Analysis Paralysis: Using Alma Analytics
Ann Miller
University of Oregon
What is Analytics?
• Official Title “Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition”
• Finds relationships between “subjects” of data within Alma
• Can be used to provide “dashboards” of current business activity (circulation
counts, expenditures, acquisitions activity)
• Can create graphs and charts natively
• Very visual
• Uses SQL language
What Analytics is not
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A replacement for Millennium’s “Create Lists”
Created by Ex Libris
Directly designed for gathering library statistics or managing metadata
Simple to use.
Analytics or Manage Sets?
• The two complement each other.
• Think about what you want the report to do
• Looking for a group of records on which to run a process?
• Want to demonstrate activity in an area?
• Export bibliographic records?
• Export an analysis?
Manage Sets
• For instance setting a group of items to missing.
• Moving a group of items to another location either permanently or
temporarily.
• When you want identify a set of bibliographic or order records to extract out
of the system.
• When you want to run normalization or merge processes
Analytics
• To create an analysis such as circulation by library or location; list of recalls;
loans by patron group.
• Create a report by Invoice number of fund codes/external ids for
reconciling with enterprise payment system such as Banner.
• Create a report for a Dashboard or Widget to display reports such as selected
fund balance or recent acquisition or fulfillment activity upon Alma login.
Getting started
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Need Design Analytics role
The individual also needs one administrative role as well.
Will then see the Analytics list added to the ADMINISTRATION menu
Click on “Design Analytics” and you’ll be logged into the product
Let’s Look at Analytics & Make a Report!
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Login to Alma
Go to “Design Analytics” under Administration
I like to start with “Catalog”
Let’s walk through a little report…
“Things” to keep in mind
• Not everything can be pulled from Analytics. For instance course reserves
(on roadmap for Oct.), MARC data.
• Cross subject searching limited. Eg. Item circulation by fund code.
• Can only export 64,000 lines at a time (hard for eresources or large CD
projects)
Resources
• Hands-on Activities (Analytics)
https://docs.orbiscascade.org/silsdocs/training/files/Intro_Alma_Analytics_HO.docx (silsdocs
pwd required)
• Alma Analytics Guide
http://www.customercenter.exlibrisgroup.com/DocumentationCenter/Ex%20Libris%20Docum
entation/Alma/Product%20Documentation/Analytics/Alma%20Analytics%20Guide.pdf
(Documentation center pwd required)
• How to Make an Alma Analytics Report Appear on the Alma Dashboard
http://www.customercenter.exlibrisgroup.com/DocumentationCenter/Ex%20Libris%20Docum
entation/Alma/Product%20Documentation/Analytics/How%20To%20Documents%20and%20
Presentations/How%20to%20Make%20an%20Alma%20Analytics%20Report%20Appear%20on
%20the%20Alma%20Dashboard.pdf (Documentation center pwd required)