[Evergreen.git] / docs / RELEASE_NOTES_3_1.adoc

Evergreen 3.1 Release Notes
===========================
:toc:
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Evergreen 3.1.1
---------------
This release contains bug fixes improving on Evergreen 3.1.0.

* Fixes a performance issue with the Patron Billing History screen and
other screens that cause Flattener.pm to re-create joins
unnecessarily.
* Fixes an issue that prevented patron alerts from showing to staff at
other libraries.
* Corrects the "Holdable" attribute display on the Item Status detailed
view.
* Fixes the ability to delete multiple copies from Item Status.

Acknowledgements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We would like to thank the following individuals who contributed code,
tests and documentation patches to the 3.1.1 point release of
Evergreen:

* Jason Boyer
* Bill Erickson
* Morkor Quarshie
* Jane Sandberg
* Remington Steed
* Jason Stephenson
* Kevin Tran
* Dan Wells


3.1.0 New Features
------------------

Administration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New Latency Tester Tool
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Evergreen Web Staff Client now includes a section called *Tests* linked from
*Administration -> Workstation*. The *Tests* page houses a simple tool
that can be used to test the latency of the websocket connection between the
client and the server (via the `opensrf.echo` service).

This page displays which Evergreen host server is being queried. Upon hitting
the blue "Start Test" button for the first time, it will issue 10 sequentially
fired requests in order to get a solid initial average. Clicking the button a
second time will take one more measurement and recalculate the average
latency. The results can be copied to clipboard for troubleshooting purposes
and also cleared from display.

marc_export --uris option
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The marc_export support script now has a `--uris` option (short form:
`-u`) to export records with located URIs (i.e. electronic resources).  When
used by itself, it will export only records that have located URIs.  When
used in conjunction with `--items`, it will add records with located URIs
but no items/copies to the output.  If combined with a `--library` or
`--descendants` option, this option will limit its output to those
records with URIs at the designated libraries.  The best way to use
this option is in combination with the `--items` and one of the
`--library` or `--descendants` options to export *all* of a library's
holdings both physical and electronic.


Architecture
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sample Data Includes Surveys
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Concerto sample data set now includes patron surveys, questions,
answers, and responses.

Virtual Index Definitions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The practical purpose of Virtual Index Definitions is to supply an Evergreen
administrator with the ability to control the weighting and field inclusion of
values in the general keyword index, commonly referred to as "the blob,"
without requiring tricky configuration that has subtle semantics, an
over-abundance of index definitions which can slow search generally, or the
need to reingest all records on a regular basis as experiments are performed
and the configuration refined. Significant results of recasting keyword indexes
as a set of one or more Virtual Index Definitions will be simpler search
configuration management, faster search speed overall, and more practical
reconfiguration and adjustment as needed.

Previously, in order to provide field-specific weighting to
keyword matches against titles or authors, an administrator must duplicate many
other index definitions and supply overriding weights to those duplicates. This
not only complicates configuration, but slows down record ingest as well as
search. It is also fairly ineffective at achieving the goal of weighted keyword
fields. Virtual Index Definitions will substantially alleviate the need for
these workarounds and their consequences.

  * A Virtual Index Definition does not require any configuration for
extracting bibliographic data from records, but instead can become a sink for
data collected by other index definitions, which is then colocated together to
supply a search target made up of the separately extracted data. Virtual Index
Definitions are effectively treated as aggregate definitions, matching across
all values extracted from constituent non-virtual index definitions.  They can
further make use of the Combined class functionality to colocate all values in a
class together for matching even across virtual fields.

  * Configuration allows for weighting of constituent index definitions that
participate in a Virtual Index Definition. This weighting is separate from the
weighting supplied when the index definition itself is a search target.

  * The Evergreen QueryParser driver returns the list of fields actually
searched using every user-supplied term set, including constituent expansion
when a Virtual Index Definition is searched. In particular, this will facilitate
Search Term Highlighting described below.

  * Stock configuration changes make use of pre-existing, non-virtual index
definitions mapped to new a Virtual Index Definition that implements the
functionality provided by the `keyword|keyword` index definition. The
`keyword|keyword` definition is left in place for the time being, until more data
can be gathered about the real-world effect of removing it entirely and
replacing it with Virtual Index Definition mappings.

