Local Update

Project Changes

As mentioned in Deborah Jakubs’ letter to all Duke Libraries’ staff dated January 25, 2022, the Duke University Libraries’ Executive Group has set a firm go-live date to fully switch to FOLIO by July 2023. The project teams are excited to have a firm deadline so that we can make our plans appropriately. It was also announced that beginning in February 2022, that DUL has contracted with Index Data for full project management of our implementation. Index Data also provides hosting services for the three Duke instances of FOLIO (development, test, and production). Mike Gorrell, Director of Operations will be leading our project. Mike has years of experience with software and libraries. He formerly held executive-level positions at EBSCO in their Publishing branch, and was the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at EBSCO Information Services. He has held positions in the FOLIO Technical Council, and is currently chair of the FOLIO Community Council. The project management responsibilities that Mike will provide to DUL include:

• Scheduling and running meetings
• Establishing and managing schedules
• Identifying and leading the mitigation of project risks
• Communicating status
• Consulting with management on alleviating bottlenecks
• Coordinating dry runs, tests, gap analysis/workaround planning
• Significant, consistent, and detailed documentation

On February 7th, the Library Service Platform Steering Group (LSPSG) met with Mike. Mike shared with us his preferences in managing a project timeline, meeting minutes, and meeting schedules. He suggested three, six, and nine month goals focusing on analysis of gaps, figuring out workflows, and working on integrations with essential applications outside of FOLIO. He recognized that we’ve already done a lot of work on our local implementation, and looks forward to working with us.

Juniper Release

Library Systems and Integration Support staff have been working with Index Data staff to prepare our three local instances for the upgrade to the Juniper release. We will be re-loading data from Aleph into our Juniper development instance. We will also pull the FOLIO-born item records that have been created for the Courses app from production into development. As we move through the process of updating our servers, we will make sure that the Inventory data is up to date from Aleph as well as production Courses data. A big bonus for having individual apps is that they each have their own storage! We’ll be able to pull the data from the production instance of the Licenses app into our development and test instances too, so we can verify that all the data is correct before we upgrade the production instance. We’re currently working to upgrade the test instance beginning the week of February 7 and will invite our local testers to check functionality and validate data before we move on to upgrading the production instance in mid-February.

Team Work

The Implementation teams took the liberty of a low-meeting December to take a break and are getting back to work on FOLIO now.

The Resource Access implementation team has been focusing on creating FOLIO circulation rules. They are also considering how to handle long-overdue items that still have active loans. When we move loans into FOLIO, we will use the new FOLIO circulation rules and will check the items out in FOLIO. We do not want these long-overdue loans from Aleph to become new loans, so the RA implementation team is considering how best to handle this issue, and maybe take on a clean-up project. 

The Resource Management implementation team is reviewing the Receiving app and considering the need for prediction patterns for serials. The FOLIO community originally did not prioritize print serials management since many institutions are no longer ordering the volume of serials Duke is. Only recently has the community revisited this feature. There are other institutions who have voiced the need for print serials management, and members of the LSPSG are reaching out to those other institutions in hopes of a collaboration to address this need.

The Metadata Management implementation team has been focusing on the data clean up projects. When they begin meeting again, Matt from LSIS will be joining the team and taking on some of the business analyst tasks that had been done by Jackie before her departure from LSIS and Duke. They will have some new features to explore, including the new search functionality and improved Data Import app. Juniper introduces the behind-the-scenes work for storing links to bound-with materials. LSIS has scripted the loading of the bound-withs, but they won’t be viewable through the user interface until we upgrade to Kiwi.

Peers

Deborah mentioned in her letter that some of our peer institutions have implemented FOLIO. Cornell went live with all the FOLIO apps in July 2021, Texas A&M switched in December 2021, and the University of Chicago switched in January 2021. Other institutions that have gone live in the last year include the University of Colorado Boulder, Skidmore University, and Spokane Public Library. The world is watching our implementation. Occasionally, other institutions reach out to Duke staff to learn more about the project and our implementation. We’ve spoken to libraries in California and Australia in just the last month!

