Utilize Mobile Device Capabilities – QR Code as a Link to Primo Pages

December 2020 URM-136169
The QR Code link has been added to Primo VE's Main Menu to allow staff and users to share Primo VE pages quickly with other users using a QR code. For example, this may be useful in the following cases:

• Instructors can create a search results set of relevant materials for a course and include the page's QR code in a slide presentation.

• Reference librarians can find materials on their workstations for users and share the queries and records quickly by allowing users to scan the QR codes with their mobile phones.

• Libraries can market a special collection by putting the collection's QR code on their Web page, poster, and so forth.

If enabled, users can also get a record's QR code by selecting the QR send-to action in the brief and full display of a record.

Selecting a QR Code link displays the page's QR code, allowing users to either copy the page's permalink to the clipboard or use their mobile device to scan the QR code. In addition, you can use your browser to save an image of the QR code to a file.

Support Resource Recommender Configuration per View

December 2020 URM-123151
Previously, resource recommendations were applied to all views. With this enhancement, you can now define resource recommendations for all or specific views. For more details, see Resource Recommender for Primo VE.

New Action to Export to Leganto Reading List

December 2020 URM-104098
The new Reading List action allows users to export an individual record or selected records in bulk to Leganto. This action is supported from both the brief and full displays, My Library Card > Loans and Requests, and My Favorites > Saved Records.

Depending on the type of user, the export is performed as follows:

• For students, click ADD TO READING LIST In the Action's dialog box to export the record's citation:

  

  Reading List Action's Dialog Box for Students

• For instructors, specify the following fields and then click ADD TO READING LIST to export the record's citation.

  • Add to - Select either Collection (personal reading list) or List (class reading list).

  • Select list - If you selected the List option, select one of your class reading lists from the drop-down list.

  • Select section - If the selected reading list has sections, select a section from the drop-down list.

  

  Reading List Action's Dialog Box for Instructors

Enhance DEDUP and FRBR Test Utility

December 2020 URM-131404
After making changes to a record's metadata, the FRBR and Dedup groups may need to be recalculated. With this enhancement, you can now use the Dedup and FRBR Test Utility page (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Dedup and FRBR Test Utility) to recalculate FRBR and Dedup groups. For more information, see Recalculate Dedup and FRBR Groups.

1. On the Dedup and FRBR Test Utility page, enter the modified record's ID.

2. Select Find matching records.

3. Select Recalculate FRBR and Dedup groups.

Search Engine Optimization: Add Metadata Tags to Improve Visibility on the Web

December 2020 URM-133604
To improve the visibility of Primo VE sites on the Web, we added support for the following open graph meta tags (which are part of Facebook's Open Graph Protocol) in Primo VE pages to control how their URLs are displayed when shared with social media sites: og:title, og:description, og:url, og:type, and og:image. For example: 

Broaden Availability Status in Brief Results

November 2020 URM-52142
Previously, the following availability statuses were displayed to end users in the brief display of each record in the search results: Available, Not Available, and Check Holdings. The Not Available status appeared for any record that was not available and did not provide enough information regarding the status of the record. With this enhancement, the statuses such as the following will replace the Not Available status when this functionality is enabled: Not available - Loan, Not available - Requested, and Not available - Lost.

Boost My Institution

November 2020 URM-58468
This enhancement allows an institution in a consortium to boost its search results over results from other member institutions. By default, no boost is applied to your institution, which means that results from your institution will receive the same relevance ranking as results from other institutions.

General Hold Request Form Enhancements

November 2020 URM-113007 URM-113009
The following fields are now available in the Hold Request and Digitization Request forms configuration tables, and can be added to the General Hold/ Request Another Issue and the General Digitization / Digitize Another Issue requests in Primo (for holdings with no items or serial holdings):

If metadata exists, the fields are automatically populated, as is done in the Resource Sharing form.

To use these fields, they must be activated on the Hold Request / Digitization Request Form Customization pages.

The request APIs functionality remain unchanged. All description fields are sent as part of the manual description parameter.

See Configuring Request Forms for Primo VE.

Indication for Bound-With Relations (Not Related Intellectually)

November 2020 URM-113665
Previously, the following types of bound-with records (which are linked using the MARC 773/774 linking fields) were displayed identically as Is Part Of/Related titles in the record's full display:

• Related - The bound-with records are related intellectually with each other. For example:

  The physical title Prayer Book is bound with physical title Readings from the Holy Scriptures.

• Unrelated - The bound-with records are not related intellectually with each other. For example:

  The physical title Prayer Book is bound with physical title The first edition of Agatha Christie Murder on the Orient Express.

