The Systems Work Group is initiating its blog with this post, which highlights systems-administration-oriented enhancements from the May and August 2024 Alma releases. Going forward, you can expect a post from our work group not too long after each quarterly release.
Note that not all interesting enhancements are covered. The idea here is to highlight those enhancements focused on high-level system administration, bulk processes, integrations and so on. So improvements to, say, the metadata editor, discovery features, or fields in electronic collections or portfolios are not likely to be mentioned unless perhaps there is a configuration required to enable it. In addition, we are making judgment calls as to which of the many enhancements are of most interest to our consortium’s libraries.
This might seem trivial, but some of us have found that staff working in Alma absolutely love being able to choose their own colors. Alma being Alma, you will need to configure a setting allowing the colors to be customized. Do it, then announce it to your Alma users; it’s your very own Wizard of Oz.
On the one hand this seems like a great enhancement; on the other, in the work group we weren’t coming up with a lot of use cases. But if you find yourself regularly running the same job on a logical set–i.e. The set logic won’t change and the job parameters will always be the same–then you can now set this up to run itself daily, weekly, or whatever. Note that here we are talking about jobs that you access via Run a job; not every Alma bulk process starts there.
You might remember that, when our consortium went live with Alma, it was possible to use the Analytics Object List to make particular reports appear in the Analytics menu within Alma for all users with particular assigned roles. Later, when the Objects List and Analytics menu were redesigned, we lost that ability–the entire menu was personalized, and now depended on users selecting reports to show there.
This enhancement allows Analytics admins to use the Objects list to pin reports or dashboards to a “Pinned by Admin” section of the Analytics menu. The setup remains essentially personalized: users can leave a report in that section, favorite it to move it up to their main listing, or remove it.
If you start pinning reports–and we recommend you do–it’s a good idea to communicate with your Alma users about why they’re seeing what they’re seeing.
Many of us are using at least one or two cloud apps. While they are in some cases very useful supplements to what we can do using the ordinary Alma UI, they have opened up some security gaps, since they were launched without good tools for limiting access to them. This enhancement allows admins to limit access by either:
Assigning a “cloud apps” role allowing access to all cloud apps
Providing access to cloud apps based on the kinds of entities the apps act upon. For example, users with roles allowing them to edit physical inventory would have access to cloud apps that modify physical inventory.
We recommend you configure this if you use cloud apps!
While this sounded great, some of us are finding that in practice it doesn’t consistently work. Some members have had success working, for instance, within the electronic activation task list in one tab and searching titles or checking a bib record in another. But others have found that if you do much in one open tab, returning to the other and, say, performing a search sometimes fails. So be aware when notifying your users that they may want to tread carefully. Also heed the vendor’s warnings! Do not sign in as separate users simultaneously.
The Designs Analytics user role has up to now been all-or-nothing. For some of us this has meant we decline to provide this role to certain Alma users, since the data is sensitive. (It’s still possible to provide such users with access to particular reports and dashboards via the Analytics Object List.) Ideally users would be able to browse reports in, say, E-Inventory or Physical Items, while staying away from sensitive user data in Fulfillment and Users.
While this enhancement promised to deliver some granularity, it failed, since each distinct Designs Analytics role it created had access to the Users subject area. Watch for this gap to be addressed (we hear) in the November release!
While this is not really a systems-level enhancement–it’s available to all physical inventory operators–we’re noting it because it may take the place of systems work you’ve done to enable bulk creation of item records, such as configuring import profiles or activating cloud apps. Next time your library needs to process hundreds of Chromebooks or ZTC-funded class sets, you might find this attractive.
Another systems-level element: it has been noted on ALMA-L that there is no centralized way to audit item templates, so if any are problematic or need to be deleted, admins currently have no way to accomplish that.
Acquisitions enhancements
Exciting developments for the subset of our institutions using Acquisitions.
This is a bookmarklet that purports to simplify creating PO lines based on Amazon book pages. System admins will need to configure a New Order API integration profile if you don't already have one. However, some work group members who tried it did not have success.
NZ changes
The following are not anything institution-level admins need to act on, but are of interest given our status as a collaborative network.
The NZ can now prevent particular institutions from importing records to the NZ. So: when Pawel says you need to take a look at your import profile match & merge records, do it, or he might need to take action!
The NZ now has a sort of control panel that allows the NZ administrator to view and change configuration settings for individual institutions or across the network. So far there doesn’t seem to be much, if any, application for this development in our network–we do not tend to coordinate our configurations. But as we move forward, if there are areas where a particular configuration is needed across our institutions (or perhaps in a meaningful subset), this tool would come in handy.
The Systems Work Group is initiating its blog with this post, which highlights systems-administration-oriented enhancements from the May and August 2024 Alma releases. Going forward, you can expect a post from our work group not too long after each quarterly release.