International Update

List of release names and planned dates of release for the next 18 months

The international project continues to move forward in adding features and back-end support for those features. The Product Council assigned a group to consider the next version of a roadmap document. Karen is a member of the Roadmap Group. The group began by grouping work in themes such as data import, data consistency and integrity, dashboard functionality, self check, and bulk edit. There were also sub-themes that were considered such as under bulk edit, user bulk edit, acquisitions bulk edit, and inventory bulk edit. There is a new project in the FOLIO Jira site for the roadmap, and the group linked existing Jira issues (work that the SIGs and developers are planning or working on) to the roadmap themes and subthemes so that an overall picture could start to be created of the work that is currently being done and the work that is upcoming. The next steps in the roadmap group is to involve product owners and the SIGs to contribute to the roadmap and to create an easy to understand snapshot for sharing on the folio.org site.

The Community Council is preparing for a membership drive. The roadmap snapshot will be an important document to share with newcomers to the FOLIO project. The international project is always looking for product owners, developers, and reporting developers, as there’s still lots of work to be done!

Watch This

Agenda:

1. Community Council update
2. Product Council Update
3. Tech Council update
4. WOLFcon update
5. FOLIO.ORG Website update

Bee Facts

It’s winter in North Carolina, so soothe your throat with homemade honey cough drops.

Honeysuckle Release

Honeysuckle was released to the public on December 1, 2020. Some new features include a circulation log, fast-add for Inventory records, a department field in the user record, and updates to Finance structure. Visit the Honeysuckle Release Notes for full details. We’ve requested that our development and test environments be upgraded to Honeysuckle in December and we’ll keep you posted on progress.

After the Honeysuckle release, the international project agreed to move to three releases per year, aiming for releases in March, July, and November. Iris will be the first release in 2021.

Local Project Updates

In November, the User Permissions Working Group sent out a survey to staff who supervise Aleph users. The supervisors were asked to submit one survey for each type of role they supervised. The survey included questions such as “What Aleph modules does this role use?”, “What functions are performed by this role in the Cataloging (or Acquisitions or Circulation} module?”, “Does this role use ARC or reports from ARC?”, and “Does this role run Aleph services?”. The User Permissions Working Group appreciates all the responses they received. They will review the results over the next two months and the survey will help to inform permission sets in FOLIO.

The Data Working Group reviewed and mapped information for loading existing orders into FOLIO and what information was needed to start loading loans. Active loans in FOLIO will need to use the new FOLIO circulation rules to be checked out to patrons during the migration, so a few of the most-used circulation rules have been configured as well to test the process. We’ve made great progress in our “data first” push to get large chunks of different data into our local FOLIO instance and have bibliographic/holdings/items, patrons, and organizations (vendors) loaded. Orders, loans and courses data have been mapped and are ready for the development team to code the migrations. We decided that we likely will not migrate budgets from Aleph, and DUL is going to take this opportunity to review our existing budget structure. Requests and Fees/Fines are left to be mapped for migration, but will need circulation policies in place first.

In the new year, we’ll kick off the creation of some basic training courses, and we’ll start a mini-project to implement the Courses module, with the intention of being able to use FOLIO Courses for the Duke Summer Sessions. We’ll also work on creating a budget structure for FOLIO, and continue work on circulation rules.

Watch This

On December 2, there was a FOLIO Forum held on the Open Library Foundation’s YouTube channel. This will be a panel discussion with Cheryl Malmborg, product owner for Circulation Rules and Policies, and a number of institutions who are using FOLIO in production will talk about and demo their rules.

There will be an open Q&A with the panel from the Circulation Rules Forum on December 7 at 8:00am Eastern. The Zoom meeting will require the universal FOLIO meeting password. Please contact any member of Library Systems and Integration Support if you would like that password.

Bee Facts

With the holiday baking season upon us, consider a recipe that highlights honey! Perhaps Chewy Honey Oatmeal Cookies, Honey Brown Butter Blondies, or a Honey Apple Gingerbread Cake.

Duke is using FOLIO apps in production!

As of July 7, Duke is using FOLIO apps in production! The ERM implementation team is using the Licences and Organization apps.

