Pardon the mess! The Support Center is undergoing construction. 
7.19.3 Release Notes
What's New?
9 August 2019
- New Textbook Tracker reports. Damage Code Barcodes, Refunded Payments, Overdue Items Notice, and more! Take a look at the complete list in the Reports section below.
- Clear the Custom Label Reports template. That's right. Now you can start your label customization with a clean slate! Just click on the new, handy-dandy clear button.
- Search by URL link descriptions. Filter your Search results by URLs for things like lesson plans or Overdrive links.
Important
- If you self host on a Mac, hold off updating to macOS 10.15 Catalina. Alexandria will be 64-bit compatible in an upcoming release.
New & Improved
Circulation
- Patron Details receipts are no longer doubling the replacement cost of the printed items.
Import
- Fixed a bug that caused matching on ISBN to fail for Textbook imports.
- Imports now properly respect the site preferences when determining the status to apply to newly imported copies.
Management
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the duplication of title records.
- Corrected an issue that could prevent new patrons from being created via SIF.
- Updating titles via SmartMARC Title Assistant now respects the preference to Preserve Existing Call Numbers.
Preferences
- Closed and Period Due days no longer revert to open days when renaming a calendar.
Reports
- Custom Label Reports now offer a Clear button, which allows you to set up your label from a blank slate.
- Added several new reports to Textbook Tracker, including: Damage Code Barcodes, Manual Checkout Sheet, Item Policies, Patron Policies, Policy Exceptions, System Analysis, Refunded Payments, Patron Payment History, and Overdue Items Notice.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the inventory reports to display with an abnormally large and incorrect font in some installations.
- Statistics reports no longer fail to populate when using a date range selection for a single day.
Search
- Added support for searching URL link descriptions. This is available via the ((link::value)) search string query type and is also included as an option in the advanced search.
Self Service
- Removed the Self Service timeout so it will not log out the operator.
System
- Improved performance and reliability.
- There have been substantial internal changes to the Alexandria Configuration Engine. Administrators need to be aware that certain configuration information must be stored outside of the database so that it is accessible during startup. This must also be the case before the web server, database engine, and other components can be brought online. This information is now stored in the GlobalConfig.json support file. The Configuration.txt and Config.txt support files have been deprecated. We suggest that you modify the contents of this file ONLY under the direction of COMPanion Customer Support, and when doing so, be aware that this file is sensitive not only to correct keys and values but also to proper JSON structure.
Utilities
- Enhanced the Forgive Charges utility with an option to specify the transaction date range for when the charge was applied. Also added options for forgiving overdue charges separate from lost fees.
- Improved the Utilities Operation Summary Files, which now include more complete and consistent information regarding the selections and options used.
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.
