Support Full Text Indexing of Alma Digital Resources

December 2019 URM-84927
This enhancement allows you to index full text that has been added as content to Alma digital representations so that users can find digital records based on this information. Primo VE will index up to 10,000 words, excluding stop words.

For example, if the following record in Alma:

Contains the following full text:

Users can perform a search in Primo VE that includes text from the above full text file (such as "Sea of Fertility tetralogy"):

Support Deep Search of Other Primo VE Institutions

December 2019 URM-112836
This enhancement allows you to create deep search scopes so that users can search the catalogs of other Primo VE institutions that have provided access to your institution. When a remote scope is searched, the local institution will send a query to the remote institution so that its results can be displayed to users as part of their search results.

Enhanced Virtual Browse to Include Electronic Materials

December 2019 URM-70105
This enhancement allows you to display electronic material in Virtual Browse, which currently displays physical items that appear together on a virtual bookshelf. To support this functionality, Browse Search will allow you to include call numbers from bibliographic headings, not just holdings.

Sitemap Tool

December 2019
This enhancement allows you to expose your library's unique materials to search engines (such as Google) so that users are directed back your Primo VE interface. Sitemap files allow Web crawling tools (such as Google) to find Primo records that are dynamic (as a result of search queries) and to index them. The Primo Sitemap tool externalizes these links for indexing by generating site map files for each Primo view, which includes one or more of its search scopes. You can define up to three sitemap files that allow you create back links to different views or domain names within your Primo VE environment.

Change RefWorks Icon

December 2019 URM-116086
The icon used for the export to RefWorks action has been modified.

Ongoing Primo Analytics Improvements (December)

December 2019
As part of our ongoing improvements, the changes were made to Primo VE Analytics:

• URM-116823Added the ability to see date and time that Primo Analytics data was updated or made available. For more details, see Adding the Data Availability or Data Updated Timestamp to a Report Header.

• Added the Date Filter parameter to the Date dimension in all Primo subject areas. This new filter will allow you to see the data from the last <x> number of days, months, or years.

  

  Date Filter

Ongoing Performance Improvements (December)

December 2019 URM-117066

As with previous releases, we continually improve the performance of Primo VE's search response. With this release, we improved the flow of the Services page (as we did with the Full Display page) by displaying the record's relevant metadata before all services have been calculated by Alma so that users do not have to look at a blank Services page while Alma calculates and displays all of the services that are available for the record.

Improved Loan Renewal Messages

December 2019 URM-XXXXX
The following codes were added to the Loans List Labels code table to improve the messages displayed in My Library Card during the Resource Sharing loan renewal process:

• default.loans.renewed.P – The “Pending approval” message appears after selecting the Renew button.

• default.loans.pendingApproval – The “Pending approval” message appears if there are loans pending renewal when the Loans tab is opened.

• default.loans.renew.pendingApproval – The “‘{0}’ renewal is pending approval.” message in the yellow pop-up message when renewing a loan.

• default.loans.renewselected.pending.fetchall – The “Selected loans are pending approval.” message appears in the yellow pop-up message if all selected loans are pending approval.

• default.loans.renewall.pending.fetchall – The “All loans are pending approval.” message appears in the yellow pop-up message if all loans are pending approval.

Browse Journals by Category

November 2019 URM-60159
This enhancement allows users to browse for journals by selecting specific categories/subcategories listed in the Journals by Category section of the Journal Search page. The categories are populated using the mapping of the journal LCC numbers to a three-level hierarchy adapted from Columbia's Hierarchical Interface to LC Classification (HILCC).

The new Creates Journal Categories File job will run daily to update and index the categories for all journals in your institution that have holdings and an LCC number defined in the MARC21 050 $a field. For example, if a record's LCC number is QR6, this job will map the record to the following hierarchical category defined in the HILCC: Health & Biological Sciences > Biology > Microbiology & Immunology.

The following example returns 13 journals under the Business Education subcategory:

Primo VE Analytics Widget on Alma Dashboard

November 2019 URM-112263
This enhancement allows you to create a widget for a Primo VE Analytics report, which can then be added to the Alma home page.

Applying Actions in Bulk in Brief Results

November 2019 URM-103218
With this enhancement, users can now select multiple items on the Brief Results page and perform the following operations in bulk.

• Apply export actions (such as print, email, and export to RefWorks).

• Save to My Favorites by selecting the Pin icon that appears above the list of records. In addition, signed-in users are permitted to apply a new or existing label to the items.

Sort in Collection Discovery

November 2019 URM-111211
This enhancement adds the Sort by drop-down list to every Collections page to allow users to sort the collection's items by relevance or title. By default, the items are sorted by relevance.

Support Display and Facet for Multilingual Bib Metadata

November 2019 URM-78033
For records that contain multilingual content, this enhancement allows you to display a field's terms based on the user's preferred language. Previously, the system displayed terms for all languages in the facets and the record's details.

For example, if the following Subject fields are defined in the catalog:

Prior to this enhancement, the system displayed all Subjects, regardless of the UI's language setting:

With the enhancement enabled, the system will display only the relevant Subjects:

New Requester Note Field on Purchase Request Form

November 2019 URM-103161
This enhancement allows you to add a Requester Note field to the Patron Purchase Request form, which will allow the user to specify additional information regarding the requested item.

Define Metadata Subfields to Translate for Display and Facets

November 2019 URM-104598
The Use Translations option on the Define a Local Field page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Display Configuration > Manage Display and Local Fields) has been enhanced to allow translations based on specific subfield values instead of the union of all subfield values for local display and facet fields.