International Project Update

The international project released Fameflower in April. Some feature highlights include work for e-resources, licences and agreements, batch import and export updates for MARC data, work on the Courses app, and work on accessibility.

Goldenrod was released at the end of July. That release includes a new lightweight MARC editor app called QuickMARC, more features for the batch import and export, more features for resource and e-resource management, updates to patron notices and work to implement custom fields. We’ve been upgraded to Goldenrod on all three of our Duke instances, and are working to add the additional functionality into our data loads.

Local Project Update

Working Through a Pandemic

Throughout the pandemic this year, our Implementation Teams and our Working Groups have continued to meet and to move forward with work on FOLIO. We had already set up online meetings for all teams, use of the FOLIO Project wiki, and Box for shared documents, so a transition to working from home and meeting online was pretty smooth for our local project. The project members have made great strides on our local implementation, and I thank everyone for their hard work to keep this project going amidst all the extra work the pandemic has thrown at us.

Timeline for Q3 and Q4 2020

In May, the members of the local project worked through another ranking exercise to help the international project plan the rest of 2020. Once we reviewed with the plan for 2020, we took a step back and decided to delay Duke’s full implementation of FOLIO another year, aiming at Summer 2022.

We will spend the rest of 2020 working to get samples of all the different kinds of data into our test instance. The majority of our bibliographic, holdings, and item records have been loaded into the Inventory App and Source Record Storage on our test server. Loading of patron records from the Duke Identity Management feed is expected in September. Following that will be data for Finances (budget), Courses, Orders, Invoices, Loans and Requests.

Progress from the Implementation Teams and Working Groups

Working Groups

The Configurations Working Group led a pair of small groups. One focused on how we would like to map our Aleph locations (institution, sublibrary, collection) to the four levels that FOLIO offers (institution, campus, library, location). The other small group discussed FOLIO material types and loan types. In Aleph, our item statuses are labeled as a mix of loan periods and material types (3-hour, 7-days, bound periodicals, microform). The decisions for locations, material types, and loan types are very important because they affect how items are mapped during migration, as well as how loan policies may be written in the future.

The Data Working Group completed the mappings of bibs, holdings, and items from Aleph to FOLIO. They’ve also completed the mappings for patron records. This group is leading the data-first focus for the rest of 2020.

The Documentation and Training Working Group has also prepared a survey that will be sent to all library staff to determine how best to plan FOLIO training. We want training to be a success and for all staff to feel as comfortable as possible with their tasks when we go live with FOLIO.

The Permissions Working Group discussed how best to consider roles or permission sets for staff in FOLIO. They have prepared a survey that will be released to supervisors in late October.

The Reporting Working Group investigated a number of different software options to be a staff interface for the Library Data Platform. It is possible that there may be a reporting app included with FOLIO. That would have an effect on what the Reporting Working Group recommends.

The Testing Working Group investigated use of an application to help keep track of testing and test cases. Members also took part in the international project’s Bug Fest to test new releases.

The Workflows Working Group worked on creating a document template that will allow the Implementation Teams a standard format to record their input and output workflows.

Implementation Teams

The Electronic Resources Management (ERM) Implementation Team worked through a complete project on their own and implemented the Agreements and Organizations Apps in production in July! They are continuing to work on additional features and integrations.

The Metadata Management Team worked with the Data working group to complete the mapping of bib/hol/item records. There was a request from the international project to rank issues regarding Authority Records, which they completed. They are currently working on mapping the 9xx fields.

The Resource Access Team worked to review current reports they use and to document their reporting requirements and considered our current patron statuses for mapping and creation/consolidation of new patron groups.

The Resource Management Team worked is continuing with mapping of Aleph vendor records to the Organizations App. Moving to FOLIO will offer the opportunity to reconsider the current budget structure and codes and serious thought is being given to that topic.

