Evergreen 2.11 Release Notes

The Date: header specified in RFC 2822 has been added to the seed data for the example Action Trigger email and SMS templates, but no attempt has been made to automatically modify existing templates. To add this header (and end any "Why are my library emails from 1969/70?" questions you may have heard) make sure the following lines are in all templates that use the SendEmail or SendSMS reactors:

The first is already in most sample templates, but you may need to add it to the top of any custom templates: [%- USE date -%]

And this line should be inserted into the header block of each template: Date: [%- date.format(date.now, '%a, %d %b %Y %T -0000', gmt => 1) %]

Adds support for Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (16.04).

User activity types are now set to transient by default for new Evergreen installs.. This means only the most recent activity entry per user per activity type is retained in the database.

This change does not affect existing activity types, which were set to non-transient by default. To make an activity type transient, modify the Transient field of the desired type in the staff client under Admin → Server Administration → User Activity Types.

Setting an activity type to transient means data for a given user will be cleaned up automatically if and when the user performs the activity in question. However, administrators can also force an activity cleanup via SQL. This is useful for ensuring that all old activity data is deleted and for controlling when the cleanup occurs, which may be useful on very large actor.usr_activity tables.

To force clean all activity types:

Importing an authority record via MARC Batch Import/Export now causes the authority record’s editor and edit_date fields to be updated. The editor value may come from the MARC 905u field or, if none is present, the user performing the import.

When a bib record is automatically updated as a result of the modification of a linked authority record, the bib record’s "Last Edit Date/Time" and "Last Editing User" fields will be updated to match the time of the update and the editor of the modified authority record.

A new global flag is available to control this behavior called ingest.disable_authority_auto_update_bib_meta ("Authority Automation: Disable automatic authority updates from modifying bib record editor and edit_date"). When enabled, theses fields will not be updated. By default, this setting is disabled.

An additional speed improvement is included in this feature. No attempt will be made to update linked bib records when the normalized heading of the modified authority record is unchanged by the authority record update.

If a bibliographic record has a source set, the name of that source is now copied to the 901$s whenever the record is created or updated. This allows the source to be used for record matching and MARC field queries.

When importing records through the client, users will now have the ability to define whether the bib source, last editor, and last edit date should be updated on a record merge/overlay.

In MARC Batch Import / Export, select the Merge / Overlay tab. Each entry in the table has a value in the new Update bib. source column. If that value is True, then the bib source, last editor, and last edit date will be updated.

The two system-defined entries have been pre-set to appropriate values (Full Overlay = true; Match-Only Merge = false).

The browser and XUL clients now better represent copy checkout history by honoring and displaying information from aged circulations.

Previously, when a transit was aborted, the transited item would either go into "Reshelving" status or would return to whatever status it was in when it went into transit, even when the item itself was in a different status (including "Checked out"). Now, for most transits that get aborted, the item is put into a new status, "Canceled Transit", which signals to staff the actual state of the item. This feature only affects items with a status of "In transit" and does not affect items that were in the following statuses at the time they were sent into transit:

This change should help clear up confusing situations caused by the previous "abort transit" behavior, such as items showing "Available" when they are actually en route, and patrons' items mysteriously disappearing from their accounts and showing "Available" at the item-owning library without evidence of check-in.

A new boolean field is now available for copy statuses to indicate when copies having a given status should be considered available. The field has 2 main effects:

By default, the "Available" and "Reshelving" statuses have the "Is Available" flag set. The flag may be applied to local/custom statuses via the copy status admin interface.

This feature allows patrons to receive checkout receipts through email at the circulation desk in the web client and in the Evergreen self-checkout interface. Patrons need to opt in to receive email receipts by default and must have an email address associated with their account. Opt in can be staff mediated at the time of account creation or in existing accounts. Patrons can also opt in directly in their OPAC account or through patron self-registration. This feature does not affect the behavior of checkouts from the XUL client or SIP2 devices.

