The Analytics work group recommends that each CCC Alma institution consider the following guidelines while exploring Alma Analytics:

Preparation

• Differentiate between the personal folder and the shared institutional folder (found at the bottom of the folder tree).
• Set guidelines for when reports are to be placed in the institutional folder.
• Create subfolders in your institutional folder for various functional areas.
• Set a naming convention for shared analyses and dashboards. Names should help your colleagues understand the purpose of the report.
  
• Explore out-of-the-box reports (Catalog - Shared Folders - Alma) by running them on your current data from the test load.
• Decide who amongst your colleagues should be assigned relevant roles. Namely:
• You may choose to assign the Design Analytics role to any library personnel who are interested in gathering reports and are willing to abide by guidelines the institution sets.
• You may want to limit the Analytics Administrator role to those gaining expertise in Analytics. Users with this role can provide reports to others.
• Alma Analytics allows us to schedule the collection of database/e-resource usage data via the SUSHI protocol. To prepare for this, collect information on your institution's SUSHI credentials with various vendors.
• Check Analytics (Primo) for problems; for instance, do you see your institution's folder there and do the out-of-the box reports work? Ex Libris has said there were some problems in provisioning Analytics (Primo)

Resources

In addition to Ex Libris’ documentation, the work group would like to share the following resources with our CCC colleagues as we get started learning to use Ex Libris’ Alma Analytics:

• Video Tutorials from the CSU system. These are brief, extremely helpful introductions to the various areas of Analytics. Note that while the Alma interface has changed since these were shot, Analytics is largely the same. The videos have PDF transcripts as an alternative.
• Alma Analytics Best Practices from the University of Minnesota. Consider making a version of this for your own institution.
• Off-the-Grid Reporting: A Few Handy Reports in Alma Analytics. This was presented at ELUNA 2019 and gives an idea of more advanced functionality. Be sure to explore the University of Tennessee’s shared reports (Catalog - Shared Folders - Community - Reports - Institutions - UTennessee).
• Tips & Tricks for Alma Analytics. An earlier presentation, also from the University of Tennessee.
• Alma Analytics, for Fulfillment. From the University of Kentucky, by Julene L. Jones. This presentation contains some great screenshots with helpful hints.

Next Steps

The Analytics work group will be working on the following tasks:

• Creating toolkits to help institutions report data to the Chancellor’s annual Data Survey and IPEDS;
• Creating a guide to setting up database/e-resource usage tracking, including locating SUSHI credentials for various vendors.