Watch This

Folio Forum on the Library Data Platform

What’s new in Inventory and QuickMARC app demo

Bee Facts

Sir David Attenborough explains on the Smithsonian Channel’s YouTube channel how bees communicate where to find new flowers with the most nectar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU_KD1enR3Q

In this issue:

Duke FOLIO Forum Date and Time

Steering Group Update

Watch This

Bee Facts

Save The Date – Upcoming FOLIO Forum

Duke FOLIO Forum

February 19, 2020
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m
Korman Assembly Room (Perkins 217)

Steering Group Update

On January 8, we gathered about 60 library staff who will be serving on the teams as we implement FOLIO here at Duke. We viewed a slide deck talking about the implementation timelines (ERM and the full implementation), reviewed the roles people will fill on the teams, and some basic team behaviors and norms. The larger group then broke into teams to schedule their first meeting and to review the team charters. Some teams even had time to do some brainstorming on tasks the teams should complete (for example, a glossary of terms). Members of the Duke University Libraries Executive Group attended as well to show support for the project. Teams will keep minutes from their meetings on the FOLIO project wiki. Duke staff, make sure you log in!

From January 22-24, eleven staff members of the Duke University Libraries and the David M. Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscripts Library attended WOLFcon at Texas A&M University. WOLFcon is a gathering for members of the Open Library Foundation (OLF) and the open source software communities that are a part of OLF, including VuFind, ReShare, Coral, GOKb, and FOLIO. Local staff attended meetings regarding all parts of FOLIO, from the apps for functional areas (check-out, organizations, inventory, etc.), to discussions leaning more toward the technical (data loading, performance, accessibility, etc.).

Watch This

WOLFcon Plenary, Day One – January 22, 2020

Learn some history about Texas A&M University, and hear from David H. Carlson,
Dean of University Libraries

Bee Facts

More about Edelweiss, the flower for which the most recent version of FOLIO was named.

Upcoming Duke FOLIO Forum

Steering Group Update

Watch This!

Bee Facts

Duke FOLIO Forum

November 20, 2019
9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m
Korman Assembly Room (Perkins 217)

Agenda:

Update on international FOLIO project

Lightning Talks by members of international FOLIO project Special Interest Groups

• User Management
• Reporting
• Data Migration
• Other Special Interest Groups

Duke’s updated timeline

Approach to implementation

Questions

Steering Group Update

Over the past month the Steering Group has been discussing how to tackle the tasks we’ll need to complete for implementation of the ERM-focused apps in the third quarter of 2020, and the rest of the FOLIO apps in third quarter 2021. Historically, we’ve focused on our functional areas with a team for circulation, one for cataloging, and one for acquisitions. We know that each one of those areas affects the others, and are very aware that we need to facilitate discussions on those cross-functional areas with appropriate subject matter experts. We’ve been discussing how to set up the working groups to accomplish that. We’ll be sharing more at the Duke FOLIO Forum on November 20.

Watch This!

Bee Facts

In this issue:

Save the Date!

Steering Group Update

Library Systems and Integration Support Update

ERM Focused Applications

Watch This!

Bee Facts

Save The Date!

Duke FOLIO Forum

Wednesday, November 20 at 9:30 a.m.

Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Rubenstein 153).

All library staff are invited. An agenda will be forthcoming.

Steering Group Update

In August, the Steering Group made a recommendation to the Duke University Libraries’ Executive Group that we implement Electronic Resources Management-focused parts of FOLIO in Summer/Fall 2020.

The Steering Group also participated in a brainstorming session. We considered high-level subjects that need to be completed such as loading user data, integrating OCLC Connexion, and setting up our location structure. We wrote those subjects on sticky notes and placed them on whiteboards that were divided into quarters of the year. We worked on planning parallel timelines; one for the potential ERM-focused implementation and one for implementing all of FOLIO. The discussion that followed helped us think through the need to consider our timelines and make sure that staff are not overbooked on the different tasks that need to be done at the same time. We continued the discussion into our next meeting with discussion on how to organize smaller working groups and be sure that we are addressing the cross-app features (locations and item states are two) in a functional way. In the past, we’ve organized our working groups into functional areas and we need to take the time and decide if that’s the right decision for this implementation.

ERM-Focused Applications

So what does it mean to have an “ERM-Focused” implementation? An ERM system keeps track of agreements, licences, usage statistics and can help with the workflow involved in managing electronic resources. Virginia Martin and Julie Brannon developed a presentation showing what FOLIO apps would be involved, and how we might use them. Duke is not using an ERM application right now, so having one would be a benefit to us, making it easier to answer questions that come up about our electronic resources.