  * New system administration functions will be created to facilitate
modification of Virtual Index Definition mapping, avoiding the need for a full
reingest when existing index definitions are added or removed from a virtual
field.

Increased use of Metabib Display Fields
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We use Metabib Display Fields (newly available in 3.0) to render catalog search
results, intermediate metarecord results, and record detail pages. This requires
the addition of several new Metabib Display Field definitions, as well as Perl
services to gather and render the data.

We also use more Metabib Display Fields in the client. As a result,
bibliographic fields will display in proper case in more client interfaces and
in Evergreen reports.

Interfaces
++++++++++
A new AngularJS "MARC Search/Facet Fields" interface has been created to replace
the Dojo version, and both have been extended to support Virtual Index
Definition data supplier mapping and weighting.

Settings & Permissions
++++++++++++++++++++++
The new Virtual Index Definition data supplier mapping table,
`config.metabib_field_virtual_map`, requires the same permissions as the
MARC Search/Facet Fields interface: CREATE_METABIB_FIELD, UPDATE_METABIB_FIELD,
DELETE_METABIB_FIELD, or ADMIN_METABIB_FIELD for all actions

Backend
+++++++
There now exist several new database tables and functions primarily in support
of search highlighting. Additionally, the QueryParser driver for Evergreen has
been augmented to be able to return a data structure describing how the search
was performed, in a way that allows a separate support API to gather a
highlighted version of the Display Field data for a given record.

Default Weights
+++++++++++++++
By default, the following fields will be weighted more heavily in keyword
searches. Administrators can change these defaults by changing the values in the
 "All searchable fields" virtual index in the "MARC Search/Facet Fields"
interface.

  * Title proper
  * Main title (a new index limited to the words in the 245a)
  * Personal author
  * All subjects

In addition, note indexes and the physical description index will receive
less weight in default keyword searches.

Re-ingest or Indexing Dependencies
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
With the addition and modification of many Index Definitions, a full reingest is
recommended.  However, search will continue to work as it did previously
for those records that have not yet been reingested. Therefore a slow, rolling
reingest is recommended.

Performance Implications or Concerns
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Because the Metabib Display Fields infrastructure will eventually replace
functionality that is significantly more CPU-intensive in the various forms of
XML parsing, XSLT transformation, XPath calculation, and
Metabib Virtual Record construction, it is expected that the overall CPU load
will be reduced by this development, and ideally the overall time required to
perform and render a search will likewise drop. It is unlikely that the speed
increase will be visible to users on a per-search basis, but that search in
aggregate will become a smaller consumer of resources.


Cataloging
~~~~~~~~~~

Track Record Merges
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When 2 or more bib records are merged, all records involved are stamped
with a new `merge_date` value.  For any bib record, this field indicates
the last time it was involved in a merge.  At the same time, all
subordinate records (i.e. those deleted as a product of the merge) are
stamped with a `merged_to` value indicating which bib record the source
record was merged with.

In the browser client bib record display, a warning alert now appears
along the top of the page (below the Deleted alert) indicating when a
record was used in a merge, when it was merged, and which record it was
merge with, rendered as a link to the target record.


Circulation
~~~~~~~~~~~

Alternate Patron Hold Pickup
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This feature adds a bit of convenience to a common task: checking out
an item on hold to another patron (typically a family member or helper).

When you checkout the item, you will get a pop-up window with warnings associated
with this item.  The "ITEM_ON_HOLDS_SHELF" message is now expanded to

 * Let you know the name of the person who had placed the hold.
 * Give you the option (in the form of a checkbox) of cancelling the
   hold placed by the above-named patron.  (Checked = Cancel the hold;
   Unchecked = Leave the hold in place)

The initial value of the checkbox is derived from the
`circ.clear_hold_on_checkout` organizational setting.

If the operator has CANCEL_HOLD privilege, then if the checkbox is checked and
the checkout is allowed to proceed, the hold will be cancelled with a note that
the item was checked out to another patron.

This feature is available in the browser-based staff client.

