Analytics & Reporting

Presentation Goal:
What do you need to know?

  • Intro to reporting in Alma
  • Demo of "Operational Reports"
  • Demo of Alma Analytics capabilities
  • Limitations & Tips: Beware! (Oh My!)

Presentation Caveats

  • I am still learning
    (I have hacked thru current requests)
  • I am not a domain expert in Alma

Analytics vs. Operational Reports

Operational Reports
reporting activity that takes place within in the Alma UI
Analytics
reporting & querying in Alma Analytics above & beyond day-to-day Alma usage

Operational Report: Lost or Missing Items

screenshot of lost/missing search in Alma

Operational Reports First
Searches as Reports

  • Based on Alma search functionality (typically advanced)
  • Save the search publicly or privately
  • Rerun the search as needed within daily workflows
  • Export records directly from result set
  • Run a Job to export even more data

Analytics: The Good

  • Predominantly GUI driven
  • Data exportable in many formats
  • Highly customizable/flexible
  • Common reporting functionality
    (e.g., aggregation functions)
  • Facilitates sharing across our institution & beyond

Analytics: The Bad

  • Navigation can be awkward
  • Data processing does not always have natural UI idioms
  • Not intuitive on first pass
    (e.g., uses its uncommon terminology)

Analytics: The Ugly

  • Things go wrong
  • Slow like molasses
  • Not scaled for large queries
  • Arbitrary limits on data exports (65K rows)
  • No access controls:
    anyone can modify break shared reports
Alma Analytics Unhelpful Error Screenshot

Analytics: The Just-Is

Important Things to Just Know

  • Uses a third party system
    (i.e., not part of Alma)
  • Distinct UI from the rest of Alma
  • Data set is snapshot from the prior day
    (i.e., not real-time, but close)
  • Requires "Design Analytics" role

Terminology

Analysis
a report that you can run, view, edit, break
Subject Areas
roughly correspond to what we would consider to be functional areas
Criteria
the section of UI you will use to construct a query
("design an analysis")
Results
the section of UI you will use to see a report

Terminology (continued)

Dimension
a related group of fields within a subject area
(e.g., Bibliographic Details or Loan Date)
Measures or Measurement Fields
a field that you can add to a report that aggregates data
(e.g., counting the number of items associated w/ the query criteria)
Description Fields
a basic data field that you can add to a report
(e.g., MMS ID, Title, Loan Year, Barcode)

Terminology Illustrated

Source: Analytics User Guide
Analytics Terminology

Analytics User Guide

Analytics User Guide
  • Download from Online Help
  • Getting Started
  • Data Dictionary
  • Integration with Alma

Baby Steps

  • Save often
  • Iterate & build incrementally
  • Save often
  • Don't be afraid to start fresh
  • Save often!

Journal Browse Counts by Library

Journal Browse Counts Screenshot

Gotchas

  • Physical and Electronic are different*
  • Physical items require* item records
  • No Results ≠ No Data
    (multiple MMS ID complexity problem)
  • Network Zone data is elsewhere

* sometimes

MMS IDs in Alma

  • Alma UI MARC 001 matches zone ID of the superset:

    Community » Network » Institution

  • Primo MARCXML 001 matches Network Zone ID
  • Alma API MARC 001 matches Institution Zone ID
  • Alma Analytics MMS ID matches Institution Zone ID

MMS IDs In Living Color

Record Source MMS ID MARC 001
Alma UI: Institution Zone Tab 991022016236902122 99111056486960462
Alma UI: Network Zone Tab 9911031841002121 99111056486960462
Alma UI: Community Zone Tab 99111056486960462 99111056486960462
Alma API 991022016236902122 991022016236902122
Alma Analytics 991022016236902122 NA

No Items? No Holdings!?!

Physical Items, Sort Of

Title MMS ID Format
The power to name : locating the limits of subject representation in libraries 9973677933602122 Book
An empirical experiment in comparative management 993167903602122 Microform
Interactive data visualization for the web 9993013763602122 E-Book

9973677933602122; 993167903602122; 9993013763602122

Advanced Questions

  • User Statistical Categories configuration
  • Linking multiple subject areas together
  • Creating a call number report
  • Manipulating results data
  • Modifying the Acquisitions Dashboard

Image Credits

ImageCreatorLicense
Day Old Donuts $2.00 Tim Samoff Attribution, No Derivatives
No Plan B ND Strupler Attribution
Plan B Picserver.org Attribution, Share-Alike