FOLIO ERM Overview Slides 9_5_19

Library Systems and Integration Support Update

An update of Aleph being is planned. OIT is requesting that we update Oracle to the most recent version. In order to update Oracle, we’ll need to update Aleph to the most recent version. Fortunately, a whole upgrade with new servers and a fresh installation won’t be necessary, but we will have to schedule a short window of downtime, tentatively planned for the December break. There are some new features which we’ll share soon, so we’ll need staff to help thoroughly test those as well as testing our regular tasks to be sure everything works as expected.

Watch This!

The most recent FOLIO Forum included an overview of apps that are included in acquisitions.

Bee Facts

Did you know that Pranayama is the Hatha yoga practice of breath control? And that it includes the “bee breath”?

In this issue:

Save the Date!

FOLIO Community Working Meeting

Steering Group Update

Feature Prioritization and Gap Analysis Results

Library Systems and Integration Support Update

Thinking about Testing

Watch This!

Bee Facts

Save The Date!

The Steering Group will be hosting a FOLIO forum on Monday, August 12 at 10:00 a.m. in the Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Rubenstein 153). All library staff are invited. An agenda will be forthcoming.

FOLIO Community Working Meeting, Crystal City, VA, June 17-19

The FOLIO community has scheduled a working meeting in June. Many of the special interest groups will be taking advantage of this face-to-face time where more can be done than over conference calls. A few of the topics will be discussing strategic plans and road maps, sharing implementation plans between institutions, and working on functional and technical requirements. Around ten library staff from Duke will be attending. Once the final schedule has been created, we’ll share it with you. Look for a recap of the meeting from the Duke attendees in the next newsletter.

Steering Group Update

The Steering Group is starting to plan a FOLIO Forum to be held this summer: the agenda and the date will be forthcoming.

Last month, we discussed the FOLIO Community Working Meeting, who would attend, and what Duke needs from this face-to-face opportunity.

Karen is now the convener for the FOLIO Implementers Group, which includes a primary contact from each institution that is planning to implement FOLIO over the next year. It’s a group to discuss documentation and how it will be presented, what progress each institution is making toward their implementation, and to share ideas and tools to help each other. You can read the about the FOLIO Implementers Group here and find the minutes, members, and details on the members’ implementations.

Feature Prioritization and Gap Analysis Results

Our Business Analysts, with help from local stakeholders, completed the feature prioritization and gap analysis. They reviewed 468 features on the list prepared by the FOLIO Project Manager. We held multiple meetings with stakeholders to make decisions on what is needed at the time we go-live vs. what could wait, or what we won’t need. After the feature prioritization was done, they reviewed the notes they’ve taken from interviews they’ve conducted, read through hundreds of documented FOLIO issues, listened in on SIG meetings, and created a list of 99 features that Duke gaps that were not clearly stated in any of the existing FOLIO documentation. Some of those gaps that were identified were issues that other institutions had assumed would be included, but were not clearly defined in the available documentation. Other gaps identified are Duke-specific and we will be following up to be sure they’re included in future development.

Library Systems and Integration Support Update

The staff in LSIS have been balancing work on FOLIO with other projects such as the authorities process and reports that have been requested. Our Business Analysts, Erin, Jackie, and Julie, have continued with interviewing staff about their workflows. Matt, our Data Analyst, has been working on the authorities project with Tech Services and creating reports. Over the next few weeks, he will shift his focus to working on data migration mapping from Aleph to FOLIO. Jeff, our developer, has been working on installing FOLIO and all the associated pieces in preparation for working with Jack Hill (Core Services) to be able to easily create multiple FOLIO servers. Jeff has also started work on writing the code to extract data from Aleph to load into FOLIO. He and Matt will work together to be sure the data manipulations in the current extract are documented for our subject matter experts. All this in anticipation of having a Duke copy of FOLIO running for you to use! Our goal is to have a test server for you with Duke data before school starts in August.