New Patron Billing Statement
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Evergreen web staff client now includes a patron billing statement,
which summarizes a patron's bills, credits and payments in a familiar
layout.  This can be found on the "Statement" tab of the Patron Bill
Details page. (From the Patron Bills page, double-click a row to view
its details, or choose "Full Details" from the Actions menu.)

Enhanced Billing Timestamp Support
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Previously, billings had to make do with a single timestamp attempting
to fill two different roles.  In the case of an overdue fine, the
timestamp represented the *end* of the fine period for that billing,
while for all other fines, the timestamp was merely the time the bill
was created.  This setup generally worked, but not without confusion,
and limited our ability to understand and process the data.

Billings will now have up to three timestamps: a create date, and when
applicable, a fine period start and a fine period end.  This clarifies
and simplifies things like backdating, retrospective fine generation,
account balancing for negative balance avoidance, and billing timeline
views.

Copy Alerts and Suppression Matrix
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Copy Alerts feature allows library staff to add customized alert
messages to copies. The copy alerts will appear when a specific event
takes place, such as when the copy is checked in, checked out, or
renewed. Alerts can be temporary or persistent: temporary alerts will be
disabled after the initial alert and acknowledgement from staff, while
persistent alerts will display each time the alert event takes place.
Copy Alerts can be configured to display at the circulating or owning
library only or, alternatively, when the library at which the alert
event takes place is not the circulating or owning library.  Copy Alerts
can also be configured to provide options for the next copy status that
should be applied to an item.  Library administrators will have the
ability to create and customize Copy Alert Types and to suppress copy
alerts at specific org units.

Copy alerts can be added via the volume/creator and the check in,
check out, and renew pages.  Copy alerts can also be managed at the
item status page.

Copy alert types can be managed via the Copy Alert Types page in
Local Administration, and suppression of them can be administered
via the Copy Alert Suppression page under Local Administration.

Place Multiple Holds At Once
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Users with the appropriate permissions now have the ability to place multiple
title/metarecords holds at once. This feature is especially beneficial for book
clubs and reading groups, which need to place holds on multiple copies of a
title.

In order to use the feature:

  * Set the _Maximum number of duplicate holds allowed_ Library Setting
    (`circ.holds.max_duplicate_holds`) to a number higher than 1
  * Log in as a user with the CREATE_DUPLICATE_HOLDS

When placing a title or metarecord hold, a _Number of copies_ field will
display for these users. This field is not available when placing part, volume
or copy holds.

This feature does not change the way in which the system fills holds. The
multiple holds will fill in the same way that they would if the user had placed
multiple holds separately.

New Notice Columns in Items Out Grid
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The grid in the patron "items out" page in the Evergreen web staff client has two new
columns indicating the number of notifications generated for a given loan and the date of
the most recent notification. These columns will allow circulation staff to better respond to
patron questions about whether they were sent notification about an overdue item.

The columns are based on the number of completed Action Trigger events on the
loan that have a 'checkout.due' hook. In other words, they would include overdue
and courtesy notices.

A new library setting, "Exclude Courtesy Notices from Patrons Itemsout Notices Count",
if set will cause the notice count and date fields to exclude courtesy notices.

Patron Email Addresses Now Clickable In Web Staff Client
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Adds a mailto link to the patron's email in their profile so it can
be clicked to send and email to the patron. No new settings or
permissions are included in this feature.

Pickup Library for Staff-placed Holds
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Adds a new library setting, _circ.staff_placed_holds_fallback_to_ws_ou_,
that helps determine the hold pickup library in cases where patrons don't
have a preferred hold pickup library in their account and a staff member
is placing the hold on their behalf.

  * When this setting is true and the patron doesn't have a preferred
  library listed, the hold pickup library will default to the
  workstation's organizational unit.
  * When this setting is false and the patron doesn't have a preferred
  library listed, the hold pickup library will default to the
  patron's home library.

Public Catalog
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Search Term Highlighting
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Evergreen now highlights search terms on the public catalog's main search
results page, the record detail page, and intermediate pages such as metarecord
grouped results page. Highlighting search terms will help the user determine why
a particular record (or set of records) was retrieved.

Highlighting of matched terms uses the same stemming used to accomplish the
search, as configured per field and class.

This feature will help the user more quickly determine the relevance of a
particular record by calling their attention to search terms in context. Lastly,
it will help familiarize the user with how records are searched, including which
fields are searched as well as exposing concepts like stemming.