In the following example, the 773 field is added to the constituent record to link the records in the Full Display:

• Constituent record - 773 0# $$i Bound with $$t To kill a mockingbird. $$w (DLC)2088:

  

  Is Part Of and Related Title Labels on Linking Record

• Host record:

  

  Related Titles Label on Linked Record

With this enhancement, you can provide a separate display indication called Bound with for records that are not related intellectually by setting the $$9 subfield to unrelated in the 773/774 linking field. For example:

• Constituent record - 773 0# $$i Bound with $$t To kill a mockingbird. $$w (DLC)2088 $$9 unrelated:

  

  Bound With Labels on Linking Record

• Host record:

  

  Bound With Label on Linked Record

Lookup and Select Option on Request Forms

November 2020 URM-129248
For consortia with at least seven member institutions, the Other Institutions drop-down list will be added to the top of each request form to allow users to request material from another member institution in the consortium.

Chat with Support

November 2020 URM-138075

This enhancement allows staff users who have chat permissions to chat with our Support team regarding the following types of Primo VE issues directly from within the Alma management interface:

• Simple how-to questions and configurations

• Behavior and general inquiries

• Known issues

For more details, see FAQ.

For users who have chat permissions (see Configuration Options), the Chat icon will appear in Alma's persistent menu. To begin a chat session, select the Chat icon in your Alma Production environment:

Ongoing Accessibility Improvements (November)

November 2020 URM-132001
As part of our continuous effort to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA, we have consulted with an external accessibility company, resolved many issues this release, and are expected to resolve more issues in the upcoming releases. To help track these improvements, you can review the attached list of Resolved Accessibility Issues.

Specifically for this release, we have improved the contrast of font, button, and background colors. If you have made any related customizations, please make sure to adjust accordingly, noting that our changes were made to match the expected contrast ratio. More details can be found here.

For more details, see Color Contrast Improvements for Accessibility.

My Library Card - Has Activity Filter and Indicator for Consortia

September 2020 URM-124218
For consortia in which patrons have the ability to perform fulfillment activities (such as place holds) in a number of member institutions, this enhancement allows users to filter the institution list in My Library Card based on whether the user has active fulfillment statuses and messages at an institution. To support this functionality, the following changes were made in My Library Card:

• An Institution filter has been added above the list of member institutions. Users have the ability to select one of the following options:

  • Has Activity – When selected, it will display only the institutions for which the user has active fulfillment status.

  • All Institutions – When selected, it will display all institutions supported by the consortium.

• A new Has Activity indicator is placed before all institutions in the list that have active fulfillment statuses and messages.

Enhanced Personalization - Easy Selection of Recently Used Search Scopes

September 2020 URM-103225
The Search Profile drop-down list for basic searches has been modified as follows to allow users to find search profiles quickly or to reuse recently selected search profiles:

• The Look-up or select prompt has been added to the top of the Search Profile drop-down list (not the Slot drop-down list). As users begin typing characters at the prompt, matching scopes will appear in the lower portion of the box for selection, allowing users to select these search profiles without having to scroll through a large list.

  

  Scope Lookup

• The last three search profiles that were recently used in a search appear just below the Look-up or select prompt and are indicated by the Recent icon . For signed-in users only, the search profiles for each search slot are retained between sessions.

  

  Recently Used Scopes

Improved Discovery of Multiple Digital Issues in Primo VE

September 2020 URM-100741
This enhancement allows users to filter digital issues in the View Online section of a record's full details. Based on the Entity Type that is assigned to a representation in the Digital Representation Resource Editor in Alma, a pair of filters will appear above the list of representations to allow users to filter the record's representations:

• Issue – Users can filter the list by selecting values from the Volume and Date drop-down fields.

• Issue-Detailed – Users can filter the list by selecting values from the Volume and Year drop-down fields.

In Primo VE, the default selection is All for the above filters, and users can reset both filters to their default values by selecting Clear. The system loads five items at a time. To see the next five items, select Show More Items.

Quick Access to Auxiliary Digital Files

September 2020 URM-125550
Previously, all digital representations displayed as links in the View Online section of a record's full display and were indexed with the Available online facet. With this enhancement, you can mark representations (such as for a Table of Contents or a book cover) as being auxiliary so that they display in the Quick View section of a record's full display and are no longer indexed with the Available online facet. In Alma, representations are designated as auxiliary by setting the Usage Type field to Auxiliary in the Digital Representation Resource Editor. For more information, see Adding a Representation in Alma.

Primo VE uses the following display logic rules, which are configured on the Discovery Interface Display Logic page (Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Discovery Interface Display Logic > Display Logic Rules), to determine where these representations display in the record's full display:

• Hide service Representation Delivery Service with Usage Type = Auxiliary – When active, this rule displays the auxiliary representations in the Quick View section only. When inactive, the auxiliary representations are displayed in both the View Online and Quick View sections.

• Hide service Representation Quick Access – If this rule is active, auxiliary representations will not appear in the Quick View section regardless of the previous rule's setting.

