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Create an SDI profile

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Discover how to create an SDI profile in OLIB.

SDI Profiles are created in the Notices domain as with the SDI Alerts. SDI Profiles can be created by staff using OLIB or by end users via the OPAC.

Create a new profile in OLIB Web

  1. Go to Alerting > Notices and click New Record.
  2. Edit the fields below.

Update existing profiles

  1. Go to Alerting> Notices.
  2. Change the search option in Other Searches to SDI Profiles by Description. Find any new notices as entered by users and edit them if required.
     Note: The user who created the profile is defined as the ‘Owner’.
  3. Ensure that the profile is linked to the default alert by selecting it in the Parent Notice field.
  4. Amend any other settings as required and ensure that the profile is enabled.
Field Description
Notice No. A unique, system-generated record number.
Notice Type Should be set to SDI Profile.
Location/User Category Not currently relevant to SDI profiles.
* (Notice) Locations The SDI profile can be Location specific for items added to the catalogue at a specific Location. Enter one or more Location Key IDs surrounded by semi colon ';'. For example ;MAIN;OCLC; With this setting the user will only receive notifications for items added to Main library and OCLC library.

 Note: This feature works in conjunction with the fields Include Accessioned Titles / Copies.
Users A list box linking to the Users to whom the SDI alert will be sent. If the SDI profile was entered by a User in the OPAC, this field will automatically contain that User, who will be flagged as the 'owner' of the SDI profile. To flag a User as the owner in the Notices domain, select the User and in Actions select Flag As Owner. Note that only one User can be flagged as the owner at any one time. If you flag a new User as the owner, the owner status will be automatically removed from the current owner.
Media Type/Copy Category Not currently relevant to SDI profiles.
Media Types Use this field to send SDI alerts that include new titles added since the Last Sent date with one of the media types specified in this field. Enter the media types as a semi-colon separated list of media type Key IDs with a semi-colon as the first and last character, e.g. ;BKM;SART;
Brief/Full Description A 13-character/200-character free-text description of the SDI profile.
Parent Notice A link to the parent SDI Alert notice record to be used when generating the SDI alert. The parent notice specifies the From address, the CC address, the BCC address, the Subject and, most importantly, the Notice Text, i.e. what should be included in the alert.
Notice Text/From Address Taken from the parent notice. Can be specified here if required. Anything entered in these fields will be used in preference to the equivalent fields from the parent notice record. System managers can specify whether to include the bibliographic details of each item in the alert (by using the Copies #ITEM#…#/ITEM# hash tag set) or whether to just include a URL which will take the user to the list of new items in the OPAC.
Transmit Type Not relevant to SDI profiles.
To List A free-text field to specify what email addresses to send the SDI alert to. By default, OLIB uses the email addresses in the User records listed in the Users list box. The To List field can be used to override this if required.
CC List/BCC List/Subject Line Taken from the parent notice. Can be specified here if required. Anything entered in these fields will be used in preference to the equivalent fields from the parent notice record.
Enabled When a parent notice is specified, this field is not relevant to an SDI profile record. However, if the Notice Text field is completed in the SDI profile record, the alert will only be sent if Enabled is set to Yes.
Subjects A list box linking to the SDI subjects. New titles which are linked to at least one of the subjects in this list box, or to all of them depending on the And/Or setting (see below), will be included in the SDI alert.
And/Or A flag to indicate whether the subjects in the Subjects list box should be AND'ed or OR'd.
No. Levels The number of levels to traverse down the thesaurus hierarchy. For example, if 2 is entered in this field, when the system is adding new titles to the SDI alert, it will add titles linked to an SDI subject's children and grand-children as well as titles linked to the SDI subject itself. If it is left blank, OLIB will automatically traverse the entire depth of the thesaurus hierarchy, beginning with the specified term. To prevent the system from traversing the hierarchy, enter a 0 in this field.
Search String A 200-character free-text field containing a keyword search string. New titles which match this keyword search string will be included in the SDI alert. This is a standard keyword search, so it searches for the word(s) anywhere in the record.You enter exactly what you would enter if you were doing a keyword search in the OPAC or in OLIB Web. Phrase searching is done by surrounding the phrase with double quotes.
* Incl. Acc. Titles Include the title in the SDI alert if it matches the SDI Profile and if the accession date falls within the period of the SDI alert. If the Notice Locations field is set – then only titles with copies which match those locations will be included in the SDI alert. Note that you must set the Accession date of the titles while cataloguing to enable this function.
* Incl. Acc. Copies Include the title in the SDI alert if it matches the SDI profile and if one or more copies (which match the locations) have been accessioned within the period of the SDI alert then the alert will be sent regardless of the Accession Date of the title. Note that the Accession date is automatically set on copies as you create them (through cataloguing or acquisitions).

If both Include Accessioned Titles and Include Accessioned Copies are set to yes then only those items which match the Notice Locations and match the title accession date and the copy accession date will be included in the SDI notice. In a federal system it is expected that the settings will be:
  • Notice Locations: One or more locations for your part of the system.
  • Include Accessioned Titles: No.
  • Include Accessioned Copies: Yes.
This will mean that if you add a copy to a title already in the system (held by another location) then your user will be alerted that you now have this item.
SDI Profile Setps

Run Search		 Not normally required - for a specialised implementation only.
Public SDI Profile A Yes/No flag to indicate whether the SDI profile will be accessible to other Users in the OPAC so that they can subscribe to it.
Min. Items The minimum number of items that have to be included in the alert before it is sent.
Created By A free text field to specify when the first SDI alert should be sent.
Frequency A date/time field to indicate when the last SDI alert was sent. OLIB populate this field every time daystart processes the alert. Titles catalogued after this date will be included in the next SDI alert.
Start Date/Time A date/time field to indicate when the SDI alert should next be sent. If this field is set, OLIB will send an SDI alert at this time on this day irrespective of the Frequency and Last Sent date/time. When the alert is sent, the Next Send On field will be cleared and subsequent alerts will be sent at the specified frequency starting from this date/time.
Last Sent OLIB includes records in the SDI alert that have been catalogued since the date in the Last Sent field. It also limits it to records that were catalogued on or before the date specified in the End On field. Normally this field is left blank, so that all records catalogued since the Last Sent date are included. However, you can use the End On field to force OLIB to include records catalogued between two dates by setting both the Last Sent and End On dates accordingly.

 Note: The End On field is not cleared when an SDI alert is sent. You will need to clear it manually if you wish the system to revert to processing the SDI profile as normal.

*If these fields are required, the System Manager can add them in Layout Manager.