The Support Center has moved!! See the new website https://support.goalexandria.com/ 
21.10 Release Notes
26 March 2022
Highlights
You’ve heard about the Alexandria and Textbook Tracker Makeover. Coming in the next release, you’ll be able to try it out! Look in Circulation, Items, and Patrons for a purple alert button at the top of your screen. That will take you to the Makeover beta in our demo where you can play around recklessly.
For a list of changes, new features, and known issues with the Makeover betas, see our Makeover Changes page.
Got something to say (good, bad, or a further improvement on what we’re doing)? Fill out this form, or send an email to uxteam@goalexandria.com.
Important
Super Summary reports will be unavailable as we make changes to foundational report functionality. If you have feedback about Super Summary and the data you need, please submit an idea.
You may notice some changes in Operations Management as we’ve modified the process to better handle more complex operations, and operations in a busy queue.
Think of the Operations Queue like a print queue. Our goal with the new operations was to prevent any one job from interfering with other server activities. For example, imagine the end of the year, or start of school, where you might have multiple imports, utilities, and other resource-intensive operations going at the same time. The new system is designed to keep the things you want done ‘now’—such as checkouts, record management, searching in Researcher—faster when big operations are running in the background.
Improvements
When you run a report, where does it go? To Operations! In order to help make this more clear, we’ve added some text in Reports, Utilities, Export, and Import. (Alexandria & Textbook Tracker)
Our Support Center is going through some changes for the Makeover. Notice the new Operations and Builder menus at the top!
Fixed
Reports
Lost books that have been paid for are no longer showing a balance due in the Patron Details Summary report.
- The “Discard Reason” input field has been removed from the Damaged Items Notice report, as it is not applicable. Use the Discarded Copies report to get information on discarded items.
- The Overdue Items and Unpaid Charges Information report now includes the titles for lost items.
- The Patron Details Summary report is correctly displaying the copy call numbers.
Items
The Items Management search will now include locations with apostrophes in their results.
Imports
- Patron Lexile scores and tables are importing as expected.
Exports
- Series Volumes are now exporting successfully as a separate field, instead of part of Series.
Textbook Tracker
- Textbook reports (including the Title Information report) will now sort correctly.
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.
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:
- Log in to Alexandria.
- Append /admin to the end of your Alexandria URL.
- Click the Actions menu, then select Check For Updates.
- Select the update version from the list, then click Update. Your update will now download.
- 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:
- Log in to Alexandria.
- Append /admin to the end of your Alexandria URL.
- Click the Actions menu, then select Check For Updates.
- Select the update version from the list, then click Update. Your update will download to the Updates folder in your Alexandria Support folder.
- The download may take several minutes.
- The update screen will close automatically and you will be redirected to the login window.
- Once the installer has downloaded, and not before, quit Alexandria.
- Remove your existing Alexandria application using Add or Remove Programs in System Settings.
- 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.