Previously, if a source record included the MARC field 541 $aLAN $bINT $cBIO, all subfield values "LAN INT BIO" were merged and used to match a single value in the Local Field Translate code table. With this enhancement, you can define specific subfield values to use and translate (such as "INT BIO").

Improved Appearance of Newspaper Search Links

November 2019 URM-109727
Per customer feedback, the Newspaper Search link under the Resource Type facet has been moved to the bottom of the list and aligned with the other facet values to improve its appearance and usability:

Optimized the New Records Facet

November 2019 URM-88420
Performance improvements were made to the facets area by optimizing the calculation of the New Records facet. As part of this optimization, the counters for the New Records facet will no longer display.

In addition, the New Records facet is now supported in consortia environments.

Short Permalinks for Records (NERS 5845)

November 2019 URM-98959
Customers have indicated that our permalinks for records are too lengthy and are not easily sent to users, especially when sending text messages using a service such as Ask Us!. With this feature, the Send To action Permalink, which appears on both the Brief and Full Display pages, will now create a shortened URL that includes the institution code, record ID, and a key:

When the shortened URL is entered in a browser, Primo will convert the URL to its full URL and display the record's full details.

• Short format –

  https://inst.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/11INST_INST/12345/alma991004075889705106

• Long format –

  https://inst.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991004075889705106&context=L&vid=11INST_INST:inst&search_scope=MyInstitution&tab=LibraryCatalog&lang=en

Support Linking to Infobase Video Collections

November 2019 AlmaURM-114613
This enhancement allows users to stream video collections from Infobase. To support this functionality, the following parameter has been added to the Customer Discovery Settings page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Customer Settings):

Transport Layer Security (TLS) Support

November 2019
TLS is a cryptographic protocol that provides authentication and data encryption between different endpoints (for example, the user’s desktop and the application server). Various vulnerabilities (such as POODLE and DROWN) have been found in TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1 in recent years. 

As announced in release notes earlier this year, to avoid security vulnerabilities and to align with industry standards, Ex Libris is removing its support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in Primo production environments and will support only TLS 1.2 or later. The rollout which was communicated began on some environments in May and will be concluded in November 2019.

You can find additional information on TLS at:

• Transport Security Layer (TLS) Support

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security

• https://www.thesslstore.com/blog/apple-microsoft-google-disable-tls-1-0-tls-1-1/

• https://www.zdnet.com/article/chrome-edge-ie-firefox-and-safari-to-disable-tls-1-0-and-tls-1-1-in-2020

• https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2018/10/15/removing-old-versions-of-tls/

Ongoing Accessibility Enhancements (November)

November 2019
We are continuously working to improve product accessibility to make it comply with the standard of WCAG 2.0 AA level. In this release, we have solved the following issues:

• In the new UI, it is now possible to use Dragon voice recognition software to search, navigate, and access elements (such as headers and drop-down lists) on the page.

• Some images in Virtual Browse were missing ALT values. This has been fixed.

• The term "Multiple Versions Image" was used for all image descriptions, regardless of whether the item was a book, journal, or an item that was actually listed with multiple versions. This has been fixed.

• For Advanced Search, the Date fields were not coded using the FIELDSET element. This has been fixed.

• In the Citation Linker, the text for the Submit button did not adequately describe the function of the button. This has been fixed.

• For Advanced Search, the date fields (day, month, and year) were missing labels or instructions about their behavior and usage. This has been fixed.

• With the Send Email action, the error messages were not included in the LABEL element or associated with the input field. This has been fixed.

• For Collection Discovery, skip links were missing. This has been fixed.

• In My Favorites, the heading element was missing for Search History. This has been fixed.

• For Browse Search, content does not have meaningful sequence. This has been fixed.

For more information, see the updated Primo Accessibility Report.

Ongoing Analytics Enhancements (November)

November 2019 URM-XXXXX
In addition to the Analytics support provided for usage actions in the November features, the following issues have been resolved for analytics:

• The Document > Link usage actions for DataStream, ORCID, and Preservation Link are now supported in Analytics.

• Search errors are no longer reported in the Zero Results Report in Analytics.

• Provided the ability to see date and time that Primo Analytics data has been updated.

• When Expand PC Results option is cleared, it is no longer report to Analytics as selecting the Expand PC Results option.

Ongoing Performance Enhancements (November)

November 2019
We are continually improving the performance of Primo VE. With this release, several improvements regarding results and facets response times were rolled out. Additional improvements will be rolled out in future releases as part of our continuous effort to enhance the performance of Primo VE.

Password Migration Period for IDP

November 2019
As previously announced, the password migration period for the Ex Libris Identity Service ends on December 31, 2019. In January 2020, all internal user passwords will be deleted from Alma, requiring internal users who did not sign in during the migration period to create a new password. For more information, please see Removal of Passwords from the Alma Database.

Results Ranking Configuration

September 2019 URM-96602
This enhancement allows you to configure various aspects of the ranking algorithm to affect the order of local records in the search results:

• Fields Boosting – These settings allow you to provide more or less weight to records for which search terms are found in specific fields.

• Date Boosting – These settings allow you to provide more or less weight to titles that were created in a specific year or a range of years. This is useful if you want to give more current titles a boost.

• Resource Type Boosting – These settings allow you to provide more or less weight to records of a specific type of resource (such as book).

In comparison to Field boosts, Date and Resource Type boosts have more influence and can significantly alter search results.

Because the system applies changes immediately, you can perform searches to see that a change returns expected results.