For more information, see Adding Display Logic Rules in Alma.

No configuration is needed in Primo VE to enable this functionality.

Primo Services Page – Prevent Get It Services for Wrong Titles

September 2020 URM-131405
When an OpenURL request does not contain any identifiers, the link resolver matches a bibliographic record based on the OpenURL title only. On occasion, the match is inaccurate and can result in Get It services for the wrong title. You can now configure Alma's link resolver to display Get It services for titles that match identifiers (such as ISBN and ISSN). For more information, see Using Standard Identifiers.

No configuration is needed in Primo VE to enable this functionality.

Improved Filtering of Record's Items

September 2020 URM-112889
With this enhancement, items for related records are filtered in Get It when a specific issue, part, or page is specified for the record. This enhancement supports the following relations: 773 (MARC21 and KORMARC) and 461/463 (UNIMARC and CNMARC). Refer to the following table for more cataloging details:

Example:

No configuration is needed in Primo VE to enable this functionality.

Ongoing Accessibility Improvements (September)

September 2020 URM-132001
As part of our continuous effort to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA, we have consulted with an external accessibility company, resolved many issues this release, and are expected to resolve more issues in the upcoming releases. To help track these improvements, we will publish a list of the resolved accessibility issues soon.

New Action - Export to Excel

August 2020 - NERS Enhancement (ID #6190)URM-121609
The new Export to Excel action allows users to download information (which includes all enabled display fields and a permalink) for one or more records to a .csv or .xlsx file.

This action is supported in the following areas of the UI:

• Brief Results page – Users can either export a single record or select and export a maximum of 50 records in bulk to a file.

  

  Export to Excel Action on the Brief Results Page (Bulk Selection)

• Full Display page – Users can export the record to a file.

• My Favorites > Saved Records – Users can either export a single record or select and export one or more records in bulk to a file.

• My Library Card > Loans and Requests – Users can either export a single record or select and export one or more records in bulk to a file.

After selecting the Export to Excel action in UI, users will have the option to download the results to a file using one of the following file types: .csv or .xlsx.

Allow Multiple Conditions for Local Resource Types

August 2020 URM-112362
This enhancement allows you to map source records to a local resource type based on a maximum of four MARC/DC conditions instead of a single condition. When multiple conditions are defined, all must be true to assign the local resource type to the record.

Purchase Request Alert Form - Match Found Notification

August 2020 URM-192377 (Updated August 20, 2024) URM-110753
For purchase requests that originate from a blank Purchase Request Form, the system will now notify users immediately that a requested item already exists in the library, allowing users to select from the following options after submitting a purchase request that contains a matching ISBN or eISBN:

• View the record – Allows users to view the item to see if it is the same as the one they are requesting.

• Yes – Continues with the request as submitted.

• No – Cancels the submittal of the request.

New Look for Blank Purchase Request and Resource Sharing Forms

August 2020 URM-114168
The look of the Blank Purchase Request and Resource Sharing Request forms has been narrowed to improve the visibility and usage of the forms.

Increase Maximum Number of Local Fields

August 2020 URM-129551
This enhancement increases the maximum number of local fields from 50 to 100. For consortia, local_field_51 through local_field_100 can be centrally defined with the NZ and distributed to member institutions. For more information, see Allow Consortia to Manage Local Fields Centrally.

Allow Consortia to Manage Local Fields Centrally

August 2020 URM-59244
For consortia, this enhancement allows the NZ to manage local fields centrally for distribution to member institutions at the IZ level. To support this functionality, local_field_51 through local_field_100 have been added for this purpose (see Increase Maximum Number of Local Fields). Prior to distribution, the NZ will have the ability to decide whether to override a member institution's customizations of a local field in the IZ. 

Enhance Discovery Import for Loading Externally Held Physical Records

August 2020 URM-98098
Previously, all records that were imported from external data sources were treated as online resources only. With this enhancement, customers can identify records as physical resources and create a request link for these resources. For external physical resources, you will see the following information displayed in Primo VE:

• A customer-defined link to the external physical source will appear under the Links section in the record's full display.

• The following Availability statuses will appear in the record's brief display:

  • Check holdings – Displays if the record is an external physical record only.

  • Available at <location> and other locations – Displays for Dedup records that combine both an Alma physical record and an external physical record.

• The Available in library facet will include external physical records.

Allow Resource Sharing Requests with Available Electronic Inventory

August 2020 URM-125967
Previously, resource sharing requests were permitted only from the How to get it section on the record's Full Display page when the record had no electronic or physical holdings in the library. With this enhancement, you can now allow users to request physical items from other libraries also when the resource is only available electronically in the library.

