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    Overview of Primo VE Analytics

    Primo Analytics enables customers to run reports on patron activities performed in the UI. You can use out-of-the-box reports that are provided by Ex Libris, or you can create your own reports. Groups of reports can be displayed in dashboards that you customize. You can share reports and dashboards that you create with other Primo users in your institution or in other institutions. These reports help you to understand patron activities and to make informed decisions on how to improve services.

    For details regarding Alma Analytics, which is used to report library operations, see Alma Analytics.

    Related Webinars and Training

    Terminology

    The following table describes various terms used for Primo Analytics and its user interface.

    Terminology
    Term Description

    Attribute

    A column in subject areas that holds a flat list of values that are also known as members.

    Dashboard

    A personal collection of Analytics reports that may be viewed at a glance.

    The Example Dashboard includes tabs for the following reports:

    • Actions – A monthly report of the actions taken in Primo by end-users.

      Using the prompt at the top of the report it is possible to display a report by the number of actions per month, number of sessions in which actions were invoked or number of times the action was invoked when the user was signed in.

      There are separate reports for each Action subgroup: Search, Results List, Document, and General.

    • Devices – A monthly report of the number of times specific devices were used.

    • Facets – A monthly report of the number of times specific facets were used.

      Using the prompt at the top, it is possible to display the number of sessions in which specific facets were used.

    • Sessions – A monthly report of the number of sessions divided by the location (country) of the end-user.

      Using the prompt at the top, it is possible to display a report for the average duration of sessions, total number of actions taken, and number of times users signed-in within a session.

    • Popular Searches – The tab displays two reports: a monthly report of the most popular searches and a report of the most popular searches for the entire year.

    • Zero Result Searches – A report of searches that found no results.

    The Trends Dashboard includes the Actions and Popular Searches reports as described above.

    For information on how create reports and dashboards, see the following documents, respectively:

    Dimension

    Tables that contain descriptive attributes (or fields) that are typically textual fields or discrete numbers behaving like text. Dimension attributes such as Dates, Action Types, or Institutions give facts a context.

    Fact Table

    Consists of the measurements, metrics, or facts related to a type of usage or process and contains the core part of the subject area.

    Hierarchical Attribute

    An attribute holds data values that are organized in a hierarchy. This kind of attribute is displayed using a treelike structure. Individual members are shown in an outline manner, with lower-level members rolling into higher- level members.

    Measurement

    A column of data in subject areas that holds a simple list of data values that can change or can be counted or aggregated in some way.

    Subject Area

    Data in Primo Analytics that is organized into subject areas such as Action Usage and Popular Searches. Subject areas contain folders, measure columns, attribute columns, and hierarchical columns. For more information, see Analytics Subject Areas for Primo VE.

    The following diagram illustrates where some of these elements exist in Primo VE Analytics:

    terminology.png

    Primo Analytics Terminology

    Accessing the Oracle Analytics Server for Primo VE

    Primo VE Analytics is built on the Oracle Analytics Server (OAS), which enables you to create, run, and view reports/dashboards. Primo VE utilizes the same interface as Primo except for the operations activities, which are not applicable to Primo VE. For a thorough description of all the activities available in OAS, select the Help button to view the online help and Oracle documentation. For more information about OAS, see the following documents:

    To access OAS:

    Select Analytics > Analytics > Design Analytics (Primo).

    PVE_Oracle_BI.png

    OAS for Primo VE

    Configuring Analytics Objects for Primo VE

    The Analytics and Configuration page (Analytics > Analytics Objects > Analytics Objects Lists) enables you to schedule Primo VE Analytics reports and dashboards to run at specific times and have them emailed to subscribed users. You can also create links to reports and dashboards that can be accessed in Primo VE by users with specific roles.

    To add a scheduled report/dashboard:
    1. Open the Analytics and Configuration page (Analytics > Analytics Objects > Analytics Objects Lists).

      PVE_AddNewPrimoAnalyticsObject.png

      Analytics Configuration and Subscription (Administrator Page)
    2. Select Add New Primo Analytics Object from the Add New Analytics Object drop-down list.