Discovery in Context: Show More Items from the Same Course or Collection

September 2019 URM-103211
This enhancement allows users to expand the search of the current title to items in additional collections and courses that also contain the current title. To provide this capability, the following sections may be configured to appear in the Full Display of a record:

• More from the same Course – The top half of this section lists all courses to which this titles belongs. A maximum of six courses display initially. Users can select the View all courses icon to view the remaining courses. If the course is associated with Leganto, users can select the course to view its reading list in Leganto.

  The bottom half of this section allows users to browse items that belong to the item's related courses. Users can select any of the following:

  • the Previous/Next arrows to scroll through the list of items

  • an item in the list to open its Full Display.

  

  More from the Same Course Section

• More from the same Collection – The top half of this section lists all collections to which this titles belongs. A maximum of six collections display initially. Users can select the View all collections icon to view the remaining collections. Users can select a collection to open its Collection page, which allows them to view a collection's items and subcollections.

  The bottom half of this section allows users to browse items that belong to the item's related collections. Users can select any of the following:

  • the Previous and Next arrows to scroll through the items.

  • an item in the list to open its Full Display.

  

  More from the Same Collection Section

Blank Patron Purchase Request Form

September 2019 URM-98365
This enhancement allows you to add a link to the Main menu that allows signed-in users to fill in a blank Purchase Request Form and request titles missing from the catalog. For guest users, the system will prompt the user to sign in before displaying the request form.

Contextual Relationships - New Ways to Discover More

September 2019 URM-95425
Recently, we have started building a graph database as part of our Central Discovery Index project (CDI) that contains relationships between items. This enhancement allows users to explore the following types of relationships easily from a record's full display.

After displaying a record's full details, one or more links to related reading information may appear for the record:

Selecting a related reading link displays the related items on a results page where user can decide which items to view.

Exclude External Data Source from Entire Network Search

September 2019 URM-90663
Previously for consortia, external resources were included in the 'Entire network' search scope as part of a member institution's catalog. With this enhancement, member institutions can specify which external data sources to exclude from the 'Entire network' search of other institutions to prevent other member institutions from searching materials from these external data sources. Searches from within the institution that holds the excluded external data sources will still find their records using the 'Entire network' scope.

Consortium Union View

September 2019 URM-106238
This enhancement allows a consortium to create a view that publicizes materials held by all member institutions. For guest users, this view allows users to search the entire network and request services (such as electronic and general electronic services) that are defined at the network level. After signing in to a specific member institution, users can then request services offered by that specific institution.

Open Access Indication for Dublin Core Records

September 2019 URM-101846
This enhancement allows you to display an Open Access indicator for Dublin Core records. Previously, this functionality was limited to Primo Central records and MARC records. This indication is based on whether the dcterms.accessRights parameter contains the following value: Unrestricted online access.

For more information, see Open Access Indication in Primo VE.

Reshelving Items

September 2019 URM-109211
If the Time to reshelve (hours) parameter has been configured in Alma, one of the following messages will appear in Get It for items that have been recently returned. This lets patrons know that an item is available for loan, but it may not be back on the shelf, yet. 

• Item in place (awaiting reshelving until {0}) – Some items may need reshelving, but at least one copy is available on the shelf.

• available (awaiting reshelving until {0}) – The title is available, but all of items need reshelving.

• available (awaiting reshelving) – The title is available, but some items need reshelving.

For information regarding this configuration in Alma, see Editing a Library, Adding a Reshelve Without Transit Rule, and Adding a Circulation Desk.

Show More Locations Option in Get It Service

September 2019 URM-109101
Previously, the Get It service displayed a maximum of 10 holdings on the Full Display page. With this enhancement, users can display additional holdings by selecting the Show More Locations link under the list of holdings in Get It on the Full Display page.

Selecting the link, displays the remaining holdings up to the maximum number of holdings that are configured to display for your institution.

View It and OpenURL Response Time Improvements

September 2019 URM-96602
We are continually improving the performance of Primo VE. With this release, several improvements regarding View It and OpenURL response times were rolled out. Additional improvements will be rolled out in future releases as part of our continuous effort to enhance the performance of Primo VE.

UNIMARC Normalization for Local Search and Facet Fields

August 2019 URM-101515
A previous enhancement allowed you to create normalization rules that map any MARC21 field to local search and facet fields (maximum of 10) so that you can extend search queries and facets to additional metadata. With this enhancement, you can now extend this functionality to any UNIMARC field.

Display Reasons for Nonrenewable Loans in My Library Card

August 2019 URM-104833
With this enhancement, a Not Renewable indicator will now appear next to items that cannot be renewed on the Loans tab in My Library Card. In addition, users can hover their cursors over a Not Renewable icon to display up to two reasons as to why the item is not renewable (such as a loan policy or block).

Add Pay Fine Link to My Account

August 2019 URM-XXXXX
Primo VE currently supports the WPM E-Payment system for which integration is built into Alma and Primo VE. With this enhancement, you can integrate other payment systems with Primo VE to allow users to pay their fines using the Pay Fine link in the Fines and Fees areas in My Library Card.

When users select the Pay Fine link, the system passes the user information in an encoded JWT (JSON Web Token) to your Web Service (as indicated by the online_payment_url). This JWT, which contains the user_id and other relevant parameters, can be used to invoke the Alma Rest APIs.

To support this functionality, the online_payment_url parameter was added to the new Library Card Links mapping table (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Library Card Configurations > Payment Link Configuration). For more information, see Configuring the Pay Fine Link for Primo VE.

Improve Glanceability of Course Material in Search Results

August 2019 URM-108453
This enhancement increases the visibility of titles that are part of a course reserve by placing an indicator above the item's availability status in the Brief and Full Displays.

My Library Card for Fulfillment Networks Across Alma Instances

August 2019 URM-105865
In a fulfillment network, linked users are permitted to view their account information per institution. With this enhancement, users can now see their information in member institutions that are located in other Alma instances.