If display logic rules in Alma prevent resource sharing requests, the How to get it section will still display, but it will include the following message:

Define Peer Reviewed Facet in Local Catalog

August 2020 URM-127290
Previously, only central index materials where included in the Peer Reviewed facet. This enhancement increases the visibility and navigation of local peer reviewed materials by allowing local records with the following indication to be included and filtered with the Peer Reviewed value of the Availability facet:

• DC: The dcterms:instructionalMethod field is set to Refereed/Peer-reviewed. Note this needs to be added for display, as well.

• MARC: The 500 $a subfield is set to Refereed/Peer-reviewed.

Display Access Model in Primo VE

August 2020 URM-126065
When this functionality is enabled for discovery in Alma and the resource has public access model information defined for the portfolio, Primo VE will now display the access model information.

Update UNIMARC Normalization for Creation Date Facet

August 2020 URM-128237
This enhancement improves the display of the UNIMARC Creation Date facet. To support this improvement, the following changes have been made to the Creation Date Facet/Search normalization rules:

• Added 620 $i, 214 $d, and 210 $h.

• Removed 207 $a.

Mobile Device Usability Improvements to My Favorites

August 2020 PRM-33487
A Filter icon has been added to the Saved Records tab in My Favorites to allow users who are using mobile devices to sort and filter their saved searches by specific labels.

Selecting the Filter icon opens the Tweak my saved records page, which allows users to select/clear labels and to specify one of the following sort types: Author, Date added, or Title. 

Ongoing Primo VE Analytics Improvements (August)

August 2020 PRM-42972
Improved the following issues with the Primo VE Zero Result Searches Report in Primo VE Analytics:

• False zero results – In some cases, no results were sent for a search query that did have results..

• Missing zero results – In some cases, users received no results in the UI, but the searches were not reported or listed in the report. In some cases, customers did not see any reporting of searches with no results.

Expose Webhook for Searching External Indexes

July 2020 URM-116084
Search Webhook enables you to enhance the standard Primo VE search engine with your own search engine functionality, using the standard Primo VE services and view. This functionality allows sites to create multiple search webhooks, where each one is designed to work with a different external search engine (such as a regional search index). For more details on this functionality, see Search Webhook in the Ex Libris Developer Network and Primo Search Webhook.

Reload No Harvest Option for External Data Sources

July 2020 URM-122364
This enhancement adds the Reload option to the Import Profiles page for external data sources (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Discovery Import Profiles) so that you can reload all records from an external data source without having to harvest files from the external data source. This is useful if you need to apply indexing changes to existing records.

Display Related Digital MARC Representations

July 2020 URM-114551
This enhancement allows a title's related digital representations to be displayed under the View It/View Online section on the record's Full Display page. When this functionality is enabled, all related digital representations will appear in the new Services for Related Titles subsection under the View Online > Digital Version(s) Availability section.

Display Place in Queue on Request Forms

July 2020 URM-102642
If the new Calculate Queue button is enabled, it will been added to the hold, booking, and digitization request forms so that users can determine their place in the queue before sending a request for the item.

Configure Languages for Voice Search Assistant

July 2020 URM-121663
For the new UI only, this enhancement allows you to configure the list of supported languages and the default language that appear after selecting the Microphone icon in the Primo Search box.

Support the Configuration of the Search Box's Focus

July 2020 URM-125796
For desktop applications only, this enhancement allows you to place the focus in the search box by default when various pages (such as Library Search and Journal Search) are opened in Primo VE. This allows users to type their queries directly into the search box without having to select the search box first. This is already the case for the classic UI.

Collection Discovery Enhancement - Add More Sort Options

July 2020 URM-125635
Since the launch of Collection Discovery, it is apparent that many customers configure their Collection Discovery pages to show only collections or items. With this in mind, we have added separate sort drop-down lists for sub-collections (Sort sub-collections by) and items (Sort items by). This allows users to independently sort sub-collections and items on a collection's discovery page. For sub-collections, users can sort by relevance and title only, and for items, users can sort by author, date (oldest and newest), relevance, and title. The default sort type is now configurable with top-level collections in Alma (see Configuration Options).

Only relevant sort drop-down lists will appear on the collection's discovery page. Since the collection has only items in the following example, the page displays only the Sort items by drop-down list for the listed items in the collection:

Index Additional Title in MARC 800 Field

July 2020 URM-100433
Previously, only the f, k, l, m, n, o, and p subfields were indexed from the MARC 800 field for additional title searches. With this enhancement, the t subfield is also indexed from the MARC 800 field for additional title searches.

Add Discovery to Scheduled Jobs Status Widget

July 2020 URM-123108
The Scheduled Job Status widget in Alma allow you to monitor scheduled jobs based on various categories. With this enhancement, you can now view the status of the scheduled jobs that are specific to Discovery (such as the Creates DB Categories File job). For more information, see Viewing Scheduled Jobs.

