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

• 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

What does the status interface do?

Database Maintenance 

You have the ability to preserve and maintain your library catalog data by utilizing the following options through the status interface.

• Restore From Archive. Use this option to replace your current data folder with a previously created archive. This is useful if you need to undo a completed process such as imports or utilities. 

  Steps to restore from an archive.

  1. Click Restore From Archive, this will trigger a roll-down menu.

  2. From the list of Available Archives, select the archive date/time you would like to restore to; dates/times are listed as yyyy/mm/dd 24:00

  3. Click the Restore button to proceed. If you no longer want to restore simply click Cancel to abort the process. By clicking Restore your current data will be replaced by that contained in the selected archive folder. 
  4. Check the Delete the archived data after restoring box to remove the selected archive from your Archive Directory upon successful restoration. (optional) 
• 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. 

Do you need to send email notifications to your patrons or staff?

To send email reminders, such as the Overdue Items Notice, 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.

Email Settings 

The Server 1 and Server 2 sections are used for out-bound email. Server 1 is the primary server and Server 2 can function as a back up server should server 1 fail. You do not need to have two SMTP servers to use the email functionality; for networks with one SMTP server simply configure the setting in the Server 1 section. 

SMTP Server 1 and 2. This is the TCP/IP or DNS address of your library's mail server. Typically, this will be “ mail.” followed by your domain name. 

Port. Enter the port number that your email server uses.

Allow Non-Secure Connections. Alexandria uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) for secure web communications, when this setting is enabled checked the system will use non-TLS connections if it cannot make an TLS connection.

Log In. Enter the login for your email server. 

Password. Enter the password for your email server.

Test Server. Test the SMTP Server settings by sending a test email. This email is sent to the email address listed in the Sites module. 

Last Tested On. This field displays the last date/time that the server test was performed.

Last Test Results. This field displays whether the test was successful or not.

Setting Up Your SMTP Server 

Before setting up your SMTP server you will need to enter a valid email address in the Site management settings of Alexandria. 

1. Click on Tools to the left of your Circulation window. 
2. Click on Sites under the Management header. 
3. Enter the name of your site contact (typically this will be the District or Library Administrator of Alexandria), their title, their email and their phone/fax numbers.
4. Click Save in the upper right corner.

Once you have saved this information you are ready to set up the SMTP server.

1. Access Tools > Administration.
2. Click Email on the left.
3. Enter your SMTP server address and port in the available fields. 
4. Check the box if you want to allow non-secure connections. (optional)
5. Enter the login and password for your SMTP server. 
6. Click Save in the upper-right corner of the window.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 if you want to configure a back up server for Server 2. 

Using Gmail as your SMTP Server

A Gmail account can be used as a portable SMTP server if your library's network does not already have one. Before you configure Alexandria to use Gmail, you will need to set your Gmail preferences to Allow Less Secure Apps. Please see the next section below for more information about this. 

1. Access Tools > Administration.
2. Click Email on the left.
3. Enter smtp.gmail.com as the SMTP Server Address.
4. Enter 587 as the port. 
5. Check the box if you want to allow non-secure connections. (optional)
6. Enter the login and password for your Gmail account. 
7. Click Save in the upper-right corner of the window.
8. Click Test Server to ensure the Gmail account is acting as a server. 
9. Repeat steps 1-8 if you want to configure a back up server for Server 2.