Search Response Time Improvements (August)

August 2019 URM-XXXXX
After rolling out several improvements in July, Search and Get It response times have been significantly improved in the production environment. Additional improvements will be rolled out in future releases as part of our continuous effort to enhance performance.

Primo VE Analytics Enhancements (August)

August 2019
In addition to the Analytics support provided for usage actions in the August features, the following table lists the missing usage actions for features that were added in previous releases. In addition, referrer data is now supported in the new UI under the Action Usage table.

Support Additional Browse Call Number Types

July 2019 URM-94036URM-85725URM-104059
In addition to the previously supported call number types, this enhancement allows users to browse and sort shelf listings using the following call number types: UDC, NLM, and shelving control number.

The following example is based on the NLM Classification:

Normalization Rule Test Tool for Local Search and Facet Fields

July 2019 URM-102386
In the previous release, the ability to create normalization rules for local search and facet fields was added for the MARC21 format. This enhancement allows you to test your normalization rules with existing Alma records before applying your changes. To support this functionality, the Test action has been added to the MARC21 normalization rules for search and facet row under the MARC21 Normalization Rules section on the Define a Local Field page.

1. Edit a local field on the Manage Display and Local Fields page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Display Configuration > Manage Display and Local Fields). The Define a Local Field page opens.

2. Select the Test action in the MARC21 normalization rule for search and facet row. The Test Normalization Rules dialog box opens.

   

   Test Normalization Rules Dialog Box

3. In the first field, specify a record's MMS ID, which is entered either by:

   • Selecting the Recent icon  and then selecting a previously entered MMS ID from the list.

   • Selecting the Quick Pick icon , performing a repository search, and then selecting a record from the results list.

4. After entering an MMS ID, the results appear in the Normalized Local Field field.

Support Configuration of Loan Request Fields in My Library Card

July 2019 URM-83902
This enhancement allows you to configure the following areas in My Library Card:

• Brief display on the Loans and Overview tabs – You can configure which fields (up to three fields per line) will appear for the brief display on the Loans Tab and Loans section of the Overview tab. By default, each field per line is separated by a non-breaking space, which can also be configured.

  

  Brief Display on the Loans Tab

  

  Brief Display under Loans Section on the Overview Tab

• Full display on the Loans tab – You can specify which fields will appear in the loan's full display.

  

  Full Display on the Loans Tab

Search Response Time Improvements (July)

July 2019 URM-?????
Several improvements were rolled out gradually in June and completed in July, and we are seeing significant improvements in the search and Get It response times. One of our recent improvements, which included the splitting of the facets calculation from the initial results calculation, brings search results faster to users. As part of our continuous effort to improve performance, additional improvements will be rolled out in future releases.

Change Primo Shortcut Icon in IOS/Android

July 2019 URM-107886
This enhancement allows you to change the Primo VE shortcut icon that displays on the home pages of IOS and Android devices.

1. Create a 150x150 pixel image for the Primo VE shortcut and give it the following name: home-screen-icon.png.

2. Edit your customization package and place the new shortcut image file under the img folder.

3. Zip and upload your customization package.

Support Usage Information for the Order of Main Menu Links

July 2019 PRM-39229
Primo Analytics now tracks the number of times each link position is clicked in the Main Menu. This usage information allows you to determine which links (up to 10 links) are used the most and to set the order of the links accordingly. This Primo Analytics enhancement was originated as an Idea Exchange suggestion. For more information, see Ordering Main Menu Links.

Primo VE Analytics Enhancements (July)

July 2019 URM-107711URM-107710URM-107709
In addition to the Analytics support provided for action usage in the July features, this release includes Analytics support for the following features/actions added in previous releases:

Metadata Normalization for Local Search and Facets Fields

June 2019 URM-100313
This enhancement allows you to create normalization rules that map any MARC21 fields to local search and facet fields (maximum of 10) so that you can extend search queries and facets to additional metadata. Previously, Primo VE allowed you to map only the following MARC21 fields with out-of-the-box normalization rules to local search and facet fields: 009, 09X, 490, 5XX, 69X, and 9XX.
 

To support this enhancement, the following changes have been made:

• Added the Local Fields using Search and Facets Normalization Rules page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Local Fields using Search and Facet Normalization Rules) – This page defines which local fields (maximum of 10) require custom search/facet normalization rules. For more information, see Configuring Local Search and Facet Fields for Primo VE.

  

  Local Fields Using Search and Facets Normalization Rules Page (New)

• The following changes were made to the Define a Local Field page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Display Configuration > Manage display and local fields):

  • The Bibliographic Local Field Mapping and Normalization Rules (for display) tabs were removed and all local field mappings and normalizations rules are now configured on the main page. For more information, see Adding a Local Field.

    

    Define a Local Field Page for Local Fields - No Custom Search and Facet Normalization Rules

  • For local fields that were added to the Local Fields using Search and Facet Normalization Rules page, the Define a Local Field page appears as follows:

    • The MARC21 Fields section was omitted.

    • The MARC21 normalization rule for search and facet rule was added under the MARC21 Normalization Rules section to allow you to create normalization rules for the local search and facet field.

      

      Define a Local Field Page for Local Fields Allowing Custom Search and Facet Normalization Rules

      Edit the row to open the normalization rule editor for the local field. Make sure that your conditions specify a subfield.

      

      Normalization Rule Editor

      Until the new normalization test tool is available in the July release, you can test your normalization rules by editing and saving records with Alma's Metadata Editor and then searching for the updated records immediately with Primo VE.

    For more information, see Adding a Local Field.

