Voice Search Assistant

November 2019 PRM-40344
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.

Improved Email Template for Send To Email Action

November 2019 PRM-36436
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 the new UI, 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 the Primo Back Office. In addition, you can create separate email templates for each supported language in the UI.

The following figure shows the sample output of the out-of-the-box Email template for the new UI.

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. 

Improved Format of Saved Search Alert Emails

November 2019 PRM-39330
This enhancement provides an improved format of emails sent to users for Saved Search alerts. Currently, the format cannot be customized, but you can configure its associated labels. The following figure shows the new format for alert emails.

Applying Actions in Bulk in Brief Results

November 2019 PRM-40343
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.

Enhanced Primo REST API Suite

November 2019 PRM-40338, PRM-38828
The Primo REST API Suite now includes the following enhancements:

• The Favorites API has been updated to allow you to perform the following functions:

  • Add or remove records that a user has saved to My Favorites.

  • Add labels to records that a user has saved to My Favorites.

• The new Resource Recommender REST API allows you to return the resource recommendations for a specified query.

For more details, see the Ex Libris Developer Network.

Support Display of Subject Chains in Full Display (New UI Only)

November 2019 PRM-40800
In the new UI, chained subjects (which are related subjects that are separated by a delimiter and provide individual hypertext linking) are displayed on separate lines in the record's details. With this enhancement you can configure chained subjects to display on the same line and also provide separate hypertext linking for each subject in the chain.

For example, if the subject chains are mapped as follows in the PNX:

They will now appear on the same line if this functionality is enabled:

Improved Appearance of Newspaper Search Links

November 2019 PRM-40919
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:

Sort in Collection Discovery

November 2019 PRM-40458
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.

Change RefWorks Icon

November 2019 PRM-41856
The icon used for the export to RefWorks action has been modified.

Additional Support for Esploro in the PNX

November 2019 PRM-XXXXX
This enhancement integrates Esploro with Primo to allow you to display research information from Esploro in Primo. To support this functionality, the Alma MARC Template has been updated to include the following PNX fields:

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 Analytics Enhancements (November)

November 2019 PRM-40508, PRM-35185
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.

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

Ongoing Performance Enhancements (November)

November 2019 PRM-41507
As part of our ongoing commitment to improve the performance of the UI, we optimized the initial load of the Full Display to improve its load time.

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 resolved 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 document.

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. At this time, 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.

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

August 2019 PRM-40340
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

Improve Glanceability of Course Material in Search Results

August 2019
PRM-40992This 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.

Link to Leganto Reading List from Full Display

August 2019 PRM-39508
This enhancement improves the integration between Primo and Leganto by allowing users to select a link from a record's full display and view the relevant reading list in Leganto.

Display Reasons for Nonrenewable Loans in My Library Card

August 2019 PRM-36348
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. For Alma environments only, users can also 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).

For more information, see Display Reasons for Nonrenewable Loans.

Support More Exact Search for Hypertext Links

August 2019 PRM-40840
Previously, the Hypertext Linking Definitions mapping table allowed you to specify only the following enhanced search operators for display fields in the Full Details of a record: exact or contains. With this enhancement, you can specify a new option called facet exact, which provides a more precise search by adding the value of the corresponding facet field to the advanced search query when users select an enhanced hypertext link in the record's full details. For example:

For more information, see Facet Exact Operator.

Export to Mendeley

August 2019 PRM-35805
This enhancement allows users to export records from various places (such as from the brief and full displays and My Favorites) in the new UI to their Mendeley accounts.

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

• Export to Mendeley

• Exporting Records from Primo

Search Engine Optimization Friendliness

August 2019 PRM-XXXXX
As part of our ongoing effort to make your library's catalog visible on the Web, this enhancement applies the following Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices:

• Canonical URL – To prevent duplicate content issues and to signify the preferred version of a page, the rel=canonical tag was added to the head section on Primo's Full Display pages using the following format:

  <link rel="canonical" href="http://<Primo_DNS>/primo-explore/fulldisplay/<doc_ID>/<view_ID>">

• Support Schema.org in the Full Display – This schema is now applied to the Full Display instead of only for specific deep links.

• Add Metadata to Collection Lobby and Collection pages – To help identify the collection pages, the title and description metadata tags were added to these pages.

These enhancements were made in preparation for the Dynamic Page Rendering feature that routes requests from Web crawlers to a renderer to apply static HTML. This feature will be released by the end of the year and will provide a significant improvement to search engine optimization.

