Conifer upgrade: please test!

[Daniel Scott]

Hi, I've set up a test server where you can try a preview of the Evergreen 3.4 release. Conifer currently runs on Evergreen 3.1, so this represents a major upgrade. One of the major changes is that the installed staff client was deprecated with Evergreen 3.1, and is considered obsolete as of 3.2.

I plan to upgrade our production server over the winter holidays.

It would be extremely helpful if you could run through some of your standard workflows to a) learn how to use the web staff client and b) discover where things aren't working, so that I can help you learn the new workflows, or fix problems where you find them. For example, in many cases there might be new permissions required. The more that we find over the next three weeks, the better the upgrade experience will be for everyone.

You can try out the catalogue at:

• Algoma: https://devalgoma.concat.ca/
• Boréal: https://devboreal.concat.ca/
• Huntington: https://devhuntington.concat.ca/
• Laurentian: https://devlaurentian.concat.ca/
• NOSM: https://devnosm.concat.ca/
• USudbury: https://devusudbury.concat.ca/

The web staff client supports the Firefox and Chrome web browsers. You can try out the web staff client at:

• Algoma: https://devalgoma.concat.ca/eg/staff
• Boréal: https://devboreal.concat.ca/eg/staff
• Laurentian: https://devlaurentian.concat.ca/eg/staff
• Huntington: https://devhuntington.concat.ca/eg/staff
• NOSM: https://devnosm.concat.ca/eg/staff
• USudbury: https://devusudbury.concat.ca/eg/staff

The data represents a snapshot of the production server as of September 2019.

One of my main concerns is that recent versions of Evergreen require more server resources. For now I've configured our test server with the same resources as our current production server, but I would appreciate feedback if you run into timeouts, etc, so that I can tune the test server and apply those findings to our production server.

The 3.4 web staff client has been greatly improved, with some interfaces being rewritten to be much faster, and it now includes an automatic offline mode. However, additional configuration will be required for special printing needs, such as call number labels, receipts, etc. I would like to work through & document those steps with some of you.

The 3.4 catalogue offers new features such as carousels (useful for displaying recently added items, special collections, etc).

A summary of the new features for 3.4 is cataloguing, circulation, and public catalog.  You can also see the new features that were added in 3.3 and 3.2.

A set of manuals for acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation, the public catalogue, and serials is available in PDF.

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Dan Scott
Associate Librarian / Bibliothécaire agrégé
Laurentian University / Université Laurentienne