      PVE_PrimoAnalyticsObject.png

      Add Primo Analytics Object
    3. Fill in the following fields:

      • Title (mandatory) – The title of the object to create.

      • Analytic Folder (mandatory) – The folder of the report or dashboard.

        Analytics objects of type Widget, Report and Scheduled report should be defined from the Analytics institutional directory and not from the Primo directory. If the desired Analytics report is in the Primo directory, copy the report to your institutional directory and define the Analytics object from there. For example, if your institution is named Alma University and you want to define the default out-of-the-box report Shared Folders/Primo/Usage/Reports/Action Usage example as a widget, you should first copy it to a directory under Shared Folders/Alma University/ (such as Shared Folders/Alma University/Usage). The report can be copied from one directory to another either by opening it in edit mode, selecting Save as, and saving it in the new directory, or by dragging it from one directory to another (while ensuring that it remains in the previous directory as well—for example, by pressing the CTRL key).

      • Name (mandatory) – The name of the report or dashboard. The list of names comes from the folder you selected. Note that folder, report, or dashboard names should not contain the following characters: ampersands (&), commas (,), semicolons (;), colons (:), hashtags (#), or slashes (/).

      • Type (mandatory) – The object that you want to create.

        • Dashboard – A link to view a dashboard in Analytics > Reports.

        • Report – A link to view a report in Analytics > Reports.

        • Scheduled Dashboard – A scheduled dashboard. If you select this, the Status and Schedule fields appear.

        • Scheduled Report – A scheduled report. If you select this, the FormatStatus, and Schedule fields and the FTP checkbox appear.

        • Widget – A widget for a report or dashboard. For information on how to display widgets in Alma, see Managing Widgets.

      • Format (scheduled report only, mandatory) – The format for the report: PDFExcel, or Text. When the file size is over 2MB, it is compressed into a zip file.

      • Status (mandatory) – Whether the schedule is Active or Inactive.

      • Schedule (mandatory) – The time and period (daily, weekly or monthly) that you want the report or dashboard to be run. Scheduled reports and dashboards are run by the scheduled jobs Schedule of Analytics Reports and Dashboards. To run, the report must be enabled and scheduled here, and the job that runs reports at the selected time period must be enabled. Scheduled times are relative to your institution's time zone. When scheduled, the Email Notifications action appears.

      • FTP – Select FTP to have scheduled analytics reports placed on an FTP server. If you select this, the FTP Configuration and Sub-directory fields appear.

      • FTP Configuration – Select the FTP configuration on which to place the report. For information on configuring this, see Configuring S/FTP Connections.

      • Sub-directory – The sub-directory in which you want to place the report on the FTP server.

      • Select Email Notifications to configure who is notified when the job is complete. The Email Notifications for Scheduled Jobs appears. For more information, see Configuring Email Notifications for Scheduled Jobs.

        Email notifications are sent for a scheduled time and not for each report or dashboard.

      • Description – A description for the report or dashboard.

    4. (mandatory) You must have the roles required to subscribe to a scheduled report/dashboard or to view the link or widget of a report/dashboard: Select Add Role, select the roles that can subscribe or access the link or widget, and select Add Role. To remove a role, select Delete in the row actions list. Users must have at least one of the roles defined for the object to subscribe to or view the object.

    5. Select Save.

    Subscribing to Scheduled Reports and Dashboards for Primo VE

    Staff users who are assigned any of the roles specified in the scheduled report/dashboard may use the Analytics Configuration and Subscription page (Analytics > Analytics > Subscribe to Analytics) to subscribe to a scheduled report/dashboard.

    Administrators can also add and delete subscriptions for staff users who do not have the required permissions to subscribe themselves. For more information, see Managing Subscriptions to Scheduled Reports and Dashboards.

    To subscribe to a scheduled report/dashboard:
    1. Open the Analytics and Configuration page (Analytics > Analytics > Subscribe to Analytics).

      PVE_SubscribeScheduledReport_Dashboard.png

      Analytics Configuration and Subscription (Subscriber Page)
    2. Select the Primo filter from the Analytics Source System drop-down list.

    3. In the row of the report/dashboard to which you want to subscribe, enable the slider in the Subscribe column.

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