Pardon the mess! The Support Center is undergoing construction. 
7.19.11 Release Notes
10 April 2020
Our recent updates have added cool new features like BTSB and merging patrons. Tell us how Alexandria is working for you!
What's New?
Alexandria and Textbooks changes continue to prepare for the Makeover, and we deliver on some new features you can enjoy now or later!
Reports and utilities updates. The In-Stock Hold Notice report now lists patron barcodes and homerooms, which will make it easier to get the notices to the right person. In addition, we consolidated the three Change Purchase Cost utilities into one simple utility.
Items and Patrons updates. We’ve made more minor changes in preparation for the Makeover. There’s a new nickname field and Access tab in patron records. Also, we’ve added a handy MARC button to the top of Items Management that toggles between MARC view and normal view. See the rest of the release notes for more.
Activity Summary report. Use this new report to see how bustling your library is!
Important
If you self-host on a Mac, hold off updating to macOS 10.15 Catalina. Alexandria may be 64-bit compatible in an upcoming release.
New & Improved
Import
- Corrected the Patron Pictures import to no longer update System Patron pictures when importing images with leading zeros in the file name.
Items
- Added a MARC button to the right of the Actions menu that toggles between normal item viewing and MARC View.
- Updated the “module entry” (0 results) view to include four helpful links: Add a title, Search for items, View recently added, and View recently modified.
Patrons
- Added a nickname field, which will be displayed in parentheses when the patron is made current in Circulation or shows up in the Patrons Management records list.
- Added the Access tab to patron records. Patron Username/Password fields, Security Group selection, and Site Access have been moved to this tab.
- Updated the “module entry” (0 results) view to include four helpful links: Add a patron, Search for patrons, View recently added, and View recently modified.
- Renamed the Personal Info tab to Personal.
- Renamed the Contact Info tab to Contact.
- Renamed the Lexile tab to Programs, which now has two sub-tabs: Study Programs and Lexile.
- Removed some quick search options: Modified Today, Created Today, Modified in the Last Week, and Created in the Last Week (essentially Recently Created and Recently Modified, which we still have).
- Removed some sorting options: sequence #, username, and creation date.
Reports
- Added patron barcodes and homerooms to the In-Stock Hold Notice report, which will make it easier to get the notices to the right person.
- Fixed reports that use custom text to respect carriage returns.
- Added the Activity Summary report.
Self-Service
- Fixed a bug that was causing the Self-Service interface to not respect the style saved in preferences.
Utilities
- Integrated the Change Purchase Cost by Dollar Amount and Change Purchase Cost by Percentage utilities into the Change Purchase Cost utility.
- Corrected a bug that was preventing the Change Due Date utility’s New Due Date option from working when choosing today’s date.
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.