If you need further details, select the right arrow next to the Discovery option to display the Discovery jobs that were executed on the selected day.

Support Popular Hebrew Acronyms

July 2020 URM-91987
To support searches with popular Hebrew acronyms and to align with Primo, popular Hebrew acronyms have been added to Primo VE. For example, searches for the Hebrew acronym רמב"ם will return results that match both רמבם  and רמב"ם.

Get JWT Public Key REST API

July 2020
This service returns a public key that can be used by external systems to verify JWT authentication tokens issued by Primo VE. For more information on this API, see the Public Key API in the Ex Libris Developer Network.

For a use case example, see the Alma - PayPal Integration in the Ex Libris Developer Network.

Normalization Rule Changes for July

July 2020 URM-115315
The following UNIMARC rules were updated for July. If you have customized your rules and want to apply the updated rules, you can either copy the rules below or restore the rules to their out-of-the-box settings. For more information regarding the new actions wrap subfields and replace wrapping delimiters, see Configuring Normalization Rules for Display and Local Fields.

• Title display field (UNIMARC) – A semicolon will be prefixed to each appearance of subfield a (except for the first appearance). For example, if the UNIMARC 200 field is defined as follows in the source record:

  $$a First title $$e Other Title Information $$f First Statement of Responsibility $$a Second title $$e Other title info $$f First Statement of Responsibility (for the second title)

  Its output will appear as follows in Primo VE:

  First title : Other Title Information / First Statement of Responsibility ; Second title : Other title info / First Statement of Responsibility (for the second title)

  rule "Primo VE Display title 200"
      when
         MARC "200" has any "a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,v"
      then
        set TEMP"1" to  MARC."200" sub without sort "a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,v" wrap subfields
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","a"," ; ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","b"," [","]")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","c",". ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","d"," = ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","e"," : ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","f"," / ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","g"," ; ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","v",". ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","h",". ","")
        replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","i",". ","")
        remove leading and trailing spaces (TEMP"1")
        remove substring using regex (TEMP"1","^(/|:|;|=|,)+")
        remove substring using regex (TEMP"1","(/|:|;|=|,)+$")
        remove leading and trailing spaces (TEMP"1")
        replace spaces (TEMP"1"," ")
        remove string (TEMP"1","<<")
        remove string (TEMP"1",">>")
        create pnx."display"."title" with TEMP"1"
  end

• Publisher display field (UNIMARC) – In addition to subfield c, the Publisher field now displays subfield a for UNIMARC field 210. For example, if the UNIMARC 210 field is defined as follows in the source record:

  $$a Roma $$c Associazione italiana per le ricerche di storia del cinema $$a Bologna $$c Persiani $$d 2014

  Its output will appear as follows in Primo VE:

  Roma : Associazione italiana per le ricerche di storia del cinema ; Bologna : Persiani

  rule "Primo VE Display - publisher 210"
  priority 20
      when
          Latin display MARC."210" has any "a,c"
      then
          set TEMP"1" to MARC."210" sub without sort "a,c" wrap subfields
          replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","a"," ; ","")
          replace wrapping delimiters (TEMP"1","c"," : ","")
          remove leading and trailing spaces (TEMP"1")
          remove substring using regex (TEMP"1","^(/|:|;|=|,)+")
          remove leading and trailing spaces (TEMP"1")
          replace spaces (TEMP"1"," ")
          remove string (TEMP"1","<<")
          remove string (TEMP"1",">>")
          remove string (TEMP"1","\\(")
          remove string (TEMP"1","\\)")
          remove string (TEMP"1","\\[")
          remove string (TEMP"1","\\]")
          remove substring using regex (TEMP"1","(/|:|;|=|,)+$")
          set pnx."display"."publisher" to TEMP"1"
  end

Configure the Preferred Record for Dedup

June 2020 URM-106289
Previously, the preferred record for Dedup groups was based on the ranking of the top 10 records in the Dedup group (see Configuring the Ranking of Search Results in Primo VE). With this enhancement, the library can now configure the preferred record based on inventory and give preference to bibliographic records that have digital, electronic, or physical inventory associated with the preferred record, which is displayed to users.

Define Open Access Facet in Local Catalog

June 2020 URM-89201
Previously, only central index materials were included in the Open Access Facet. This enhancement increases the visibility and navigation of local open access materials by allowing local records with the following indication to be included and filtered with the Open Access value of the Availability facet:

• DC: The dcterms:accessRights field is set to Unrestricted online access.

• MARC: The 506 f subfield is set to Unrestricted online access and the 506 2 subfield is set to star.

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

Reload and Delete External Data Sources

June 2020 URM-114276
This enhancement allows you to reload your external data source and keep the record IDs between updates so that you can continue to use your short and long format permalinks.

