A practical guide to Analytics brought to you by the Central Analytics Standing Group, based on questions and feedback from Alliance members like you.

On This Page

• General
• Dashboards
• Annual Reports (Including ACRL / IPEDS)
• Analytics in Action Videos
• Service Area Reports
• Advanced
• Need Help?

General

Alma Analytics

Alma Analytics lets you build reports on your institution’s Alma data (Institution Zone or IZ). You can request reports on Network Zone or NZ data. Read details about the difference in accessing IZ vs. NZ data.

• Introduction to Analytics (Video, 12:38)
  • Navigating Alma Analytics
  • Menus, icons, and structure of Analytics
  • Demonstrates how to copy and paste a report
  • Addresses a few key issues you might encounter
  • Covers details about customization and displaying of reports
  • Rearranging columns in the compiled report
• Analytics 101 (PPTX) – Presentation from Summer Meeting 2019
  • General overview of Alma Analytics. Including:
    • Accessing and structure of Alma Analytics
    • Utilizing out-of-the-box analytic reports
    • Retrieving and using community reports
  • Creating a new analytic report:
    • Compiling a report
  • Selection of subject area
    • Adding criteria
    • Adding filters
    • Setting rows to add up to totals
    • Adding views
  • Creating a new dashboard, prompts, and adding reports
  • Adding Analytic widgets in the Alma interface
• Navigating Alma Analytics (PPTX)
• Subject Areas (PDF) – Description of fields including their mappings in Alma and MARC source. Includes a how-to on combining Subject Areas.
• Tips for Analytics Organization (PDF) – Presentation from eBUG 2016
• Sorting Two or More Fields (PDF)
• Display and Styling (Video, 12:15)
  • Editing properties for analysis, tables, and columns
  • Including null values in a report
  • Hierarchy of columns
  • Enabling user interactions across multiple tables
  • Styling and setting sizes for tables and columns
  • Setting column and data formatting,
  • Customizing column headings
  • Conditional formatting for rows and columns
• Modifying the Look of an Analysis (PDF)
  • Changing column heading display
  • Adding totals to the end of columns
  • Coloring every other row.
• Visualizing Analytics (PDF) – Turn your reports into graphs and charts.

Primo Analytics

Primo Analytics is a separate system reached from Primo back office, where you can find reports on how users interact with the Primo discovery system, such as the most popular searches, or the number of times specific facets or devices were used. See the Primo Analytics Guide (PDF).

FAQs

The Analytics FAQs page contains answers to frequently asked questions about Alma/Primo Analytics.

Dashboards

• Dashboard Prompts (Video, 11:52)
• Creating a Dashboard Prompt, Widget, & Emails from a Report (PPTX) – Presentation from Summer Meeting 2019
• Loans by Call Number Range (PDF, July 2016)

Annual Reports

• ACRL Canned Reports (PDF, Updated January 2021)
• ACRL Analytics Review (Video, 35:33)
• IPEDS Canned Reports (PDF, Updated September 2021)

Analytics in Action

• Analytics in Action Videos – A series of videos created in 2019-2020 about using Analytics to instruct and inspire you!
• Index and descriptions of videos.

Service Area Reports

Circulation

• What books loaned the most last year (Video, 5:20)
• Loans by call number range (PDF)
• Loans over the last three days (PDF)

Collection Services

• Alma Analytics Display Network Zone Information (Video, 13:16)
• All items from one barcode (Video, 6:35) – Find all items from a single barcode by using the step feature to retrieve the MMS ID.
• Collections – Tracking Age (Video, 7:53)
• Creating Formulas for Expenditures (Video, 9:06)
• Create an Automated Report on Gift Funds (PDF) – Drill down into various fund transaction types. Work through creating formulas. Remove extraneous text in a column. Create scheduled email reports.
• Monitoring Items in a Request Type (PDF) – Identify items given the request type Equipment to Withdraw so these items can be withdrawn
• Parsing information from the MARC 300 field (PDF)
• Sorting by LC Call Number (PDF)
• Weeding (PDF) – See examples of using Alma Analytics for weeding projects within the scope of three different scenarios

Electronic Resources

• Analytics for Fun and Profit: Post-CDI Cleanup and Beyond (Video, 54:50)
• Counter and SUSHI (PPTX)
• Ebooks Widget Analytics Report: Can be copied from the Analytics Catalog under /shared/Community/Reports/Consortia/Orbis Cascade Alliance/Analytics Group.

Resource Sharing

• Training Materials for the Fulfillment Dashboard (PDF)

Advanced

• Filter an Analysis Based on Another Analysis (Video, 8:08)
• Pivot Tables in a Nutshell (Video, 4:55)
• Copy an Analytics report (Video, 2:44) – For backup or for sending to a colleague.
• Combining & Visualizing Data with Alma (Video, 55:51) – An introduction to the OAS (Oracle Analytics Server) and DV (Data Visualization)

Advanced SQL in Filters and Formulas

• Using SQL & Formulas (PDF) – A short introduction with examples
• Helpful Functions (PDF) – Presentation from eBUG 2016
• Analytics 201 – SQL Statements in Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) (PPTX) – Presentation from Summer Meeting 2019
  • Derive hour, day, etc. from date
  • Date arithmetic
  • Tops, bottoms
• Tips and Tricks with SQL (PDF) – Focuses on time calculations.
• Analytics Trips and Tricks (Video, 54:15) – This presentation on May 10, 2021 focuses on tips and tricks that are useful in most subject areas.
  • Accounting for Lifecycle – 2:23
  • Sorting by call number – 3:56
  • Preventing row merging – 5:58
  • Removing time from a date field – 7:22
  • Conditional formatting (plus bins and local parameters) – 9:11
  • Grouping AND and OR in filters – 15:30
  • Sharing analysis via XML – 21:30
  • Exporting to Excel – formatted v. data – 23:44
  • CountDistinct – 25:39
  • Entering SQL Formulas – 31:04
  • SQL functions for relative date filters – 32:55
  • SQL CASE function to recode values in results – 35:10
  • SQL functions to parse strings – 38:39
  • Creating an Analytics object for reusable code – 40:50
  • Paste a batch of identifiers into a filter – 42:29
  • Separating a large report into smaller reports – 43:56
  • Q&A Session starts – 47:30
• Loans Over the Last Three Days (PDF) – Show loans for the past three days using TIMESTAMPADD, making a graph and widget.
• Using Two Subject Areas (PDF) – Slides from Doris Munson July 2016. Modified 2020.

Need Help?

Take advantage of the wide-spread expertise of the hundreds subscribed to the Alma mailing list. To subscribe to the Alma-L list, please visit the following link: https://exlibrisusers.org/listinfo/alma

Use the Central Analytics Request Form to send CASG any questions or submit ideas for new shared reports.