Real-Time Availability Status on Resource Sharing Request Form

June 2019 URM-84868
This enhancement allows you to display an item's real-time availability status during resource sharing requests. When the new Item Availability field is enabled, the system will automatically perform a real-time availability check when a patron opens a Resource Sharing Request form.

After the availability check, the availability indication appears at the top of the Resource Sharing Request form. If users modify any fields on the form, they may select the Check Availability button to check for any changes to the item's availability.

Create Custom Search Scopes for Other Institutions – Based on Availability

June 2019 URM-99710
Previously for consortia, users were permitted to search for inventory based on the metadata of other libraries/locations. This enhancement allows you to configure custom scopes that provide a more granular search of available digital, electronic, and physical inventory from the entire network and other institutions.

To support this functionality, the following changes have been made to the Define a Custom Scope page when the Entire Network option is selected (see Defining a Local Data Scope for more details):

1. In the Add a Condition dialog box, the Entire Network Inventory scope has been added to allow you to limit searches to available digital, electronic, and physical inventory in the entire network.

   

   Add Inventory Condition - Entire Network

2. The name of the Network Inventory search index has been changed to Other Institution Inventory in the Add a Condition dialog box.

3. The following inventory options now appear for the Entire Network Inventory > Other institution search index in the Add a Condition dialog box:

   • Available Digital – Allows you to limit searches to another institution's available digital inventory.

   • Available Electronic – Allows you to limit searches to another institution's available electronic inventory.

   • Available Physical – Allows you to limit searches to another institution's available physical inventory.

   

   Add Inventory Condition - Other Institution

Merge Metadata from all Records in the Dedup Group

June 2019 URM-94948
For records that have been deduped and merged, the system previously displayed the preferred record's metadata and the merged availability status of all group members. This enhancement displays additional information regarding all records in the merged Dedup group:

• On the merged record's Full Display page, the new Dedup Member IDs field displays the merged group's member IDs on separate rows in the details.

• On the merged record's Full Display page, the Course Information field now displays merged information from all members in the group (not just the preferred record).

Support the Ordering of Locations in Get It

June 2019 URM-94744
The following configurations on the Locations Ordering Profile page (Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Discovery Interface Display Logic > Locations Ordering Profile) are now supported by Primo VE:

• Use Alphabetical Sorting Only – When selected, this option indicates that locations are sorted alphabetically, and the remaining sort options are ignored.

• Use "IP best location" sorting – When selected, this option displays the order of locations based on the user's IP address.

• Prefer Remote Storage – When selected, remote storage locations are given preference over temporary and permanent locations.

For more details, see Configuring the Order of Locations in Search Results.

Search Response Time Improvements

June 2019 URM-104775
As with previous releases, we continually improve the performance of Primo VE. With this release, response time is improved by moving the availability calculation from the Search API to a separate Delivery call. In future releases, we will focus our attention on improving performance in the search and Get It areas.

Additional Services for Digital Items in View It

June 2019 URM-100694
The Viewer Services page in Alma (Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Discovery Interface Display Logic > Viewer Services) defines the supported digital content viewers, but Primo VE only supported the Alma Viewer. With this enhancement, Primo VE will support all viewers defined in Alma and display their services under the View Online section in the record's full display. In addition, it will support all related display logic rules (Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Discovery Interface Display Logic > Display Logic Rules), which allow you to hide services based on many factors.

Improve Performance of Results in My Favorites

June 2019 URM-105573
The Load more results button has replaced endless scrolling in My Favorites (Saved Records) to improve the performance of viewing many records in Primo VE.

Support Usage Information for the Order of Main Menu Links

June 2019 URM-104850
Primo Analytics now tracks the number of times each link position is clicked in the Main Menu. This usage information allows you to determine which links (up to 10 links) are used the most and to set the order of the links accordingly. This Primo Analytics enhancement was originated as an Idea Exchange suggestion.

Support String Manipulation in Generic XML Normalization Rules

June 2019 URM-105696
This enhancement allows you to join strings from two child elements into a single element for generic XML normalization rules. To support this functionality, the concat action has been added to concatenate two elements. For more information, see Configuring Normalization Rules for Primo VE.

For example:

rule "copy creator"
     when
          true
     then
          copy "concat(//person[@pers_role='pau']/name/first/text(),' ',//person[@pers_role='pau']/name/last/text())" to "dc"."creator"
end

Support Indexing and Sorting of Spanish Special Characters

June 2019 URM-93775
For customers whose default searching language is Spanish, this enhancement allows the following Spanish special characters to be indexed as is instead of converting them to basic Latin characters (such as n, c, and so forth):

• 00D1 00F1 #Ñ -> ñ

• 00F1 00F1 #ñ -> ñ 

• 00C7 00E7 #Ç -> ç 

• 00E7 00E7 #ç -> ç 

• 0140 0140 #ŀ -> ŀ 

• 013F 0140 #Ŀ -> ŀ 

This conversion allows Spanish special characters to be treated as fully independent letters for search and sort in Primo VE.

Support Japanese Character Conversion Kana 2 to 2

June 2019
With this enhancement, Primo VE now supports the Japanese character conversion of two Kana characters to two characters. For example:

• きゝ will be converted to: キキ

• かゞ will be converted to:カガ

Searching within a Collection

April 2019 URM-98225
This enhancement adds a dedicated search box to the Collections Page to allow users to search for and filter relevant items and sub-collections that are one level below the collection. This very helpful for collections that contain many items and sub-collections.