View It in Other Campuses and Libraries

June 2020 URM-102387
For multi-campus environments that use Distributed Electronic Resource Management, this enhancement allows campuses/libraries to display View It services for Alma electronic and digital records from other campuses/libraries on the Full Display page. When enabled, a new Online services information from other campuses or Online services information from other libraries section will appear collapsed under the View Online section on the Full Display page. If online services are not offered for your campus/library, the new collapsible sections will appear under the Get It or How to Get It section instead of the View Online section.

If users are interested in services from other institutions, they can open the section to display all other institutions that have online services.

Select Order of Holdings, Availability, and Requests Display in Get It

June 2020 URM-112995
Previously, the order of the availability labels for holdings in Get It were fixed in the following order: copy, available, and request. With this enhancement you can modify the order of the labels.

Support Additional Material Types on Purchase Request Form

June 2020 URM-120421
Previously, users could not specify material types other than Book or Journal, such as DVD. Because this information was not specified, the request was rejected if the library already had that title. With this enhancement, users will be able to specify any of the material types supported by Alma. 

To specify a material type, users must select a Material Type (Electronic or Physical), select one of the corresponding types from the Choose Type drop-down list (such as Book or DVD), fill out the remaining fields (such as Title), and the select Submit:

Unsubscribe from Email Alerts

June 2020 URM-98237
Previously, users had to sign in to Primo VE and use the My Favorites > Saved Searches page to unsubscribe from email alerts. With this enhancement users will be able to unsubscribe from an email alert by selecting an link at the bottom of the alert email. This link will open your default browser and provide an acknowledgment regarding the success or failure of clearing the email alert.

Add Institution Search Box to Login Page for Consortia

June 2020 URM-119077
When using the Union view for consortia, this enhancement allows users to find their institutions quickly for consortia who have many institutions to choose from on the Primo VE Login page. Previously, users had scroll down a long list of institutions, which may not have been sorted. 

When users begin to type, the system scrolls to the first institution that matches the search term. Users can add as many characters as necessary to find a specific institution in the list. Once found, the user can then select the institution.

Primo VE Search REST API - Option to Minimize Calls

June 2020 URM-119002
This enhancement improves the performance of the Primo VE Search REST API by adding the following parameters to skip the calls for delivery calculation and facets, respectively: skipDelivery and disableSplitFacets. This can be useful for cases in which facets and delivery information are not required (for example, when building a bento box). For more details, see Primo Search API  in the Ex Libris Developer Network.

Improved Sticky Facets Behavior (NERS #6125)

May 2020 URM-114393
This enhancement improves the behavior of sticky facets by allowing users to apply persistence to all active filters in the Active Filters section. Previously, persistence had to be applied to each filter individually. In addition, this enhancement includes the following changes:

• Instead of clearing only the non-persistent filters in the Active Filters section, the Reset Filters option in the Active Filters section now behaves like the Library Search button in the main menu, which clears all filters in the Active Filters section, including the persistent filters.

• The new lk option will be added to the facet and mfacet parameters in a search's URL to mark the persistent filters. This allows you to reuse the URL later and retain the persistent filters in another search session. For example:

  https://MyUnv.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,test&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=MyInstitution&vid=PRIMO_OAP_INST:Alma&mfacet=tlevel,include,online_resources,1,lk&mfacet=tlevel,exclude,available_p,1,lk

1. Perform a search and filter your results by selecting one or more facets individually or in bulk. The non-persistent filters have the white background color. 

   

   Adding All Filters to the Persistence List

2. Select the Remember all filters button to make all filters persistent. When made persistent, the system changes the background color of the filter to yellow.

   

   Adding Additional Filters to the Persistence List

   The system disables the Remember all filters button when all filters in the Active filters section are persistent.

Support Configuration of the Preferred Record for FRBR (NERS #6230)

May 2020 URM-104950
Previously, the preferred record for FRBR groups was based solely on the ranking of the top 10 records in the FRBR group (see Configuring the Ranking of Search Results in Primo VE). With this enhancement, the preferred record is taken from the 10 highest ranked records in the FRBR group that matches one or more of the following configurable criteria: resource type, date, and availability. Otherwise, the preferred record is set to the highest ranked record in the FRBR group.

Configure the Display of Related Records in Get It (Alma NERS #5340)

May 2020 URM-113292
As with related records in View It, this enhancement allows you to enable/disable the display of related records for physical holdings (Get It) based on whether the item is a serial, a monograph, or a closely related item.

Include Library Names in Location Facet

May 2020 URM-85180
Because location names in Alma are not unique, institutions that have the same location name in multiple libraries (such as Periodicals) will see repeated values in the Location facet, which makes it difficult to select a location for a specific library. With this enhancement, you will be able to display the library name with each location (such as Main Library - Periodicals).