Manage Your Customization Labels in One Place

August 2019 PRM-38471
Primo uses many code tables to configure display labels and translations used throughout Primo, but using these these tables to translate labels for functionality that you developed yourself may be difficult to manage. With this enhancement, you can manage your custom display labels with a single code table called Custom Code.

To utilize this new table, add a row for each label and then deploy the changes to your view. For example:

Customize Primo Shortcut Icon in IOS/Android

July 2019 PRM-38412
This enhancement allows you to change the Primo shortcut icon that displays on the home pages of IOS and Android devices.

1. Create a 150x150 pixel image for the Primo 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.

Primo 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.

Contextual Relationships - New Ways to Discover More

May 2019 PRM-31655
With the May release, Central Discovery Index (CDI) will start tracking and displaying relationships between items, enabling users to explore these relationships in Primo search results. This functionality will be fully available on May 14, 2019. Currently, the following relationships are supported:

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.

Short Permalinks for Records (NERS 5845)

May 2019 PRM-39878
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 type (f or np), 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.

Full Display example:

• Short format –
  http://il-primoqa02.corp.exlibrisgroup.com:1701/permalink/f/ubs98m/primo_alma214849700001021

• Long format –
  http://primoqa02.corp.exlibrisgroup.com:1701/permalink/f/ubs98m/primo_alma214849700001021

Newspaper Search example:

• Short format –
  http://primoqa02.corp.exlibrisgroup.com:1701/permalink/np/a0v6bj/BM_ePnHCXMwYwKdT2pqDCz5LE1ZYEc3GRsbciCf6cTJYAheEJGYowDagg7K5Yl56sUKIaALo1IVgksyc3IUwNfPKSSWKDiWAs3P42FgTQPGSCovlOZm0HNzDXH20AWVpPGg6CgpSkxOhK4qz89LBR1sFO8IrB7NgM0Mc1ChS6IGAFNwPGw

• Long format –
  http://primoqa02.corp.exlibrisgroup.com:1701/primo-explore/npfulldisplay?docid=BM_ePnHCXMwYwKdT2pqDCz5LE1ZYEc3GRsbciCf6cTJYAheEJGYowDagg7K5Yl56sUKIaALo1IVgksyc3IUwNfPKSSWKDiWAs3P42FgTQPGSCovlOZm0HNzDXH20AWVpPGg6CgpSkxOhK4qz89LBR1sFO8IrB7NgM0Mc1ChS6IGAFNwPGw&vid=BC_VIEW&lang=en_US&context=NP

This enhancement is enabled by default. If you would like to revert to the long format, see Disabling Short Permalinks in the New UI.

Enhance Visualization in Collection Discovery (Alma)

May 2019 PRM-36350
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. Note that this is still the case for Rosetta collections. For Alma collections, you can now 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. The editor allows you to 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

Searching within a Collection

May 2019 PRM-378
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:

Add Unsubscribe Link to Alert Emails

May 2019 PRM-39642
Without having to access and sign in to Primo, this enhancement allows users to unsubscribe from search alerts by selecting the unsubscribe link that now appears at the bottom of alert emails. When this link is selected, a message indicating whether the request has succeeded or failed appears on a new page.

Support Localized Links in the Main Menu

May 2019 PRM-39806
Previously, Primo allowed you to create translations for the labels of the Main Menu links, but you could not create separate links for each language. The following changes have been made to allow you to create separate links per language for the new UI only.

• Main Menu tile in the Views Wizard (modified) – The name of the URL field has changed to Default URL. It defines the English link and the default link for other languages.

  

  Main Menu Tile in Views Wizard

• Main Menu URLS for the New UI mapping table (new) – At the institution level only, this mapping table allows you to define the Main Menu links per language in the new UI. To create a link for a menu item, create a new mapping row using the following fields:

  • Code (required) – Specify the code of the menu option defined in the Main Menu tile of the Views Wizard.

  • View (required) – Specify the view.

  • URL – Specify the URL for the menu option.

  • Language – Specify the language.

  

  Main Menu URLs for the New UI Mapping Table (New)

For more information, see Configuring Main Menu Links for the New Primo UI.

Support Usage Information for the Order of Main Menu Links

May 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.