Search queries are matched against any search field (such as title, author, description, and subject) that is mapped from the collection's bibliographic records and may include any of the following search operators to provide a more complex search query: AND, OR, and NOT. In the following example, the search for the phrase art OR crook, john returns the following results:

Local Resource Type Normalization for MARC Leader and Fixed Fields

April 2019 URM-97824
The LDR and fixed fields (00X) are a primary source in MARC records for resource type identification. These identifications can be mapped to Primo VE to create new local resource types, which allow users to filter their search results with the Resource Types facet and to limit advanced searches to specific resource types. This enhancement extends the configuration of local resource types so that you can use regular expressions to normalize the LDR and MARC fixed fields (00X) as well as existing MARC field and subfields.

Indexing Additional MARC 21 880 Fields

April 2019 URM-100454
This enhancement maps the following MARC 21 880 fields to support additional indexing:

Support for Russian Display Language

April 2019 URM-103045
This enhancement adds support for the Russian display language. Users can either set their language per session or configure the default settings to display Russian text by default.

UNIMARC Improvements

April 2019 URM-99499 URM-101530 URM-101914 URM-101650 URM-101966
The following improvements have been made to support the discovery of UNIMARC records:

• Allow records to be filtered with the Creator facet.

• Support browse by author and subject for UNIMARC headings.

• Enable hierarchical linking between the parent and child records.

• For Italian customers, permit linking based on the 4XX $a and $e subfields instead of the 4XX $t.

Increase Facets to Retrieve up to 50 Values

April 2019 URM-103461
Previously, facets in Primo VE returned up to 20 facet values for local searches and up to 20 more facet values for Primo Central (PC) in blended searches. This enhancement allows you to increase the maximum number of facet values to 50 for local searches only. PC will continue to display a maximum of 20 values in blended searches.

Enhance Visualization in Collection Discovery

March 2019 URM-97749

This enhancement allows you to promote collections by specifying which images appear on each collection's and sub-collection's tile on the Collection Discovery page and in the banner on each collection's page.

Previously, the collection tile displayed up to four images, but used the image that was defined as the collection thumbnail for the first image, and pulled the remaining images from the items associated with the collection. Now, you can use Alma's Collection Resource Editor to manage and select high quality images that you would like to display for the collection or sub-collections. You can specify locally-defined images and images defined within the collection. When images are configured, the following will display per page:

• Collection Lobby - The first four images defined for each collection will display in the collection's tile.

  

  Collection's Tile (Maximum of 4 Images)

  • If fewer than four images are configured for a collection, only those images will appear in the tile.

  • As in previous releases, the system will display the images from the collection's thumbnails and items if no images are defined for a collection.

• Collection page - The first image defined for the collection will display in its banner.

  

  Banner on a Collection's Page

Provide Users with an Immediate Topic Overview for Short Topic Searches

March 2019 URM-83334

Many users start their quest for material with short topic searches, often by looking for keywords to help them to dive deeper into the subject. With this new feature, you can display a short topic overview, which is derived from a reference entry in a collection that you have active, on top of the results list. In the initial release, eligible source collections include the following: Credo, Encyclopedia Britannica, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Worldbook, Netadvance, and Wikipedia. Others will be added in future.

Merging Locations within a Single Library That Have the Same External Name

March 2019 URM-851
A library can have multiple locations with different names, but may have assigned them the same external name in Alma. With this enhancement, Primo VE merges all the locations that have the same external name into a single facet value so that users will now see a single facet entry for all of them. 

Display a User Blocks' Expiry Date in My Library Card

March 2019 URM-98361
This enhancement allows you to display the expiration date of user blocks in My Library Card. This can be beneficial for library patrons to view this information and to prevent related inquiries to the library staff.

Index Course's Searchable IDs Field

March 2019 URM-92943
In addition to course IDs provided by your CMS (Course Management System), this enhancement enables customers to search for course reserves based on any searchable IDs defined in Alma (see the Searchable IDs field in Managing Course Information).

For information on how to add the Course Searchable ID field to Advanced Search, see Configuring Advanced Searches.

The rules for indexing searchable IDs are applied to all new records that are created or loaded into Alma, as well as any existing records that are modified.

1. In Alma create a set for all the records that are associated with a course. For more information on how to create an Alma set, see Managing Search Queries and Sets.

   1. On the Manage Sets page (Admin > Manage Jobs and Sets > Manage Sets), select Add Set > Logical.

   2. On the Set Details page, specify the following fields and then select Next:

      • Set name – Enter a unique name for the new set.

      • Content Origin – Select Discovery to allow searching of Primo VE metadata.

   3. On the second page of the wizard, select Advanced.

   4. In the Advanced Search box, select Has Course and Exists, and then select Search to perform an Advanced Search.

      

      Repository Search

   5. Select Save to save the new set.

2. Edit the Recalculate Local Resource Types Job (Admin > Manage Jobs and Sets > Run a Job) and select the new set.

Adding a Progress Indicator in the Get It Section

March 2019 URM-100190
This enhancement adds the diamonds progress indicator to the Get It section on the Full Display page to inform users that the system is determining whether holdings exist. This indication will appear for consortia in the main Get It and the Get It of other institutions.

Link to Leganto Reading List

February 2019 URM-95708
This enhancement allows users to access their Leganto reading lists by selecting the Course Information link under the Details section of a record's full display.

To support this functionality, the <crsinfo> normalization field, which contains all course related information (including the course code), will now store the course code in a new subfield $$R. For example:

Dedup and FRBR Matching Points Improvements

February 2019 URM-93132
In comparison to Primo, the Dedup and FRBR processes used for Primo VE were much stricter and found fewer matches. This enhancement improves these processes by changing the following match criteria, which determine whether records in Primo VE are the same. For more details, see Understanding the Dedup and FRBR Processes (Primo VE).