Thinking about Testing

By Jackie Gottlieb, Business Analyst, Library Systems and Integration Support

While testing our implementation of FOLIO may not be on most minds yet, the preparation has begun. Effective testing is key to a successful project. In order to effectively test, we need to know what to test and have a plan on how we will perform the tests.  It begins with the interviews being conducted. We are learning your roles, processes, and needs that are translated into expectations and business requirements. For each requirement to be met, there are typically numerous criteria to fulfill. These are called “acceptance criteria” and also serve as Test Cases that require one or more steps to perform as part of the test.

An example of a business requirement is, “As a FOLIO user, font size, style, and color must be configurable by me so that it meets my visual screen needs.” Acceptance Criteria includes, “Font style, size, and color is accessible by user.” ”It can be individually changed by each user.” “Font changes are saved and remain in that same configuration each time user logs in.” Test steps would be, “Log in,” “click on the Font button,” “select and change STYLE,” etc…

As we contact you for your interview, you are helping with this process by openly sharing what you do and how you do it. Thank you each of you who have greatly helped with this process and those who will soon be contacted for interviews.

We are currently exploring testing options and anticipate a plan in place in the coming months.  Stay tuned for part II when we share decisions how testing will be performed and how you will be able to participate.

Watch This!

Upcoming Folio Forum: Roadmap and Bellis Release Demo 

Wednesday, May 29 11:00 a.m.

Room Bostock 024 is reserved for viewing this event, or you may register at the link above to watch on your own.

Description: The FOLIO development continues to move forward, and in April FOLIO introduced the Bellis release. In this forum, you will hear an update on the development roadmap and see a demo of some of the FOLIO Library Services Platform apps. Harry Kaplanian will present deliverables of the roadmap and projections on development in functional areas while Theodor Tolstoy and Lisa Sjogren will show the apps from the perspective of the Chalmers University installation. Presenters: – Harry Kaplanian, Senior Director of Product Management, Software Services, EBSCO Information Services – Theodor Tolstoy, FOLIO Lead Implementation Consultant, EBSCO Information Services – Lisa Sjogren, Librarian, Chalmers University Please use the hashtag #FOLIOforum on social media for these events.

Bee Facts

Steering Group Update

The FOLIO project has asked each implementing site to do a feature prioritization and gap analysis by the end of April. The Steering Group charged the Library Systems and Integration Support team with leading the work. The FOLIO Implementer Group’s charge regarding the feature prioritization/gap analysis can be found on the FOLIO wiki. This is the spreadsheet listing all the features that are to be ranked, lists the related FOLIO issues, and includes the 2018 responses from schools that had planned to go live in 2019. You may find the videos that have been produced as part of this process of interest. They are linked in the Watch This! section below.

Locally, the LSIS team has been holding reviews of the list with DUL staff who have been serving on the FOLIO SIGs, since they have been involved with the FOLIO conversations thus far. Please feel free to review the spreadsheet and any of the FOLIO issues in areas you’re interested in, but please do not fill in answers on the official FOLIO spreadsheet. Instead, please forward your questions to Julie Brennon, Jackie Gottlieb, Matt Harrington, Erin Nettifee, or Karen Newbery.

Reporting Special Interest Group Update

By Angela Zoss, Ph.D., Assessment and Data Visualization Analyst, Assessment & User Experience

I’ve been attending the weekly meetings for the FOLIO Reporting SIG since last September. The Reporting SIG is focused on:

• gathering data on the reporting needs of institutions implementing FOLIO
• sharing report requirements and reporting expertise with developers of any FOLIO apps that are implementing internal reports
• guiding the development of a “data warehouse” that will collect data across FOLIO apps and support broad reporting needs

The SIG spent much of last year gathering and prioritizing specific report requirements from member institutions, and we are just ramping up on the development of the data warehouse (officially known as the Library Data Platform, or LDP). The LDP is not an app like the other FOLIO apps. Instead, the LDP is being built as a relational database using open source database software called PostgreSQL.

