Hi all,

Here's the project update for this month.

Workshop

The second Alma Functional Workshop has been scheduled for January 9-11, 2017 (Monday-Wednesday), at Fullerton.  Attendance will be determined by your dean. We are currently working with Ex Libris on the agenda, although consortium functionality and workflows will be the focus. 

Primo reconfiguration

Due to some instability issues in our Primo environment, Ex Libris is reinstalling and reconfiguring Primo from scratch.  They will initially do this work in the Primo sandbox environment, reinstall Primo on the production server, and then import the full configuration from the sandbox into production.

The reinstallation on production will begin November 6, with Primo unavailable for about a week as Ex Libris re-installs and re-configures Primo and re-harvests and re-indexes data from Alma.  Authentication configurations will need to be put back in place starting the week of November 14, thus affecting our authentication testing as well.  Ex Libris expects to hand Primo back to us by November 28.

This work is not expected to significantly impact the Primo Central portion of Xerxes.

Patron Load

The vanguard campuses have recently completed initial testing of the systemwide patron load process.  Chancellor's Office CMS is currently incorporating their feedback into a final round of changes before the process is made available to all campuses in the early December PeopleSoft update.

I will be meeting with the SAUG and TUG PeopleSoft user groups in November to begin preparing them for the work that will need to be done to implement this at the campus level.  I'll also be convening a special webinar with the PMs and PeopleSoft contacts to make sure everyone is on the same page.  Look for that meeting invite in the coming weeks.

Migration of COUNTER data from UStat to Alma

As many of you know, Ex Libris has implemented a new, more robust COUNTER harvesting service within Alma.  They will be migrating COUNTER stats from UStat to Alma in a few weeks, once all of our questions concerning the new functionality are answered.  Currently, five campuses are using UStat with some regularity, and will need to shift their work to Alma after that data is loaded (and thus well ahead of the go-live in the summer).

Working Group Updates

We've asked all of the working groups to identify and propose policies and best practices for Alma and Primo.  You can find a list of the proposed policies, with brief descriptions, here.

The working groups are currently drafting the actual policies and will be seeking feedback from the CSU library community in November, so please look for those on the listservs and at the regular working group meetings.

Systems

In addition to that, the Systems Working Group is continuing its good work in a variety of areas, including OCLC integrations for importing records from Worldcat into Alma.  The Letters Taskforce is creating a repository of templates for Alma emails.  The User API Taskforce is currently developing authorization scripts for EZProxy and ILLiad, which campuses can adapt to replace any existing scripts that depend on the Innovative Patron API.  The LMS integration taskforce has completed a requirements document for a reading list application.  While the RFID and Self-check taskforces have been largely advisory, providing assistance to campuses on those integrations.

Access Services

Access Services has been looking at the Terms of Use in Alma, providing recommendations on more standardized and simplified rules and policies.  The Resource Sharing Governance Taskforce has been meeting regularly with Ex Libris, testing and reviewing resource sharing workflows in Alma.  A new Reserves Taskforce has just begun meeting, and is looking to recommend best practices in that area.

Tech Services

Tech Services has been very busy.  The Authority Control Task Force has started meeting and will provide a report in the coming months.  There is also now a joint Systems-Tech Services Task Force tackling Import Profiles and Normalization Rules, and a new task force focusing on PeopleSoft Financial Integration, which is looking to adapt San Marco's process for automating the import of invoice data from Alma to PeopleSoft systemwide.  The Acquisitions, ERM, and Cataloging task forces are all focused on developing policies and drafting procedures, as that is where the lion's share of the proposed policies and procedures lie.   Policies and procedures will be posted online and discussed during the weekly Tech Services Open Forums held on Thursdays, so please plan on attending those if you want to give feedback.

Discovery

The Discovery Working Group has been focused lately on Primo training.  The UX Taskforce has completed a usability and accessibility testing instrument.  The Results Boosting & FRBR Taskforce has created a form where people can report problematic search results or FRBR groupings, which the taskforce will be analyzing and taking to Tech Services.  The Discovery Third-Party Integration Taskforce also has a survey in the works.  Look for both of those to be posted to the ulms-discovery listserv soon.

Analytics

Finally, the Analytics Working Group has been focused on developing training videos, which you can find on the project wiki in the Analytics section, and looking at the new COUNTER stats service in Alma.

--Dave