Support Dedup and FRBR for DC Records

February 2019 URM-82334
As is done for MARC21 and UNIMARC records, this enhancement applies the Dedup/FRBR processes to Dublin Core (DC) records to reduce the display of duplicate records in search results. For more details, see Understanding the Dedup and FRBR Processes (Primo VE).

Enable Dedup and FRBR Suppression Based on a Library

February 2019 URM-98678
This enhancement allows you create FRBR and Dedup rules that suppress records based on a specific library. To support this functionality, the Suppress Dedup/FRBR Rules page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Suppress Dedup/FRBR) has been updated to allow you to create rules based on a specific library's inventory. For more details, see Suppressing Groups of Records from Dedup/FRBR for Primo VE.

Extend Normalization for Display to Support UNIMARC

February 2019 URM-88982
This enhancement allows you to create UNIMARC normalization rules, which allow you to alter the presentation of the out-of-the-box display fields and any local display fields that you have created in Primo VE. The normalization rules are applied immediately to the records for discovery.

To support this functionality, the Define a Display Field page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Display Configuration > Manage Display Fields) now includes the UNIMARC Normalization Rule section, which allows you to update the normalization rules for specific display fields after selecting it in the Field to edit field. For more details, see Managing Display and Local Fields for Primo VE.

When editing a normalization rule for a local display field, Primo VE provides a normalization template to assist in the creation of the field's normalization rule.

Add Data Source Facet for External Data

February 2019 URM-85427
This enhancement adds a new facet called Data Source, which allows users to filter search results by an external data source. The data source is based on the Data Source Label field on the Import Profile Details page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Discovery Import Profiles).

Add Execution Logs for Import Profile Process

February 2019 URM-95707
This enhancement allows you to view the execution logs for discovery import profiles so that you can determine where any issues may have occurred during the import. This information is now available on the Events Report page.

1. Open the Import Profiles page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Discovery Import Profiles).

2. For the profile that you want to monitor, select History to open the Job History page.

3. To view a job's execution logs, select Events to open the Events Report page.

   

   Events Report Page

Enhance Link to Resource Functionality for External Data

February 2019 URM-96235
This enhancement improves the handling of MARC 856 fields that are used as link to resources in external records so that the links and their associated labels appear in the View It section of the record's full display. This enhancement includes the following changes:

• Calculation of the link's label – if the link to resource is taken from a MARC 856 subfield u, the y, z, or 3 subfield's value will be used for the link's label. if the 856 field has no y, z, or 3 subfields, the system will use the defined link label. If the link label was not defined, the system will use the default label.

• Display of links – All link to resources from MARC 856 fields that have different calculated labels will appear in the View It section of the record's full display. If multiple links have the same URL and calculated link label, only one of the links will appear in the Links section.

Browse by Series

February 2019 URM-73962
This is an additional enhancement to the browse functionality, which now includes the ability to browse for records by series in Primo VE. A Series browse search returns an alphabetical list of headings. Each item in the results list returns a list of related records that can be sorted by title, author, date oldest, or date newest.

The following figure shows an example of the alphabetical list returned from a Series browse. Users can then click one of the items in the list to display the brief results for the item.

Accessibility Ongoing Improvements

February 2019

We are continuously working to improve product accessibility to make it comply with the standard of WCAG 2.0 AA level. In this release, we have solved the remaining accessibility issues that were received from an external audit and customer cases. Some of these fixes include the following:

• Search fields now have a programmatically determinable label.

• Fixed the Skip to Search link in Advanced or Browse Searches.

For JAWS users:

• Login options are now labeled.

• The arrow keys are now enabled to allow users to navigate between page selector links in the Brief Results.

• Ctrl+ENTER  and Ctrl+left click were enabled on various pages in the new UI to allow links to be opened in a new window.

• For screen reader users, added titles and labels to Resource Recommender page.

• Removed unnecessary elements such as the "Show more filters" at the end of Tweak My Result section.

• Added "search results" to the number followed by the facet value to make clearer for screen readers.

• Changed the labels of the search scope drop-down control to make then clearer.

• Fixed the aria-labels in the User area menu.

• In various places in the new UI (such as brief results and full display), patrons cannot right-click links and open them in a new tab. This has been fixed.

We will soon publish the accessibility alignment plan for 2019, which is based on our accessibility audit and customer cases and reports that were communicated to the working group.

Improve Availability Status and Delivery Options for Electronic Items in Multicampus Configuration

February 2019 URM-100512
This enhancement improves the accuracy of the availability status and proposed delivery services for electronic items in multicampus configurations:

• Availability status – If any of the following conditions are met, the available online status will display for items to which the user has access to its full text:

  • A record has been activated for the campus to which the view is affiliated.

  • The user is on campus at any of the campuses for which the record is available.

  If none of the conditions are met, the status will display check for available services.

• Delivery options – In the View It section of the record's full display, users will see links to which they have access. If there are no available links, the How to get it section will appear in the record's full display.

Support Auto Complete for Consortia

February 2019 URM-99624
This enhancement allows member institutions in a consortium to enable the Auto Complete feature for their users. When this feature is enabled for a view, Primo VE requests suggestions from the Auto Complete service as users type in their queries, and then displays the suggestions under the search box. For example:

To enable this functionality, select the Auto Complete Enabled field on the General Tab in the View Configuration Wizard. For more details, see Defining a View.

Improve Display of UNIMARC Items

February 2019 URM-97955
This enhancement includes the following changes to the UNIMARC mapping include missing punctuation and subfields:

Support NDC Classification

February 2019 URM-94043
With this enhancement, the following capabilities have been added to support the Nippon Decimal Classification (NDC), which is stored in the MARC 084 field:

• Filtering results with the new Classification NDC facet in the brief results.