Primo Analytics Enhancements (May)

May 2019
In addition to the Analytics support provided for action usage in the May features, this release includes Analytics support for the following features/actions added in previous releases:

Ongoing Accessibility Enhancements (May)

May 2019
We are continuously working to improve product accessibility to make it comply with the standard of WCAG 2.0 AA level. This release includes the following accessibility improvements:

• When more than five disciplines were selected on the Personalize My Results page, an error message was not displayed. This has been fixed.

• PRM-40179After selecting the Copy the citation to clipboard option in Citations, no notification was provided. This has been fixed.

• PRM-40178PRM-39816After selecting the Citation button, the tabbed interface is not correctly implemented. This has been fixed by ensuring that the appropriate elements and attributes (such as role).

• PRM-39848In the Tweak my results section, the Exclude button could not be reached using the keyboard. This has been fixed.

• The action controls were disabled when the My Favorites page was displayed. This has been fixed by adding instructions—for example, Select Items below to enable controls.

• PRM-39825In the Advanced Search panel, the listbox controls at the bottom of the page (such as Title, Contains, and so forth) were unlabeled. This has been fixed with aria-labels.

• The following label for the Add to favorites button was not clear: Keep item number X to favorites. This has been fixed.

• PRM-39290Error messages in the Sign In dialog box were not associated with the fields, and fields are not marked as invalid. This has been fixed.

• PRM-39289After selecting the Sign In link, focus was not placed on the dialog box that opened, and when the dialog box was closed, focus was not returned to the activating element. This has been fixed.

• After selecting the Sign In link, the dialog box did not contain a main heading and Change language and Access Library Card buttons. This has been fixed.

Improve Performance of Results in My Favorites

May 2019 PRM-35433
To improve performance for the new UI, the Load more results button has replaced endless scrolling in My Favorites (Saved Records).

Deprecate BIRT Reports for Primo Cloud Customers

May 2019 PRM-38163

To support the deprecation of BIRT Reports and the switch to Primo Analytics, the User Reports mapping table and the Primo Dashboard have been hidden, and the link to access the Primo Reports page in the Primo Back Office has been deprecated for Primo cloud customers. For more information about Primo Analytics, see Overview of Primo Analytics.

SAML Certificate Renewal

May 2019 PRM-39649

The SAML signed certificate will expire in October 2019. If you are using SAML user authentication and utilizing the SAML signed certificate in your Primo authentication profile, please check with your administrator to see if the certificate requires renewal. Most IDP systems will respect expired certificates according to section 2.2 Profile Overview in the SAML V2.0 Metadata Interoperability Profile specification document. For more information on how to check and renew your certificates, see Replacing a Certificate.

Reduce Broken Links for Primo Central

May 2019 PRM-38957
In case links in Primo Central and local records are missing the http/https prefix, this enhancement will make sure that each link is prefixed to reduce the number of broken links.

Support Citation Style Language (CSL)

February 2019 PRM-36870
Out of the box, Primo 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 Citation Style Language mapping table (Primo Home > Advanced Configuration > All Mapping Tables > Front End > Citation Style Language) 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.

Provide Users with an Immediate Topic Overview for Short Topic Searches

February 2019 PRM-26447
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.

Add up to Five Ebook Collections from Primo Central to Your Local Search Scope

February 2019 PRM-38580
Previously, you could define search scopes that included all collections from Primo Central. With this feature, you have the ability to add specific Primo Central ebook collections (such as HathiTrust) to your search scopes, which are defined in the Back Office with the Views Wizard. For your convenience, the Views Wizard will display your active Primo Central e-book collections so that you add them to your local search scopes easily.

Increase Visibility of Citation Trail

February 2019 PRM-39314
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.

The Enable Citation Trail option in the Views Wizard allows you to activate citation trails in the UI. For more information, see Configuring Citation Trails.

Improve Renew Selected in My Library Card

February 2019 PRM-39200
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.

Ongoing Accessibility Improvements (February)

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.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) Support

February 2019 PRM-40053

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 31, 2019, Ex Libris will support only TLS 1.2 or later. For more information, see Security Update - Deprecation of Obsolete TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 Versions – Updated April 16, 2019.

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/

Deprecation of BIRT Reports for Primo Cloud Customers

February 2019 PRM-XXXXX
Starting with the Primo May 2019 release, BIRT reports will be deprecated for Primo Cloud customers. It is recommended that you begin the migration to Primo Analytics. For more information, see Overview of Primo Analytics.

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.