The Support Center has moved!! See the new website https://support.goalexandria.com/ 
22.2 Release Notes
23 July 2022
Highlights
Introducing new navigation in the Researcher! Scout, Browse, the Researcher hub, Bulletins (beta), Slideshow, and Patron Status have a completely reorganized topnav with some new features.
New Menus!
(right) In the new topnav, check out the handy Researcher drawer—no more ‘going back’ to Researcher in order to switch from Scout to Browse!
(left) Also check out the user menu, where your patrons can see quick stats like how many items they have out and how many holds!
We’ve rearranged Search and Explore a bit so that things are in a similar place. You’ll notice that the Researcher button is on the left, with Login and Status on the right.
Self-Service and Activity also have small updates to their topnav.
New & Improved
Circulation
- Patron Details now shows cover art for items in the Lost section too!
Reports
- You can finally sort the Activity Summary report by Date! …Isn’t that what it was supposed to do before? Turns out it was more complicated than we thought, but we’ve figured it out now :)
- We have a new Titles Missing Information report! This lets you find titles without cover art, like you could before, but also titles without genre.
- When you set up a custom label and run it, the summary file now shows the options you chose for each row. This is useful if you want to reproduce that perfect set of labels.
- The Loaned Items Notice report has a new 2-per-page format, so you can run it sorted by Homeroom and pass out tree-friendly notices to your patrons. Thanks for this idea goes to Lori the Awesomeness from Millennium Charter :D
- We’ve updated the Loaned Items Notice email format to let you include the Replacement Cost.
Fixed
Circulation
- System Patron Details (e.g. Lost, Discarded) wasn't listing items when there weren't that many (under 200). Now it does.
SIS
- We’ve fixed an issue in Clever that was preventing patrons from syncing.
Reports
- We corrected Balances in the Patron Details Summary a few releases ago, but it didn’t fix it for existing charges. Now it’s all good.
- Some Letter formats were including the Union Site name instead of your specific site, which was silly but now it’s fixed.
- Patron Details Summary was showing that patrons still owed money for lost books that had been paid off. It’s fixed!
- The Return Statistics report was wrong. So wrong. *facepalm* Now it’s all good!
Exports
- Sometimes if you ran a Patron Export with no selections it wouldn’t work. That was strange.
Utilities
- The Declare Checked Out Items Lost utility wasn’t always checking items out to Lost. There were some weeeeiiiiirrrddd things going on with this utility where it would get ‘stuck’. We’ve straightened it out.
Imports
- FTP imports are now working correctly.
Routes
- It was impossible to remove a patron from the Routes List. We’ve fixed this annoying bug for our one special customer who uses Routes. (Do you use Routes? Tell us how! *Routes may be depreciated in a future release*)
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.