• Performing advanced searches with the new Classification NDC search index.

• Display the NDC in the details section of the record's full display. The NDC classification is mapped to the Identifier field.

To configure this enhancement, enable the new Classification NDC fields in the Brief Results and the Advanced Search Configuration tabs on the Views Configuration page. For more information, see Configuring Discovery Views for Primo VE.

Kana to Romaji Transliteration

February 2019 URM-96451
This enhancement allows users to search in Kana (either Hiragana or Katakana) and find results with the matching Romanji value. For Japanese customers, During indexing, documents with Japanese language will be expanded to index the Katakana value based on the Romaji value.

Polish Language Search and Sort Issues

February 2019 URM-98551
This enhancement utilizes the alphabetical order of Polish characters to get proper results upon the following:

• Searches – Searches for letters with diacritics should return matches for diacritics, not the regular letters. Letters with diacritics will not be normalized.

  For example:

  Search for:	Will search for the phrase:	Will NOT search for:
  ławica	ławica	lawica
  chłopiec	chłopiec	chlopiec
  źrebna	źrebna	zrebna

• Sorting – Search results will be sorted in relevance to the Polish Alphabetical order. This means that a character with a diacritic will be sorted after the character that does not have a diacritic.

New Premium Sandbox Policy

February 2019 URM-98760
As previously announced, Ex Libris is updating the premium sandbox policy for all of the products that run on the cloud platform (Alma, Primo VE, Leganto, and Esploro) and upgrading the premium sandbox environment’s underlying technology. For detailed information on the new policy, see Ex Libris New Premium Sandbox Policy: Frequently Asked Questions.

As a result of the new policy, the Sandbox Management page in the Configuration menu and the sandbox widget on the Alma home page were removed. Instead, in your production environment, there is now a link to your premium sandbox from the Help menu:

In your sandbox environment, the date of the last clone from production appears:

New Primo Central Activation User Interface

February 2019 PRM-38580
The Primo Central Activation user interface has been given a new look and feel and improved performance. The new UI allows users to select collection criteria (such as subscription and access information) and to perform searches on provider and collection names to help manage the activation of your library's collections. In addition, users now have the ability to add notes to collections to provide additional information regarding their activation or deactivation.

After selecting a Provider's link in the Provider List, the Collection List opens, allowing you to activate/deactivate collections individually or in bulk. In addition, you can select collection filters and search further on the collection name to narrow your results.

For additional information, see Primo Central Collection Activation.

Support Citation Style Language (CSL)

January 2019 URM-94633
Out of the box, Primo VE supports the following citation styles: APA (6th edition), Chicago/Turabian (16th edition), Harvard, MLA (7th edition) and MLA (8th edition).

With this enhancement, institutions can use the new Citations Styles List page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Citations Styles) to manage and include additional citation style languages, which are stored in GitHub's CSL Style Repository.

For configuration details, see Managing Citation Styles for Primo VE.

Pre-Filter Search

January 2019 URM-83340
This enhancement allows users to limit their initial search results by selecting the following filters prior to executing a search using Primo VE's basic search:

• Resource Type – This filter allows users to narrow their searches to a specific type of resource (such as books or journals). If disabled, searches include all resource types.

• Search Type – If filtering by search field is enabled, this filter allows users to select from the following options:

  • that contain my query words – The search terms must be found in the selected search field.

  • with my exact phrase – The exact phrase must be found in the selected search field.

  • begins with – The search terms must be found at the start of the search field.

• Search Field – This filter allows users to narrow their searches to a specific search field (such as the author or title) using the operation selected in the Search Type drop-down list. If disabled, searches include all search fields in the record.

Improve Renew Selected in My Library Card

January 2019 URM-95424
This enhancement adds the ability to renew selected loans from the list with one click in My Library Card. The following renew options are supported in the Loans tab:

• RENEW SELECTED (new) - This button appears at the top of the loan list if any but not all loans have been selected in the list. When selected, only the selected loans will be renewed.

• RENEW ALL (existing) – This button appears at the top of the loan list when there is a single loan in the list, when no loans are selected in the list, and when all of the loans are selected in the list. When selected, it will attempt to renew all loans in the list.

• RENEW (existing) – This button appears for a loan in the list if it can be renewed. When selected, only that loan will be renewed.

Increase Visibility of Citation Trail

January 2019 URM-96527
This enhancement allows users to access the Citation Path page from the Brief Results page. Previously, the following citation links were available only on the Full Display page:

– View records that this record cites.

– View records that cite this record.

Now the links also appear on the Brief Results page:

Selecting a citation link, opens the Citation Path page, which contains the list of citations and the path to the selected record.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) Support

January 2019
TLS is a cryptographic protocol that provides authentication and data encryption between different endpoints (for example, the user’s desktop and the application server). Various vulnerabilities (such as POODLE and DROWN) have been found in TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1 in recent years. 

To avoid security vulnerabilities and to align with industry standards, Ex Libris is removing its support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in both Alma and Primo. This will occur on all sandbox environments as of the March release (February 17th, 2019) and on all production environments as of the May release (May 5th, 2019). Effective May 6, 2019, Ex Libris will support only TLS 1.2 or later.

You can find additional information on TLS at:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security
• https://www.thesslstore.com/blog/apple-microsoft-google-disable-tls-1-0-tls-1-1/
• https://www.zdnet.com/article/chrome-edge-ie-firefox-and-safari-to-disable-tls-1-0-and-tls-1-1-in-2020/
• https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2018/10/15/removing-old-versions-of-tls/