March 17, 2016
Back to Blog
PBO Configuration: Views vs. Institution- and Installation-Level Changes
Written by: Dawn Lowe-Wincentsen, Oregon Institute of Technology, and Stewart Baker, Western Oregon University
A view is a block of settings in Primo Back Office which creates a unique front end interface for Primo. Each view has its own URL, and can contain unique headers, CSS, footers, tabs, scopes, and logos, among other things. Reasons an institution may choose to have more than one view are to offer a different set of options, such as a mobile vs. standard view. Another reason could be to offer different views to different patron sets, such as a view for on campus students or a view for online only students. It is important to note that the number of views affects the time it takes to renormalize and reindex at the alliance level. It is recommended to use views sparingly.
(Example views, from the Ex Libris Knowledge Center.)
Other configuration changes in Primo Back Office affect multiple views. These are described in this document as being changes made at the “institution level”—changes which affect all of a single institution’s views—and changes made at the “installation level”—changes which affect all institutions on the Alliance’s Primo Back Office installation. While each individual institution can change institution-level settings, only the Alliance can make installation-level changes.
Steps for creating, editing, and deleting views
Creating a view
- Log on to the primo back office.
- Go to Ongoing configurations> Views wizard
- At the bottom of the views page see Create a New View.
- Create and alter a new view by entering a name into the textbox and selecting create.
- Create a duplicate of a current view by selecting a current view from the drop down menu.
Modifying an existing view
- Select the Edit button that appears to the right of the views list to edit a view.
Deleting an existing view
- Select the Delete link that appears to the right of the views list to delete a view. Be very cautious when deleting views - this action cannot be reversed!
View-, institution- and installation-level settings
URLs in this section point to the relevant page in the official Primo Back Office Help Guide unless otherwise specified.
View-Level Settings
Many settings are configurable at the view-level. The following list is not meant to be exhaustive, but describes some common settings.
- Settings in the "Edit View" screen
- The name of the view
- The CSS profile for the view (CSS must be loaded to the upload file utility in order to be selectable)
- Mobile CSS profile, if applicable
- The session timeout URL for the view
- The Layout Set for the view (sets must be predefined in the custom layout editor)
- Enable/Disable automatic search when the user switches a tab
- Enable/Disable "personalize your results"
- Search Scopes used by the view
- Tabs used by the view
- Settings in the Tiles screen
- Options available on the Basic Search page
- Options available on the Advanced Search page
- Links included in the main menu
- Any static HTML pages
- Information that appears on the full details page
- Information that appears on the brief results page
- Information that appears on the "Send To" page
- Facets that appear in this view
- Display and information on the location details page
Institution-Level Settings
Settings in this list can be configured by individual institutions, but will affect all that institution’s views instead of just one.
- Edit settings for the institution (in Institution Wizard - note, deletion of institution not supported)
- Create and delete libraries for the institution (in Institution Wizard)
- Manage staff users (create, edit, delete) for the institution
- User authentication configuration for institution
- Manage pipes (create, edit, delete, run) for the institution [[Primo Toolkit Guide]]
- Normalization rules at the institution level (most typically, for digital collections metadata)
- Delivery configuration settings for the institution
- Views configuration for the institution (as described above)
- Export Primo configuration for the institution
- Generate Primo reports for the institution
- Most mapping table settings for the institution, including bX Token and Alma Institution and Library codes (see page 595 in PBO Guide)
- Most code table settings for the institution
Installation-Level Settings
Settings in this list can only be configured by the Alliance. They affect all institutions on the Alliance’s Primo instance.
- Add new institutions to Primo (in Institution Wizard)
- Edit settings for all institutions and institution libraries (in Institution Wizard)
- Delete any institution or library (in Institution Wizard)
- Manage staff users (create, edit, delete) for all institutions
- Access and modify settings under General Configuration (see documentation starting at page 402), including:
- Alerts (frequency, number of items included in alerts, scheduling [days, hour])
- Primo UI (for example, session timeout)
- Remote search (for example, remote search timeout)
- E-mail and SMS (including the setting for the email address(es) who will be notified in a user clicks on the "Help Desk" link to report a problem from a Primo error page - currently set to Al Cornish's and Ray Henry's addresses)
- RTA (for example, RTA timeout)
- User authentication configuration for all institutions
- Manage pipes (create, edit, delete, run) for all institutions
- Normalization mapping tables and rules, Alma central publishing and institutions (including rules related to search, display, facets)
- Delivery configuration settings for all institutions
- Views configuration for all institutions (note, there is no maintained view for the Network Zone or installation)
- Export Primo configuration for any institution
- Generate Primo reports for any institution
- Installation-level mapping tables settings, including: Real-time Availability and all ILS Gateway mapping tables (see page 594 in PBO Guide)
- Code table: Character set, in the Publishing subsystem
- Tools: Create X‐ref, Import/Delete PNX Extensions, Export User Generated Data, and PNX Extensions Loader (see page 320)
- Search engine parameters that affect the indexing process
- Tags and reviews management (currently, not actively employed on Alliance installation)
Comments (0)