You can turn off search term highlighting by uncommenting the line
`search.no_highlight = 1;` in `config.tt2`.

When highlighting is generally enabled, it may be turned on or off on a per-page
basis through the use of a UI component which will request the page again
without highlighting.

Highlighting of terms uses Template::Toolkit-driven CSS. A generic CSS class
identifying a highlighted term, along with CSS classes identifying the search
class and each search field are available for use for customization of the
highlighting. A stock CSS template is provided as a baseline upon which sites
may expand.


Copy Location Filter Displays for System Searches
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Shelving Location filter now displays on the advanced search page when
a search is scoped to a library system, not just to an individual branch. If
a library system is selected as the Search Library, the shelving location
limiter will display any shelving location that is owned by the selected system
or by the consortium. It will NOT display shelving locations owned by child
branches.

Multi-source Attributes
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We now allow record attribute definitions to extract data using more than
one strategy (XPath, tag+subfield, fixed field, etc.) as long as the values
from various sources would, after normalization, have the same shape.

Multilingual Search
+++++++++++++++++++
This change allows us to configure multilingual search, by extracting values
from both the 008 controlfield and the 041 datafield.  Because the values
in each can be normalized to the same controlled list (and, in practice, are
already from the same normalized value set), catalog searches can now use normal
boolean search semantics to find records with various combinations of
language attributes.

E.g., in the concerto test data:

  * `keyword: piano item_lang(eng) item_lang(ita)`


Optional Display of Badges in Catalog
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A new setting controls whether badges (popularity, etc.) are displayed
in the catalog. If you do not wish badges to be displayed, set the
`ctx.hide_badge_scores` setting to "true" in `config.tt2`.


Miscellaneous
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fixes to patron name/username search indexes
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When using pg_restore to restore an Evergreen database, some of the
indexes used to speed up patron searches on names and usernames
could be lost.

This release fixes the underlying issue and re-creates the indexes
in question.

Details
+++++++
When using pg_restore to restore an affected database, the
"unaccent" indexes on actor.usr would not be created due to an
unqualified function reference in `evergreen.unaccent_and_squash`.

The function will be replaced to resolve the search path issue,
and the following indexes on actor.usr will be dropped and then
re-created:

  * actor_usr_first_given_name_unaccent_idx;
  * actor_usr_second_given_name_unaccent_idx;
  * actor_usr_family_name_unaccent_idx;
  * actor_usr_usrname_unaccent_idx;

This will be done even if the indexes are already present, and may
take a few minutes on a database with many patrons.


3.1.0 Acknowledgments
---------------------
The Evergreen project would like to acknowledge the following
organizations that commissioned developments in this release of
Evergreen:

* Albany Public Library (Oregon)
* Consortium of Ohio Libraries
* CW MARS
* Indiana State Library
* Georgia Public Library Service
* Hagerstown - Jefferson Township Library
* Linn-Benton Community College
* MassLNC
* Pennsylvania Integrated Library System
* Sage Library System
* Union County Public Library (Indiana)

We would also like to thank the following individuals who contributed
code, translations, documentations patches and tests to this release of
Evergreen:

* Eva Cerninakova
* Andi Chandler
* Galen Charlton
* Jeff Davis
* Bill Erickson
* Jeff Godin
* Rogan Hamby
* Angela Kilsdonk
* Sam Link
* Jeanette Lundgren
* Kathy Lussier
* Fares Othman
* Dan Pearl
* Mike Rylander
* Jane Sandberg
* Chris Sharp
* Ben Shum
* Remington Steed
* Jason Stephenson
* Kevin Tran
* Cesar Velez
* Dan Wells


We also thank the following organizations whose employees contributed
patches:

* Bibliomation
* British Columbia Libraries Cooperative
* Calvin College
* CW MARS
* Equinox Open Library Initiative
* Georgia Public Library Service
* Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library System
* Jordanian Library and Information Association
* King County Library System
* Knihovna Jabok
* Linn-Benton Community College
* MassLNC
* Sigio
* Traverse Area District Library

We regret any omissions.  If a contributor has been inadvertently
missed, please open a bug at http://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/
with a correction.