1. Alma Analytics : a whole new world of data extraction
Janet Lute
ILS Coordinator
Princeton University Library
IGeLU 2014
Oxford, England

2. Summary Lots of interest in reporting out of Alma
Huge differences between how this is handled in Alma versus current ILS’s
Using Voyager as a point of comparison
Design Analytics – Oracle Business Intelligence
Dashboards & widgets
Resource Management Sets and exports

3. Oracle Business Intelligence
OBI for short, and built into Alma
No separate license
Access controlled from within Alma
Reports can be run for Acquisitions, Fulfillment, Inventory, Users
Bibliographic reports use Set Management
OBI is a data warehouse, data will be refreshed nightly

5. Analysis – aka – writing a query
More than one subject area can be selected
Mouse over at the lowest level to see useful hints on the field
Joins are pre-determined
More Subject areas to come

6. From the Criteria Tab, fields can be added to Selected Columns by drag and drop
Fields can be sorted and/or filtered, etc. Click to the right of the field name
From the same drop down, Column properties can be edited; here we changed the currency format for Invoice Line Total Price

7. Results Tab
Results of the query compared to the voucher in Voyager
Some additional fields added; report given a title

8. Another example showing a filter based on the Allocated funds for expenditure in FY12
Selected five fields; three had criteria attached
To edit a filter: highlight the line and select the pencil icon Note that dropdown for value gives the choices available

9. Select the Results tab to view the results
Initially you appear to be missing data. Where are your expenditure figures?
Layout is accessed via the edit icon (pen) for the Pivot Table
Critically important area and initially hard to locate.

10. From the Excluded area drag up the values that you need to display
Fund Transactions is dragged into the Measures area
Fiscal period and transaction type are not needed in the display

11. A lot of “display” editing is done from this area; the resulting changes display immediately in a preview frame
Before
Click on the sigma symbol by Fund Name and you can alter the positioning of the subtotals and the column label
becomes
After
Select Done from the top right to exit Layout

12. The ‘happy dance’ slide
This display shows part of the result
This can be exported in a variety of formats
The data for this particular report closely matches the same report run directly from Voyager
Spreadsheet extract shows xls output from Voyager queries using reports.mdb. Astrophysics total matches exactly; Biology total differs by 21 cents (rounding)

13. Results Tab
To add a graph, access the New View icon on the menu and drill down.
From the previous data, I created a pie chart to show expenditure at the Allocated Fund level
Graphs have their own Layout area
This is the result; if you mouse over the slices it will give more detail including the expenditure figure

14. Circulation statistics for physical items
Many date fields from the Loan date area – may not need both
Year Desc – is 2013 – select for display
Select Filter from the Date Key
This dialogue box will appear, many operator choices
“is between” will include only records where the data in the column is between the two values in the filter.

15. From the Results Tab, the Layout shows the sum of loans
Produces this result. Note that figures are very low as we are not in Production

16. Once the report is edited to your satisfaction
Save the analysis to the /Shared Folders/xxx University/Reports
In addition save to /Shared Folders/xxx University/Dashboards

17. The Dashboard can be viewed on the Alma Opening and can be made role dependent
Alma Menu > Administration > Analytics > Configuration Menu > Analytics Objects List > Select or Add an Analytics Object
Here I pointed to the Circulation Statistics report, added this as a widget and added the appropriate roles to enable viewing
From the New Analytics Object screen you may preview your object

18. From the Alma home page, you can Add the widget
Dashboard is the whole screen
Widget is an object on the Dashboard

19. Reports can have a prompt applied so that users may select the area appropriate to them such as fund, location, date range
For the expend by reporting codes report, I created a column prompt for the Allocated fund (Fund Ledger Name)
Preview Icon brings up a list of funds, here we selected 1407 Engineering

20. Report Output formats
Reports can be exported as: pdf, excel, PowerPoint, web archive, csv, tab delimited, xml
You can print a report
Reports can be scheduled to run at specified times
Icons for these actions on the Results menu bar

21. Bibliographic elements
Metadata does not have a subject area of its own
Bibliographic data is included in each subject area
Not all fields but does include the types of fields needed to enhance reports

22. Managing Sets within Alma
Bibliographic data can be managed with sets:
Itemized set – results are saved but the data is static
Logical set – results are determined by a query that updates the results each time it is run
Permissions based
Public versus Private sets
Set content includes authorities, Physical, electronic titles, packages etc.

23. Add contents to Set brings up the Repository Search

24. Filtered on Books 17 results Select Done
From the Manage Sets Screen you can perform other actions that can alter the size/contents of your set
Once the set is established you can use it to manage your data. This is a separate area so permissions may not be the same

25. This example uses the set to withdraw the items, and manages this with a five step wizard
From Main Menu > Administration > Manage Jobs > Run a Job
Select the radio button adjacent to the job you want to run and select Next
Choose the set name you require, in this case ‘Set for IGeLU 2014’

27. Exporting Record Sets Create a job to Export a set of records
Select a set
Parameters: I chose XML format but could have selected Binary

28. Job will run asp or as scheduled
Job will run asp or as scheduled. Result can be managed from Manage Exports, there for 30 days
Download the file
In this set of records, an example of the first part of one record is illustrated

29. Finally.
Every Alma screen of results has a Tools option
Currently this defaults to Excel only
Literally dumps the results of that area, but can be very useful

30. Sharing My Folders – working copies of analysis etc.
Shared Folders have three parts
Alma – Ex Libris provided reports in various areas. Can be saved and used by anyone.
Community – place to post reports that you want to share with the user community
Your own Institution – place to publish analysis for use locally

31. What is Missing? Need more documentation with good examples
OBI doc especially is very jargony
Need the ability to import a table of data and use this in queries
Crucial data elements are not there yet

32. Questions or Comments jelute@princeton.edu
Copy of this presentation will be made available through IGeLU