Export to Mendeley

May 2020 URM-98233
This enhancement allows users to export records from various places (such as from the brief and full displays and My Favorites) in the UI to their Mendeley accounts.

For more details about this new export option, see the following pages:

• Export to Mendeley for Primo VE

• Exporting Records from Primo VE

Add the Willing to Pay Option to Resource Sharing Requests

May 2020 URM-108403
Previously, Alma allowed staff to indicate whether a customer is willing to pay for a resource sharing request, but users were not permitted to specify this option themselves from the Resource Sharing Request Form in Primo VE. With this enhancement, the Willing to Pay check box has been added to the form to allow users to specify this option in Primo VE.

Configuring Local Resource Types in the Network Zone

May 2020 URM-115006
For consortia, this enhancement allows the Network Zone (NZ) institution to configure local resource types so that each member institution will not have to configure them at the Institution Zone (IZ) level. The display of local resource types defined at the NZ level will be overridden by the member institution's local resource type definitions. If a code is not found in either the NZ or the member's institution, the system will display the code for the local resource type as it did in previous releases.

Improved Display of Subcategories for Database and Journal Searches

May 2020 URM-121130
Previously, users had to select the greater-than sign (>) to display a category's subcategories on the Database Search and Journal Search pages. With this enhancement, users can also select a category name to display its subcategories in addition to its results list.

New SAML Certificate

May 2020 URM-120835
The current DigiCert SAML Certificate will expire in January 2021. If your institution uses this certificate, Ex Libris recommends that you consult with the IT dept. in your institution, and if required, replace the certificate for Alma and/or Primo VE. If replacing the certificate, this must be done in coordination with your IDP. For more information, see Replacing a Signed Certificate.

If your institution uses ADFS, Ex Libris highly recommends that you replace the certificate to avoid any complications.

Quick Access: Embedded Alma Digital Viewer in Full Display

March 2020 URM-106499
This enhancement allows you to embed Alma's new digital viewer in the new Quick Access section of the record's full display. This allows users to quickly access and view digital representations stored in Alma. From the embedded viewer, you can download the file, display the representations in the Alma digital viewer, or select the right/left arrows to view additional representation files.

View It from Other Institutions

March 2020 URM-102937
This enhancement allows members of a consortium to display View It services for Alma electronic and digital records from other member institutions on the Full Display page. When enabled, a new Online services information from other institutions section will appear collapsed under the View Online section on the Full Display page.

If users are interested in services from other institutions, they can open the section to display all other institutions that have online services.

Support Local Extensions for CZ Bibliographic Records

March 2020 URM-120749
This enhancement adds support for the following local fields defined in Alma CZ records: 009, 09X, 59X, 69X, 77X, 78X, and 9XX. This allows users to search for and display information from these local display, facet, and search fields in Primo.

In Alma, CZ records that contain a local field with subfield $$9 set to local are considered local to your institution, and any information stored in this field is not viewable by other institutions and is not overwritten when changes are made to the CZ record by the community. For information on how to add local extensions in Alma, see Working with Local Extension Fields for Community Zone Records.

For example:

For more information, see Support Local Extensions for CZ Bibliographic Records.

Allow General Digitization Requests for Records with No Items

March 2020 URM-109042
Previously, patrons could place digitization requests only for a specific item or for an item that is not one of the items in the list (which is referred to as Digitization Other). With this enhancement, you can now offer a general digitization request when holdings have no items.

Selecting the General Digitization link opens the General Digitization Request Form:

Enhanced Custom Search Scopes with Course Code

March 2020 URM-120422
This enhancement allows you to create custom search scopes that allow you to distinguish records that have a course code that either matches or includes specified text.

Access to Google Search Console

March 2020 URM-118403
Google Search Console provides tools to allow you monitor the activity of your website. With this enhancement, you can allow Google to monitor the activity of your Primo VE institution and any Google sitemap files that you have created. For information on creating Google sitemap files, see Configuring Sitemap Files for Primo VE.

Improved Email Template for Send To Email Action

March 2020 URM-98960
This enhancement allows you to customize the format of emails sent to users after selecting the Send To Email action in the new Primo UI. To support this customization in Primo VE, you are now permitted to modify the email template, which can be modified with or without Primo Studio. With either option, you must upload the customized email templates with the Customization Package Manager in Alma. In addition, you can create separate email templates for each supported language in the UI. For more details, see the webinar:

The following figure shows the sample output of the out-of-the-box Email template for Primo VE.

The Email template is in HTML format and includes the following sections:

• Logo – Displays the logo, which is taken from your view's customization package.

• Institution note – Displays the text configured with the following code in the Send Email and SMS code table: default.nui.email.institutionNote. By default, this field has no value and will not display if left empty.

• List of records – For each record, the email displays the record's brief display and availability statement.

