Aspen Discovery 21.04.00 Release Notes

by Mark Noble on Mar 31, 2021

Aspen Discovery announced this week that the 21.04.00 release is now available.

Mark Noble, Aspen Discovery Developer, recently commented on the release:

In version 21.04 we're pleased to introduce viewing account information within search results and detailed record pages. This functionality will help patrons to more easily identify materials they have checked out and on hold and will help to avoid patron frustration when they attempt to place holds on materials they are already using."

Account Improvements

• Display if a title is on hold or checked out to a patron within search results by changing the button text and directing them to their holds or checkouts.
• Optimize loading account summary information to not make requests for eContent modules that have not been enabled.
• Checkouts can now be sorted by due date either from first to last or last to first.
• Exporting Holds to Excel now includes the user name when linked accounts are used.
• Exporting Checkouts to Excel now includes the user name when linked accounts are used.
• Add caching of checkouts, holds, and account summaries. Information is stored for 15 minutes by default, but can be reloaded by the patron. The time the information was last loaded is shown in the upper right of the page and can be refreshed by selecting the refresh button. This greatly improves the speed of viewing checkouts and holds when patrons have lots of things checked out or on hold or when they have several linked users.

API Updates

• Add tracking of API usage within Aspen Discovery and add a new Dashboard to view the statistics.

• Add additional information to the renewAll API within the UserAPI including title information for which titles can't be renewed and a summary of how many titles were renewed.
• Allow page size to be specified when loading Browse Category results and correct changing the current page.
• Add source when loading active browse category information.

CARL.X Updates

• Replace all items on a bib with a fresh copy from the CARL.X APIs when we detect changes to the bib record.
• Add a one minute buffer when checking for records that have changed to account for differences between servers.
• Updates to ensure that all deleted bibs are properly removed from the index.

Koha Integration Updates

• Add display of Opac Notes, Borrower Messages, and Debarment Information to patron pages.
• Respect overriding BlockExpiredPatronOpacActions by patron category.

Performance Updates

• Improve performance when displaying search results.
• Add the ability to log database queries for page loads and add timing for database queries. To log database queries, must add a URL parameter of logQueries and have logging enabled within IP Address settings.
• Memory cache improvements to remove redundant database lookups.
• Performance improvements when validating that Solr indexes are online.
• Optimizations when loading valid fields in Solr.

Polaris Integration Updates

• Login to Polaris Systems
• Load Account Summary from Polaris
• Load Checkouts from Polaris
• Load Holds from Polaris
• Automatically setup translation maps for collection, shelf location, and location.
• Automatically setup libraries and locations based on Polaris data.
• Perform full export of marc records with items from Polaris.

Other Updates

• Translate the message of pickup location updated
• Update sideload processing so processing works properly with apostrophes in the name.
• Changed plugin running gesture controls on browse categories to create a smoother swipe.
• Update Open Archives Processing to check for properly formatted dates prior to adding the record to solr.
• Menu links with dropdowns will automatically close after mouse leaves element or when another touch event is triggered.
• Center cover images and place text at the bottom of the image with proper alignment on horizontal carousels.
• Using the home link in breadcrumbs and menus now only appears if the box in Layout Settings is checked
• In Layout Settings, the custom home link text for breadcrumbs is once again being honored
• Add a counter for number of successful renewals within the APIs.
• The search tools box now has some extra padding between the links
• Fixed a spacing issue with the Show Edition button for eBook/eAudiobook variations
• Update styling to highlight the different formats and variations in the grouped works display
• Make format value within the format translation table not required so individual iTypes can be skipped during the indexing process.
• For Koha when processing formats, check to see if translations for shelf locations, sub locations, and collections are blank before processing them as formats.
• Add new fields to store Staff Username and Staff Password in Account Profiles for cases where elevated privileges are needed. (optional depending on ILS)
• Add the ability to serialize object properties when saving them to the database.
• Add search controls to table header and increase page size for Themes, Browse Category Groups, and Browse Categories.
• When clicking on a series link that performs a search, automatically sort from oldest to newest.