Pardon the mess! The Support Center is undergoing construction. 
What are administration settings?
The Administration settings are high-level preferences intended for network administrators, IT support departments, or operators with administrator-level permissions; in other words, they're advanced settings used to configure your main Data Station once and then be forgotten.
While every operator with the proper security permissions can access the Administration module, it contains settings that most operators won't be able to configure without help. An operator's access to these settings is governed by Alexandria's security preferences. Your library's administrator can manage these settings in Tools > Preferences > Security.
Actions Menu
This menu appears on each interface of the administrative settings in the upper left corner. These options allow you to update to latest version, send your library data to COMPanion, log out of the program or quit the data station remotely.
- Check for Updates. If there are any updates available, it will be listed here. You simply click on the version number to initiate the upgrade. Additionally you may download the latest update by visiting our downloads page, and for larger organizations may use Alexandria's Version Limiting service; contact your sales representative for information and pricing.
- Send Data to COMPanion. If a Customer Support Representative needs your library data for troubleshooting you can easily send it to us by selecting this option and entering the Authorization Code you are provided.
Log Out. This button will log you out of Alexandria, despite if you have multiple windows open.
Quit Alexandria. This option will stop the Data Station from running and log out any active operators.
Navigation Bar
Status | These settings allow you to perform maintenance on your library catalog and update your Alexandria program. | |
| These settings allow you to designate an SMTP server to use for sending emails, such as Item Overdue Notices, to Patrons and/or Staff. | ||
LDAP | These settings allow you to authenticate operator and patron program access. | |
Checkpoint | If your library utilizes the Checkpoint ILS security system use these setting to enhance your SIP2 protocol. |
The Status module of the Administrative settings is where an operator can easily access their Alexandria registration information, perform Database maintenance, run or restore from Archives, and update to the latest version. It is the default module when accessing Administration set
Database Maintenance
You have the ability to preserve and maintain your library catalog data by utilizing the following options through the Status module.
Restore From Archive. If you need to restore your library data to a previous date you may utilize this button to replace your current Data folder with a previously created archive. To do so you will click on the Restore From Archive button, the Available Archives roll-down will appear. From this list, select the archive date/time you would like to restore to then click Restore of if you no longer want to restore click Cancel. By clicking Restore your current data will be replaced by that contained in the selected archive folder. You may also check the Delete the archived data after restoring box if you would like to remove the selected archive from your Archive Directory upon successful restoration.
Archive. Selecting this button performs an immediate, manual archive of your database. During an archive, all information in the Data Station's Data folder is copied into the Archive Directory you've configured. While the Archive is running all services on the Data Station are temporarily disabled. We recommend running an archive before making any large-scale changes to your database, such as imports, updates, utilities, or machine upgrades.
Restart. Selecting this button will restart the Data Station remotely. During the restart duration, Alexandria services and modules will be unavailable to all operators.
Database Maintenance. Selecting this button will examine your database files and perform Patron, Item, and Circulation verification routines. If database damage is detected, it's automatically fixed. While maintenance is being performed the data station will be inaccessible. This process can also be scheduled to perform regularly.
If you want the ability to email reminders, such as the Overdue Items Notice, to your patrons or staff you will need to configure how Alexandria communicates with your library's email server. Alexandria's email system is designed to potentially cope with hundreds of emails being sent (or resent) over many machines at the same time. If a send fails, the next resend time is generated by adding a random value between 3 and 9 minutes, spreading out the resend times so all the undelivered email still in the “short range” period isn't sent at the same time. If a send hasn't succeeded by the end of the “short range” period, the program will generate new send times using random values between 60 and 90 minutes. If a send still hasn't succeeded after 100 hours the email is discarded and a “return-to-sender” email will be sent.