• Disclaimer – Displays the text configured with the following code in the Send Email and SMS code table: default.nui.email.disclaimer. 

Separation of Audio Visual Facet in CDI

March 2020 URM-107536
Primo VE has added separate Resource Type facets for Audio and Video, which allows users to filter their audio/visual results separately for CDI searches.

For more information regarding the new CDI resource Types, see Resource Types in CDI. 

Support Usage Information for the Order of Citation Styles

March 2020 URM-XXXXX
This enhancement enables Primo Analytics to track the number of times citation styles by position (a maximum of 20 styles) are selected using the Export to Citation action. This usage information allows you to determine which styles are used the most and to set the order of the styles accordingly.

New Request Type Filter in My Library Card

March 2020 URM-121047
The new Request type filter in My Library Card allows users to select one or more request types to filter loan requests based on the selected request types. All selected requested types will appear next to the Request type label.

Improved User Experience on Mobile Devices - NERS #6290

February 2020 URM-121042
This enhancement improves the user experience on mobile devices based on usability testing and customer feedback. For more technical details on the following mobile improvements, see New UI Javascript Third Parties Changelog in the Ex Libris Developer Network:

• Improved navigation of send-to actions on the Brief and Full Display pages.

  

  All Actions Displayed on the Full Display Page

• Moved the link to access the Advanced Search page to the User Area.

  

  Advanced Search Link in Primo User Area

• Displayed the Tweak my results , Personalize my results , Save Records , and Save Query  options as icons.

  

  Icons on Mobile Devices

• Added navigation for previous and next records on the Full Display page.

  

  Previous and Next Record Links on Full Display Page

• Added the ability to apply actions to records in bulk.

  

  Applying Action to Multiple Records

• Improved the visibility of facets and the ability to select multiple facets.

  

  Improved Facet Visibility and Selection

• Improved signed-in status.

• Included miscellaneous fixes for the Resource Sharing & Request forms.

Improved Format of Saved Search Alert Emails

February 2020 URM-112191
This enhancement provides an improved format of emails sent to users for Saved Search alerts. This format is configured with the Saved Searches Letter template on the Letter Configuration page (Configuration Menu > General > Letters > Letters Configuration). For information on how to configure email letters, see Configuring Alma Letters. The alerts are scheduled with the Saved Searches Alert job (Admin > Manage Jobs and Sets > Monitor Jobs > Discovery).

Improved Display of Export Actions

February 2020 URM-XXXXX
While on the Brief and Full Display pages, it is no longer necessary to select the left and right arrows to scroll through the export actions. All configured export actions will now display.

For example:

Import General XML Data

February 2020 URM-114238
During the import of an external XML record, this enhancement allows you to import more than one instance of a field (such as creator or ISSN) based on a specific separator. To support this functionality, you will need to utilize the new copy all action and create a normalization rule for each instance of the field that you want to support:

• copy all "{xpathExpression}"\("{separator}"\) to "{newTagNameSpace}"."{newTagField}"
• copy all "{xpathExpression}"\("{separator}"\)("{newXsiType}"\) to "{newTagNameSpace}"."{newTagField}"

The following example allows you to import a maximum of three creators for each record:

Voice Search Assistant

January 2020 URM-103220
This enhancement allows users to enter search terms using their device's microphone. After selecting the Microphone icon, users can begin speaking search terms or select a different language for the system to detect. If no input is detected for 10 seconds, the system will provide a message and then prompt the user to provide audio input two more times before timing out and exiting the voice search assistant. If audio is detected, Primo will display the relevant search results.

Item-Level Display of General Electronic Services

January 2020 URM-99335
This enhancement allows you to display general electronic services for each physical item, based on holdings and item-level information (such as barcode and location), instead of a single link for the record in Get It. For more information, see Configuring General Electronic Services.

Improved Handling of Suppressed Records

January 2020 
Primo VE has been enhanced to prevent the discovery of records that have been suppressed in Alma using the following methods:

• Suppress all records at a physical location – Select the Suppress from Discovery check box for a location. For more information, see Editing a Physical Location.

• Suppress an individual record – In the MD Editor, select the Suppress from Discovery option for the holdings or bibliographic record. For more information, see Navigating the MD Editor Page. Note that suppression takes effect even without saving the record.

• Suppress a record based on its holdings – In the Customer Parameters mapping table (Configuration Menu > Resources > General > Other Settings), set the suppressBibWithSuppressedHol option to true to suppress the bibliographic record if its holdings have been suppressed

• Suppress a record based on the process type of its items (such as a lost item). Suppresses the bibliographic record if all of its items have been excluded by process type. See Excluding Resources with Specific Process Types from Publishing.

• Suppress an electronic record based on its active portfolios – Suppresses the bibliographic record, when all of its portfolios are inactive.