now displays the correct identifiers. - April 2024 Management SF: 06692672URM-210766
When no changes were made to any researchers by the Users Synchronization job, the report showed the total number of researchers processed under Total Researchers updated successfully rather than under Total Researchers unchanged. This was fixed. - April 2024 Management URM-140827
The Researcher Notifications button was mistakenly included in the Researcher Details page for non-affiliated researchers. The button was removed. - April 2024 Management URM-213820
When a PDF file was added to an asset in the hub, the system should have extracted metadata from the PDF file and populated the fields of the asset record with it, but it did not do so. In addition, if a PDF file was added after some of the metadata of the asset was already entered, the user should have been prompted to decide how to handle the data coming from the new PDF file, but this prompt did not appear. These problems were fixed. - April 2024 Management SF: 06458877URM-177841
The message that appears when a user attempts to delete a researcher that has linked assets, deposits, or other entities, has been improved. The message now specifies which entities are linked to the researcher, and gives their IDs. A similar message now appears when a non-affiliated researcher is merged with another researcher and both researchers are linked to the same provisional asset but in different capacities. - April 2024 Data URM-214600
When a grant was updated via the loader, and Upon match was set to Overlay, the values in certain fields that were defined in the grant record but were not defined in the XML that was loaded, were deleted from the grant record. This was fixed. - April 2024 Data URM-216964
When the default Investigator Role was selected for an investigator of a grant, in place of a missing or inactive investigator role, the role appeared in the grant with the note "(not listed)" beside it. This note has been removed. - April 2024 Smart Harvesting URM-211225
When Smart harvesting imported titles that contained encoded characters, they were not normalized. These characters are now normalized. - April 2024 Smart Harvesting SF: 06890890URM-207280
When a deposit had no DOI, the Smart Harvesting Researcher Approval Claim Notification included a "link" to the asset's full display. The link should not have been included in the notification, because the deposit was still waiting for approval, so no full display existed yet. This link is no longer included in the notification under these circumstances. - April 2024 Management SF: 06737082URM-192202
When the Research ORCID Letter was enabled, after every run of the Update Researcher's ORCID job, the letter was sent to all researchers with active ORCID status who had enabled the notification, even if the job did not attempt to synchronize their Esploro research output with ORCID. This was fixed; this letter is now only sent out to researchers when the Update Researcher's ORCID job processed their works. - April 2024 Researcher Profile SF: 06537433URM-181041
The Researcher Notice opt in option was removed from Configuration menu > Researcher, because it sometimes caused conflicts with other settings. - April 2024 Management SF: 06621324 06721366URM-189219
In certain cases, OpenURL links from the portal were not resolving correctly because of a missing parameter. This was fixed. - April 2024 Management SF: 07042582URM-215367
In certain cases, the Esploro publishing job failed with the error "Failed to retrieve records for institution." This was fixed. - April 2024 Analytics and Insights SF: 06870934URM-207515
Esploro scheduled analytics reports were sent out with the Alma notification logos and layout. This was fixed; the Esploro logo and layout are now used for these notifications. - April 2024 Data SF: 06977477URM-213959
The XML version of the GET Internal Organizations API output was not formatted correctly. This was fixed. - April 2024 Data SF: 06977477URM-213461
When the GET Internal Organizations API was called with a limit set for the number of organizational units to retrieve, the limit was ignored and the output included all units in the organization. This occurred because the limit parameter is not yet supported. Until support for it is implemented, a fixed limit of 100 units has been implemented. - March 2024 Data SF: 06902142 06797256 06763176 06645020URM-187098
Previously, centrally managed external research organization information was not kept up-to-date from the Research Organization Registry. This was fixed. - March 2024 Management URM-210386
Previously, when the project visibility settings were updated, the label of the Approval section in the project page in the hub was still "Pending Visibility Approval." This was fixed. When the visibility settings are updated, the label of the section is now, "Project Visibility Settings." - March 2024 Researcher Profile SF: 06836492 06771529URM-196407
Previously, when a researcher added a deposit from their profile in the portal, the researcher's middle name was sometimes taken from their user record instead of from their researcher record, as it should have been. This was fixed. - March 2024 Research Portal SF: 06963280URM-210275
