Alma Analytics : a whole new
world of data extraction
Janet Lute
ILS Coordinator
Princeton University Library
jelute@princeton.edu
IGeLU 2014
Oxford, England
Summary
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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
Oracle Business Intelligence
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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
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 predetermined
More Subject areas to
come
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
Results Tab
Results of the query compared to the voucher in Voyager
Some additional fields added; report given a title
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
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.
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
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
Select Done from the top right to exit Layout
After
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)
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
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.
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
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
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
From the Alma home page, you can Add the widget
Dashboard is the whole screen
Widget is an object on the Dashboard
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
Report Output formats
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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
Bibliographic elements
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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
Managing Sets within Alma
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Bibliographic data can be managed with
sets:
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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.
Add contents to Set brings up the Repository Search
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
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’
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
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
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
Sharing
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My Folders – working copies of analysis
etc.
Shared Folders have three parts
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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
What is Missing?
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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
Questions or Comments
Copy of this presentation will be
made available through IGeLU
jelute@princeton.edu