Aspen Discovery 23.03.00 Release Notes

by Mark Noble on Mar 15, 2023

Aspen Discovery announced this week that the 23.03.00 release is now available.

See Release Summary Here

This release includes code contributions from:

• ByWater Solutions
• Theke Solutions
• PTFS Europe

Thanks to all of our contributors!!

23.03.00 Release Notes

Account Profile Updates

• Account Profiles are now able to be assigned to library systems.
• Single sign-on is now an option for an authentication method at the Account Profile level.

New Settings

• Primary Configuration > Account Profiles > Primary Single Sign-on (SSO) Settings

Aspen LiDA Administration Updates

• Added General Settings for settings that apply to Aspen LiDA on a library-level.
• Added an option in General Settings to enable automatic rotation to landscape mode when accessing the Library Card screen.
• Renamed App Settings to Location Settings for settings that apply to Aspen LiDA on a location-level.

  New Settings

• Aspen LiDA > General Settings
• Aspen LiDA > General Settings > Automatically rotate the library card screen to landscape

CARL.X Updates

• Do not include item notes when updating items from CARL.X when using the APIs.

Evergreen Updates

• Strip out item tags from prior migrations when loading bibs from APIs.

Indexing Updates

• Trim leading spaces from subject fields.
• Hide irrelevant fields from Indexing Profile settings based on the Indexing class selected.

Koha Updates

• Messaging Preferences now have an option to set the preferred language to use when sending out notifications.
• Normalize smart apostrophe's to regular apostrophe's when updating patron data.
• Correct changing home library from Contact Information Screen when the review queue is in use.
• When a bib has more than one item type on it that can be held, place a hold on the specific item type the patron selects.
• Added support for the pronoun field in the patron record (Koha 22.11 or newer).
• When checking if a patron can update a pickup location on a hold, Aspen will now look at the system preference 'OPACAllowUserToChangeBranch' (Koha 22.11 or newer).
• Added support for canceling waiting holds if permitted by the circulation rules (Koha 22.11 or newer).
• Renamed uses of "renewals" column in issues table to "renewals_count" (Koha 22.11 or newer).
• Added support for limiting purchase suggestions by pType (Koha 22.11 or newer)

Record Display Updates

• If a bib record has multiple iTypes (commonly occurs when reference items are on a bib), split the items up by format and display them separately
• Updated the view on the bib record page: if there are various formats, a grouped manifestation of each format will show instead of just a hold button
• On the bib record page, the various formats will display as a comma separated list where record details are displayed
• Only formats that allow holds will display the hold button
• When placing a hold, the hold will follow the rules of the holdable format if there are multiple formats
• If the holdable format allows an item level hold, patrons will only be able to select items of the holdable format
• In the copies panel, all items on the bib record will show, not just the holdable copies

Materials Request Updates

• Libraries can now receive an email when a Materials Request has been submitted.
• Libraries can now send email to staff when they have been assigned a Materials Request. Staff can opt out of receiving emails for newly assigned Materials Requests.
• Fixed a bug that kept Materials Request Management options from displaying in Staff Settings when users had correct permissions.

New Settings

• Primary Configuration > Library Systems > Materials Request > Send email to library when Materials Requests are created
• Primary Configuration > Library Systems > Materials Request > Email to receive notifications for new Materials Requests
• Primary Configuration > Library Systems > Materials Request > Send email to staff when they are assigned a Materials Request
• My Account > Account Settings > Staff Settings > Receive an email when a Materials Request is assigned to me

Novelist Updates

• Allow Novelist to be applied to specific libraries and allow multiple profiles to be added to one instance.

Sierra / Millennium Updates

• Separate login for Aspen from login from WebPac within the Account Profile. Add a new login type of Last Name, Barcode, PIN for Sierra & Millennium sites.

SSO Setting Updates

• SSO Settings in Library Systems have been removed to create a single source of single sign-on configuration under Primary Configuration.
• For oAuth, added the option to provide fallback values when data mapping.
• Added an option to authenticate only with the single sign-on provider for cases when user accounts are not needed in the ILS.

New Settings

• Primary Configuration > Single Sign-on (SSO) Settings > Only authenticate users with single sign-on

Symphony Updates

• Allow item sublocation to be used when determining display location for copies.

Other Updates

• Added the option for users to ask that the library notifies someone of their donation that is in honor or memory of someone.
• Added paging to Titles You've Rated page to fix possible issues when users have rated large numbers of titles.
• Titles marked as "Not Interested In" have been moved to a separate page in My Account > Recommended For You > Not Interested In Titles.
• Donations Report can now be filtered by the library the donation was to or earmark.
• Added the payment transaction date to the Donations Report.
• In User API, getPatronProfile will now return if the user should be prompted for hold notification preferences, as well as the template information for the prompt (Evergreen).
• Collection Spotlight containers are now named based on their unique ID instead of name to fix some issues when having multiple spotlight tabs with the same name.
• Fixed a bug that would prevent referencing OverDrive covers in a Grouped Work due to size of the string.
• In User API, getPatronProfile will always load in the latest ILS Account Summary regardless of the reload parameter.
• Allow series display order to have decimal portions when setting display info.
• Correct layout of Last Checkout Date
• Update loading format when exporting search results to CSV and improve memory management.
• Make URL required for Web Resources and properly handle the maximum length of the teaser.
• Updates for modal display to not show login screen again when the ILS is slow placing holds.
• In the System API, added getTranslationWithValues method to handle translations that have replacement values.
• Added additional styling for focus events on the main search bar inputs.
• Fixed a bug that would load in all browse categories if an assigned Browse Category Group was empty.
• If a Grouped Work has a custom uploaded cover, you can now properly reset it or update the cover.
• Fixed a bug that prevented bookcover_info from updating properly in some cases.
• Correct loading default owning record information when loading from Koha, Polaris, and Evergreen.
• Start work on a new installer for centos 9
• Handle additional spam traffic.
• Display date frozen holds will reactivate with international formatting.
• Update to handle sitemap when status check when there are no titles in the index yet.
• When grouped work ids change, make sure uploaded covers are moved to the new id.

Aspen LiDA Updates

• Fixed a bug when selecting a library at login where in certain cases users would need to "double tap" to select a library.
• Color mode will now be persistent and remember if the user set dark or light mode between different sessions.
• For the Editions screen, "Where is it?" will now have its own line to prevent possible overlap with Place Hold button when the status is lengthy.
• Increased the icon sizes for certain back and close buttons, as well as their hit slop values so that they have a larger interaction area.
• When a user starts a new search the previous options set (facets, filters, sort) will be forgotten.
• Added support for handling HTML entities and special characters formatting on the Grouped Work screen.
• When loading directions to a library using Apple Maps, it will no longer start you in the Atlantic Ocean.
• Fixed a bug where in certain cases holds were not sorting as expected.
• When reloading holds or checkouts using the "Refresh" button, it will now update the profile data in the Account Drawer as well.
• On the Grouped Work screen, the formats are now again listed in the same order as Discovery.
• On the Grouped Work screen, cover images that do not fill the space will no longer have a stretched background.
• On the Search Results screen, the formats for a grouped work are listed in the same order as Discovery.

Watch the 23.03.00 Aspen Updates in an Instant Recording

Watch a short highlight video of the some of the new features available in 23.03.00