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20.6 Release Notes

12 November 2020

Our recent updates have added cool new features like the Copy List dialog and an improved Remove Holds utility. Tell us how Alexandria is working for you!

Highlights

We've got improvements to accessibility, reports, utilities, and more!




Setup Preferences. Yep, we’ve made a few more changes as we prepare for the Makeover! The new Setup Preferences will contain Barcodes, Localization, and SIP2 preferences, as well as the following from Admin: Email, LDAP, and Checkpoint ILS.




Accessibility. The Researcher Hub, Scout, Status, and Slideshow are now WCAG AA-compliant! Read more about accessibility in Alexandria.



Advanced Report Selections. Circulation reports now allow you to get more specific with your patron policy selections. From the new dropdown menu for the selection, choose whether to select all policies, multiple policies, or all but certain policies. See our documentation on Advanced Selections for more information.



Important

  • We are excited to announce that we have partnered with Mitinet to bring you BestMARC! This MARC data cleanup/supplementation service will take the form of two Alexandria utilities included in a paid add-on. It will be available soon, so keep an eye on future releases.
  • Circulation Groups will be discontinued in the next release (20.7). 

New & Improved

Circulation
  • The Patron Details dialog now scrolls correctly to show all information.
Imports
  • Updated imports to not change patron policies to the default if that field is blank in the import file.
  • Corrected a bug that was causing imports to replace information in filled-out fields.
Items
  • Fixed browser error when adding new titles or copies.
Patrons
  • Changed the “Unknown” patron sex designation to “Unspecified.”
Preferences
  • Added a Setup setting to Security Preferences, which determines access to the new Setup Preferences area. 

    If you notice that you or other operators no longer have access to certain areas of Librarian, check this setting and set it to Manage for appropriate security levels. It defaults to No Access for security levels 2, 3, 4, and 5, and Manage for security levels 1 and 0. 

  • Expanded and fixed variable tag usage for some Circulation letters and reports.
  • Fixed Researcher Preferences to respect the specified style for each area.
Reports
  • Combined all of the Patron Notes reports into one, more versatile, report. You can now run the report and see all types of notes at once!
  • Corrected the Weeding List and Reordering Details reports to respect the Copies with a Condition of selection.
  • Expanded the Title selection's character limit to 500 for Textbook Tracker Circulation reports. 
  • Updated Circulation reports to display the correct patron location/homeroom list depending on the current or specified site.
Researcher
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the Researcher Hub not to load.
System
  • Improved performance and reliability while addressing several database issues.
Textbooks
Utilities
  • Corrected a few Textbook Tracker utilities that weren’t giving results (Remove Lost Copies, Remove Discarded Copies, Remove Archived Copies, and Declare Checked Out Copies Lost).
  • Fixed a product code issue that caused certain utilities and selections to not appear.


Self-Hosted Notice

If you self-host on a Mac, hold off updating your servers to macOS 10.15 Catalina. Alexandria will be 64-bit compatible in a future release. We highly recommend you consider Cloud Hosting.


This page has been moved over to https://support.goalexandria.com/release-notes/

All release notes 23.9 and onward are on the new Support Center.







Latest Release



Cloud-Hosted Updates

When you host with us, we take care of all updates! During these updates—the second to last or last weekend every month (Saturday and Sunday)—please plan for possible downtimes with Alexandria. And if you need to contact Customer Support over the weekend, please call us (emails are only responded to during regular business hours Monday–Friday).


Self-Hosted Updates

Once all of the Cloud-Hosted servers have been updated, we will make the update available to Self-Hosted servers.

We highly recommend you consider Cloud Hosting.

Not every version is able to update to the newest version, so the Available Updates window will only include those versions that meet your machine and version requirements.

Self-Hosted Notice - Mac

If you self-host on a Mac, hold off updating your servers to macOS 10.15 Catalina until you can update to Alexandria 22.8 or later (64-bit compatible releases). 

If you self-host on a Mac, here's how to install the update on your Self-Hosted server: 

  1. Log in to Alexandria.
  2. Append /admin to the end of your Alexandria URL.
  3. Click the Actions menu, then select Check For Updates.
  4. Select the update version from the list, then click Update. Your update will now download.
  5. The update screen will close automatically and you will be redirected to the login window.

Self-Hosted Notice - Windows

As of 2023 our self-hosted update process has changed.

If you self-host on a Windows machine and are on Alexandria 22.6 or earlier: Contact us for instructions and assistance updating to the latest version.

If you self-host on a Windows machine and are on Alexandria 22.12 or later, here's how to install the update on your Self-Hosted server: 

  1. Log in to Alexandria.
  2. Append /admin to the end of your Alexandria URL.
  3. Click the Actions menu, then select Check For Updates.
  4. Select the update version from the list, then click Update. Your update will download to the Updates folder in your Alexandria Support folder. 
    1. The download may take several minutes.
  5. The update screen will close automatically and you will be redirected to the login window.
  6. Once the installer has downloaded, and not before, quit Alexandria.
  7. Remove your existing Alexandria application using Add or Remove Programs in System Settings. 
  8. Run the newly-downloaded Alexandria Installer.

Important Information

Version Numbering Change

As of 20.1, we've simplified our versioning scheme by dropping the series version. We now use the following:

  • xx = academic year, beginning in June; yy = month

For example, 20.1 means:

  • 20 = 2020 academic year
  • 1 = The first monthly update (June)

Centralized Catalogs

If you have more sites than you are licensed for, contact our Sales team immediately at 1-800-347-6439. You can check this in Sites Management; the number of total sites plus the Union Site shows at the top, and the number you have licensed is at the bottom. The Union Site does not require an additional license.

Data Conversion

These Data Conversion notes are for Self Hosted users updating from v7 and switching from v6. If you are cloud-hosted or moving to cloud-hosted, we do everything for you!

Data conversions from older versions may not be supported. Before updating, please check the version you're currently running.

Updating from v7

If you're already running 7.17.12 or newer, you can update to the latest version. But if you're running an older version, you'll need to update a few times.

  • Running 7.16.3? Update to 7.17.12 before updating to the latest version.
  • Running 7.16.2? Update to 7.16.3, then to 7.17.12, before updating to the latest version.
  • Running an even older version? Contact COMPanion Support for assistance. Depending on your current version, your upgrade path may go through one or more of the following: 7.15.3 → 7.16.2.6  7.16.3  7.17.12 Current Version 

Upgrading from v6

The process to update from 6.23.1 to v7 is quite a bit different than updating from a more recent version. Check out our v6 to v7 Conversion Guide for more information.

  • Running 6.22.9 or older? Update to 6.23.1, then to 7.17.12, before updating to the latest version.


Data conversion can take up to 10 minutes for a single database of average size or longer for larger collections and Centralized Catalogs, during which time the program will be inaccessible in your browser. Do not fear; it's still working. If you're concerned, check your server logs for a progress update.

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