Patrons can opt in to receive email checkout receipts by default via a new Email checkout receipts by default patron setting.

This feature also enhances the patron staging tables so that patron settings can be chosen during self-registration.

The web staff interface’s checkout screen now includes a "Quick Receipt" button that allows staff members to generate a receipt at any time.

Two new settings have been added to prevent clerks from accidentally clearing all patron bills by scanning a barcode into the Payment Amount field, or accidentally entering the amount without a decimal point (such as you would when using a cash register).

Both settings are available via the Library Settings Editor. The Payment amount threshold for Are You Sure? dialog (ui.circ.billing.amount_warn) setting identifies the amount above which staff will be asked if they’re sure they want to apply the payment. The Maximum payment amount allowed (ui.circ.billing.amount_limit) setting identifies the maximum amount of money that can be accepted through the staff client.

These settings only affect the staff client, not credit cards accepted through the OPAC, or direct API calls from third party tools.

The holds age protection field will now be available for display in the following interfaces:

The asset.copy.cost field, which records the amount paid for an item when an invoice is processed, will be available for display in the following interfaces:

The patron notification preference page in the public catalog used to have two tables, separating notification settings based on their source. Since that distinction does not matter to patrons, and since the two tables aren’t styled consistently, they are merged together.

The grids in the My Account Items on Hold and Holds History interfaces are simplified. Data previously contained in their own Activate, Active, and Date Fulfilled columns are now incorporated into the Status column. To further declutter the interface, the holds queue position will only show when the user most needs the information - before the hold has been captured.

Distinct CSS classes have also been added for each hold status and each date that could potentially display in these holds interfaces. A new default style highlights the Available status in green and the Suspended status in red.

This feature uses factors such as circulation and hold activity, record and item age, and item ownership counts to generate popularity badges for bibliographic records. Each badge will have a five-point scale, where more points indicates a more popular record. The average of the badge points earned by each record will constitute a "popularity rating". The number and types of badges will break ties for average popularity, and relevance will sort items with like popularity.

A new sort axis of popularity is created to sort first on the weighted average popularity of each record, followed by the query-specific relevance available today. A new option is created in the drop-down called Most Popular that sorts on the combination of "activity metric" (aka badge ranking, aka popularity) first and then the existing, stock relevance ranking when those are equal. For instance, given two records that both have a badge ranking of "4.5", they sort in the order of the query relevance ranking that is calculated today as a tie breaker. Those two records will sort above other records with lower badge rankings regardless of what today’s relevance ranking says about them.

In addition, a new sort axis of Popularity-Adjusted Relevance is created that augments the normal Relevance sort with a normalized popularity value by multiplying the base relevance by a value controlled by a new global flag, generally set to a decimal number between 1 and 2.

Finally, there will continue to be a pure Relevance sort option, which is the version that exists today.

Administrators can comment out one of the available sort methods by editing the filtersort.tt2 file.A global flag will allow Evergreen sites to select a default sort method.

If a user attempts to place a metarecord hold when all eligible copies contain parts, the hold will fail. To help prevent the user from reaching a dead end while placing holds, the Advanced Hold Options link is removed from the Place Hold page in cases where all copies on the record contain parts. The Advanced Hold Options link will remain for records that have a mix of parted and non-parted copies.

Renewals attempted via SIP will now consider whether a penalty is configured to block renewals before blocking the renewal. Previously, any penalty, even if it wasn’t set to block renewals, would prevent a renewal from succeeding via SIP.

When using a version of SIPServer that supports the feature, the Location (CP) field of the Login (93) message will be used as the workstation name if supplied. Blank or missing location fields will be ignored. This allows users or reports to determine which selfcheck performed a circulation.

Translations in this release have been significantly increased. In particular, Spanish has received a huge update with over 9,000 new translations, Czech has received a sizable update of over 800 translations, and additional smaller updates have been added for Arabic, French (Canada), and Armenian.