Evergreen 3.9 Release Notes

This feature supplies the ability to create alternate templates for Action Triggers that will generate locale specific out for Action Triggers. If you send notices in multiple languages, we recommend putting some words to that effect in your notice templates. The template, message and message title can all be localized. To use the feature the following new UI elements have been added:

The templates used on the Edit Definition tab are the defaults that are used if there are no alternate templates available that match the preferred language. If alternate templates are available the system will use a locale that is an exact match and then if failing that use one where the language code matches and then fall back to the default one.

For example, if a patron has a locale of fr-CA and there are templates for both fr-CA and fr-FR it will use the fr-CA. If the fr-CA template was deleted it would fall back on using the fr-FR for the patron since it at least shares the same base language.

Valid locales are the codes defined in the i18n_locale table in the config schema.

This release removes the asset.opac_visible_copies materialized view and search.query_parser_fts function from the Evergreen database. They have been obsolete since staged search was eliminated in Evergreen 3.0. Any custom code that relies on them should be updated accordingly.

The custom array_accum aggregate function has been removed from the PostgreSQL database because it will need to be dropped and recreated with a different definition when upgrading to PostgreSQL version 14 or later. Its functionality is also redundant with PostgreSQL’s own array_agg function.

Sites that have custom code using Evergreen’s array_accum function should alter their code to use array_agg instead.

Evergreen used to include a perl module called OpenILS::Utils::ISBN. This module provided a single subroutine, isbn_upconvert, which wrapped some behavior from the Business::ISBN module. The module is no longer used in Evergreen code. Any custom code that used it should be migrated to use Business::ISBN directly.

If configured for a given Evergreen instance, staff with the UPLOAD_COVER_IMAGE permission may upload a custom jacket/cover image for a given bibliographic record for display in the staff client and OPAC. This is done through the Other Actions → Upload Cover Image command from the record details page in the staff interface.

====== Note for system administrators ======

The following stanza needs to be added to eg_vhost.conf:

and this to the open-ils.vandelay → app_settings → databases section of opensrf.xml:

with the path appropriately adjusted for your installation. The Apache process will need write permissions for that directory.

Additionally, the following directories need to exist and be writable by the Apache process:

/openils/var/web/opac/extras/ac/jacket/large/r /openils/var/web/opac/extras/ac/jacket/medium/r /openils/var/web/opac/extras/ac/jacket/small/r

This release fixes two bugs with copy inventory dates:

In addition to fixing the above bugs, improvements are made to the implementation of the latest copy inventory feature so that it may be further expanded in the future.

====== Technical Details for Developers and System Administrators ======

The following changes are made to the database, back end, and staff client user interface code:

The following items remain unchanged:

The motivation behind the changes beyond simply fixing the two bugs listed above is to allow for possible future expansion of the copy inventory feature. The new table makes it easier to add new fields and to track inventory updates of a given copy over time. While these changes do not constitute an inventory module, they should ease the implementation of such a module and assist in the preservation of the current data.

The staff portal / staff home page is now customizable. A new Local Administration interface, Staff Portal Page, allows staff users who have the new ADMIN_STAFF_PORTAL_PAGE permission to specify groups of Evergreen menu links, external links, catalog search widgets, and free text to display on the staff home page.

The portal customization is available only on the Angular version of the portal, so access to the AngularJS version is now redirected to the Angular one.

Different portal pages may be configured for different Organizational Units. The displayed portal page will depend on the staff user’s workstation. The Organizational Unit tree will be walked up starting from the workstation until one or more config.ui_staff_splash_page_entry rows are found for the Organizational Unit. The set of entries for that Organizational Unit will constitute the entire splash page entries to display, i.e., it won’t try to merge branch, system, and consortial-level entries.

The administration interface allows authorized to:

Portal page entries consist of the following fields:

====== Upgrade notes ======

This patch adds the following:

The Org Selector now supports the ability to pass in an object composed of an array of Org Unit IDs and a function returning a CSS key value pair.

Evergreen can now act as an OAI-PMH data provider, exposing the catalog to harvesting through the (OAI2 protocol).

There are two: one for bibliographic records and one for authority records:

An example of a working URL on a system with an authority record with ID 1:

This is a work in progress and not enabled. The aim is to have the owning library determine the set hierarchy. The Concerto test database for example has a record with record ID #1. This record is so popular it has copies attached to library units "Example Branch 1", "Example Branch 2", "Example Branch 3", "Example Bookmobile 1" which is a child of Branch 3 and "Example Branch 4". This entire kinship is expressed as sets like so:

Likewise the setSpecs of authority records are derived from their browse axis ( Title, Author, Subject and Topic ).

Certain attributes asset are placed into 852 subfields so:

Thus the Concerto with record ID #1 will have it’s 852 subfields expressed as:

This mapping can be customized and extended with static subfields:

See comments in opensrf.xml (in the open-ils.supercat app_settings/oai element) for default configuration and customization instructions.

OAI support is not turned on by default. To enable it, edit the Apache configuration file eg_vhost.conf to uncomment the following section and restart Apache:

A new setting entitled opac.patron.custom_jquery has been added to library settings. Using this does require that the ctx.want_jquery be uncommented and set to 1 (true) in the opac/parts/config.tt2 file. Using this setting will allow OPACs to run jQuery without customizing server side templates. For example adding the following:

$(document).ready(function(){ $("a:contains(Link 2)").text(Kafka); });

Will change the text of Link 2 in the link bar to say Kafka. See the Evergreen WIKI (https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/) for examples.

This release includes a new Simple Reports reporting system focused on ease of use and simplicity that is available from the Administration menu of the staff client. Simple Reports can be restricted by staff permissions and access to the overall feature is granted through a new RUN_SIMPLE_REPORTS permission.

The Simple Reports interface is intended to provide an alternate access point for running reports in Evergreen and is not intended to replace the main Reports interface. In particular, users in need of complex reports should still make use of the main Reports interface.

To simplify report creation some fields are generated from multiple backend fields and other fields such as dates are repeated with multiple transforms pre-applied. Reports and schedules can be edited at any time as needed.

Some third party systems can phone users when a SIP checkin captures an item they have on hold. Normally, to do this a patron information request is sent (message pair 63/64), but some systems will only look for it in the reply to the Checkin pair, 09/10. Because this is not a part of the SIP2 standard and exposes patron personal information when used indescriminately, it must be enabled by including the key <phone_ext_on_msg10 enabled="true" /> in the "institution" section of oils_sip.xml.

To use this feature, Evergreen administrators should upgrade to the latest version of SIPServer.