For the last few months I’ve been directly involved in the design of the LDP through my participation in a report prototyping subgroup. The subgroup starts by looking for specific reports that have been requested by multiple institutions and rated as high priorities. Then the fields specified in the requirements for that report are matched up with data elements in the data storage modules for the FOLIO apps. Those data elements are then organized into the growing database schema for the LDP, according to both best practices and ease of use for report writers. Once the schema has been updated, LDP developers generate fake data to fill up the database tables and enable queries. Finally, the subgroup writes SQL code that can be used to generate the original report requested.

Using a relational database means that any reporting tool that can pull data from a database can be used with the LDP – we won’t be locked into one particular reporting interface. The report prototype subgroup has created a GitHub repository for sharing SQL code for different reports, and subgroup members have been testing that code in various reporting tools (e.g., Tableau, R, Crystal Reports, Aqua Data Studio). Some tools can ingest SQL code directly, whereas others may need a bit of transformation. Documenting processes like that and/or sharing additional code for particular tools will be ongoing work for the subgroup.

At Duke, though, we ultimately hope to implement a generalized reporting interface that can make it easy to create custom queries on the fly without having to learn or use the SQL code to query the LDP directly. More on that project in the months to come!

Business Analyst Update

By Julie Brannon, Business Analyst, Library Systems and Integration Support

“What are the biggest challenges in your role?” 

“Tell me about the tasks you perform each day…” 

“What are the biggest pain points you experience in Aleph?’ 

If these questions sound familiar, then you’ve likely spent time with one of the IT Business Analysts as we delve into conversations with a list of approximately 120 staff members from across DUL and the professional libraries.  We’re eager to gather existing documentation about existing processes, learn how you do what you do, listen to your perspectives about the transition to FOLIO, and transcribe your vision of future functionality.   

These interviews are the highlight of my workday and I’ve already enjoyed the opportunity to meet with 17 interesting and welcoming professionals who are patient and generous with their time.  These discussions provide the basis for inventories of existing business process, lists of reports and services, and system integrations.  We’re busy translating those conversations into process workflow diagrams, business requirements, and future test cases. 

So, if you haven’t already, please start gathering those documents, examples, complaints, and wish lists because sooner or later one of us may stop by your desk to ask “So, what documents about your work currently exist?” or “What reports do you wish you could run?” 

Watch This!

Have you seen FOLIO yet? Check out these video overviews! These videos were produced to show the new features that we’re prioritizing, but they show more than that. Get a feel for how different apps work, how to navigate in FOLIO  and what some of the screens look like!

ERM Functionality and Time Line

Bee Facts

The FOLIO@Duke Newsletter is a communications tool intended to keep staff abreast of news, schedules and important information regarding the development and implementation of FOLIO at Duke. We will regularly convey four main cornerstones of the project in each newsletter. Those cornerstones are Steering Group Updates, highlights of the project’s driving values and road map, discussion of FOLIO design and functionality, and updates about Duke’s migration activities and timeline.

In this issue:

FOLIO Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

Thank you to all who have served on the various SIGs and SIG Subgroups! Your work helps make sure Duke’s needs are met by FOLIO.

Product Council

Data Migration

Reporting

Special Collections Working Group

User Management

Resource Access

Metadata Management

Resource Management

Consortia

Accessibility

FOLIO Implementation Group

Steering Group Update

The Data Retreat was held on February 11, and included participants from across the Duke University Libraries, facilitators, and representatives from technical services from the Goodson Law Library and the Ford Library. The focus was creating a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) for DUL owned catalog, acquisitions, patron, and circulation data. We discussed data standards that are currently in use, challenges we face when data we receive is inconsistent, and the importance of having the systems external to our ILS having access to consistent data. There was agreement that it was time well spent and that another retreat should be held.

Watch This!

Folio Year in Review:

• Christopher Spalding, EBSCO 
• Michael Winkler, OLE 
• Sebastian Hammer, Index Data

The leaders of the FOLIO project review highlights from the year past and discuss what they’re looking forward to in 2019.

Folio Roadmap Update

Presenter: Harry Kaplanian

Harry Discusses the FOLIO decision making of organizing the Jira issues for the project as well as lays out a FOLIO Milestones chart (at 18:24) with the planned releases up to Q2 2020.

Bee Facts

Cook something delicious using honey!