Note that not all interesting enhancements are covered. The idea here is to highlight those enhancements focused on high-level system administration, bulk processes, integrations and so on. So improvements to, say, the metadata editor, discovery features, or fields in electronic collections or portfolios are not likely to be mentioned unless perhaps there is a configuration required to enable it. In addition, we are making judgment calls as to which of the many enhancements are of most interest to our consortium’s libraries.
User-level configuration of Alma color scheme (August)
This might seem trivial, but some of us have found that staff working in Alma absolutely love being able to choose their own colors. Alma being Alma, you will need to configure a setting allowing the colors to be customized. Do it, then announce it to your Alma users; it’s your very own Wizard of Oz.
Scheduling support for manual jobs (May)
On the one hand this seems like a great enhancement; on the other, in the work group we weren’t coming up with a lot of use cases. But if you find yourself regularly running the same job on a logical set–i.e. The set logic won’t change and the job parameters will always be the same–then you can now set this up to run itself daily, weekly, or whatever. Note that here we are talking about jobs that you access via Run a job; not every Alma bulk process starts there.
Pin Analytics Objects to Selected Roles and Users (August)
You might remember that, when our consortium went live with Alma, it was possible to use the Analytics Object List to make particular reports appear in the Analytics menu within Alma for all users with particular assigned roles. Later, when the Objects List and Analytics menu were redesigned, we lost that ability–the entire menu was personalized, and now depended on users selecting reports to show there.
This enhancement allows Analytics admins to use the Objects list to pin reports or dashboards to a “Pinned by Admin” section of the Analytics menu. The setup remains essentially personalized: users can leave a report in that section, favorite it to move it up to their main listing, or remove it.
If you start pinning reports–and we recommend you do–it’s a good idea to communicate with your Alma users about why they’re seeing what they’re seeing.
Enable Cloud App Activation per Role (August)
Many of us are using at least one or two cloud apps. While they are in some cases very useful supplements to what we can do using the ordinary Alma UI, they have opened up some security gaps, since they were launched without good tools for limiting access to them. This enhancement allows admins to limit access by either:
We recommend you configure this if you use cloud apps!
Support Parallel Work in Multiple Tabs in Internet Browser (May)
While this sounded great, some of us are finding that in practice it doesn’t consistently work. Some members have had success working, for instance, within the electronic activation task list in one tab and searching titles or checking a bib record in another. But others have found that if you do much in one open tab, returning to the other and, say, performing a search sometimes fails. So be aware when notifying your users that they may want to tread carefully. Also heed the vendor’s warnings! Do not sign in as separate users simultaneously.
New Limited Designs Analytics Roles (May)
The Designs Analytics user role has up to now been all-or-nothing. For some of us this has meant we decline to provide this role to certain Alma users, since the data is sensitive. (It’s still possible to provide such users with access to particular reports and dashboards via the Analytics Object List.) Ideally users would be able to browse reports in, say, E-Inventory or Physical Items, while staying away from sensitive user data in Fulfillment and Users.
While this enhancement promised to deliver some granularity, it failed, since each distinct Designs Analytics role it created had access to the Users subject area. Watch for this gap to be addressed (we hear) in the November release!
Creating Multiple Items for a Holdings Record Using Item Templates (Aug, building on May enhancement)
While this is not really a systems-level enhancement–it’s available to all physical inventory operators–we’re noting it because it may take the place of systems work you’ve done to enable bulk creation of item records, such as configuring import profiles or activating cloud apps. Next time your library needs to process hundreds of Chromebooks or ZTC-funded class sets, you might find this attractive.
Another systems-level element: it has been noted on ALMA-L that there is no centralized way to audit item templates, so if any are problematic or need to be deleted, admins currently have no way to accomplish that.
Acquisitions enhancements
Exciting developments for the subset of our institutions using Acquisitions.
Copy PO Line Price to Replacement Cost (Aug)
The title says it all. Configure one or two parameters, and staff have one less thing to do when receiving items. Yay!
Quick Ordering from Amazon (May, further enhanced in Aug)
This is a bookmarklet that purports to simplify creating PO lines based on Amazon book pages. System admins will need to configure a New Order API integration profile if you don't already have one. However, some work group members who tried it did not have success.
NZ changes
The following are not anything institution-level admins need to act on, but are of interest given our status as a collaborative network.
Consortium Import Permission Per Member (May)
The NZ can now prevent particular institutions from importing records to the NZ. So: when Pawel says you need to take a look at your import profile match & merge records, do it, or he might need to take action!
New Consortium Central Configuration Dashboard (Aug)
The NZ now has a sort of control panel that allows the NZ administrator to view and change configuration settings for individual institutions or across the network. So far there doesn’t seem to be much, if any, application for this development in our network–we do not tend to coordinate our configurations. But as we move forward, if there are areas where a particular configuration is needed across our institutions (or perhaps in a meaningful subset), this tool would come in handy.