Previously, when a BibTeX export of all of a researcher's publications was initiated from the researcher's profile in the portal, if the publication data contained multiple contiguous spaces, the export process would fail. This was fixed. The export process works even when the data contains extra spaces. - March 2024 Research Portal SF: 06956075URM-210178
Previously, the label of the research portal that appeared in external search results was incorrect. The metadata of the portal name was corrected, so that this no longer occurs. - March 2024 Research Portal SF: 06786932 06503843URM-180299
Previously, if an asset had no identifiers (e.g., an ISSN or DOI), the asset page in the portal contained incorrect links under Related Links. This was fixed. - March 2024 Researcher Profile SF: 06873157URM-205107
Previously, when a researcher added a deposit from their profile in the portal, and tried to add related grants, only Pivot grants could be selected; locally managed grants were not included in the lookup list. This was fixed. Local grants are now also included in the lookup list. - March 2024 Research Portal SF: 06880146URM-206130
Previously, when links to asset pages in the portal that contained certain special characters, they opened the portal homepage rather than the asset page. This was fixed. - March 2024 Analytics and Insights SF: 06994646URM-212298
Previously, the display of the text from an asset's Grant Note field in analytics reports was truncated after 255 characters, even though the field could contain up to 4,000 characters. This was fixed. The entire contents of the field are now displayed in reports. - March 2024 Analytics and Insights URM-186667
Previously, it was not possible to configure Esploro to send notifications to users or researchers about analytics objects, even when they were subscribed to these notifications. This was fixed. - March 2024 Research Portal SF: 06964772 06961823URM-210238
Previously, the menu in the header of the portal only included at most two options, even when the portal was configured to have more than two options there, and there was room for more options. This was fixed. When there are more than two options, those that fit are inserted into the header. - March 2024 Research Portal SF: 06480294URM-178757
Previously, the order in which member organizations appeared in a project in the portal could not be changed. It can now be changed by admins in the project page in the hub. - March 2024 Research Portal SF: 06813352URM-198747
Previously, the order in which associated researchers appeared in activity records in the portal was not always the same in the brief view and the full view. This was fixed. - March 2024 Data SF: 06948675URM-209644
Previously, the InCites Metrics job did not add certain types of SDG metrics, and the job events in these cases showed failures. This was fixed. - March 2024 Data SF: 06890866URM-207715
Previously, when a researcher was listed as a contributor to an ETD asset with the role of a Supervisor, when the asset was sent to ORCID, the researcher appeared there as an Additional Author. This was fixed. The Supervisor role in Esploro is now mapped to the Supervision role in ORCID. - March 2024 Management SF: 07018286 06813610URM-184912
Previously, when an ISBN was entered into the ISBN field of an asset of type Abstract, the ISBN was not shown after the asset was saved. This was fixed. - March 2024 Data URM-215070
Previously, if a deleted record was resent to ORCID, ORCID returned error messages. This was fixed. It is now possible to resend records that were previously deleted back to ORCID. - March 2024 Analytics and Insights SF: 06263287 URM-167603
The Esploro Research Assets Usage > Asset Usage Measures > Number of Asset Shares field was not functional. It was removed. - March 2024 Management SF: 06843365 URM-204142
The Author Matching Report did not include the Esploro logo in the email. This was fixed. - March 2024 Management SF: 05983734 06442834URM-153706
Job History pagination was missing lines in some cases. This was fixed. - February 2024 Management SF: 06740247URM-209521
When a non-affiliated researcher was merged using the Move Assets and Grants option, if the researcher only had related grants, but no assets, the merge failed. This has been fixed. - February 2024 Management SF: 06929929URM-209206
When a grant that was related to a project was deleted, the relationship between the grant and the project was not deleted, causing errors in project management. This was fixed. - February 2024 Researcher Profile SF: 06920280URM-211186
In some cases, when an asset was deposited, the Open Access (published version) flag added from Unpaywall (via the OpenAlex API) was overridden by the status from the Alma Community Zone. This has been fixed. - January 2024 Researcher Profile SF: 06919659URM-207757
Previously, when a media mention included a link, and the link appeared in a researcher's profile in the portal, if the link was marked as restricted in its settings, the fact that it was restricted was not indicated in the portal. This was fixed. Restricted links are now labeled restricted. (Note that these links still open; restriction is not enforced in this context.) - January 2024 Research Portal SF: 06961461URM-210231
In the portal, in the Metrics sections of assets, the spacing between the view count and the citation count was improved. - January 2024 Research Portal SF: 06951663URM-209619
In some cases, the homepage of an organizational unit was unavailable in the portal even though it existed. This was fixed.