Polaris 8.2
Polaris 8.2 is currently expected to be released at the end of October. Many parts of the upgrade are already complete so Clarivate is primarily focusing on fixing problem reports with the time they have before the update launch. Because they were ahead of schedule on feature implementation, they have been able to add in some additional features to the update such as additional links between workforms, find tool updates, and more.
Clarivate’s data privacy team is adding in the OneTrust banner to Leap, which will be Clarivate branded and used to notify staff of the existing Leap analytics. As a reminder, Leap analytics track button clicks and page views, but will not gather specific data such as names etc. Staff will have the ability to opt out but can later go back into their Leap settings to turn it back on if desired.
SimplyReports will now support both OAuth and basic authentication.
Item templates are being updated to have categories so that English language will no longer have to be hard coded into the name of the template. All existing item templates will auto-select the category based on the template name when the update occurs. These new categories can only be added or edited in Leap. Libraries can choose to keep the template prefixes in their template names or remove them. Resource sharing templates for INN-Reach and Rapido will continue to require specifically formatted template names.
Polaris 8.3
Many 8.3 updates were still TBD at the time of the meeting, but here are some items that are being considered. Clarivate is working on updating logic to costs for holds to make it based on material type, etc.
Because multiple libraries have found ways to update routing slips on their own, Clarivate is now adding a direct way to configure some of these aspects of routing slips.
They are also looking back into Book Club Holds which would allow staff to create multiple holds all at once without having to make multiple individual item level holds.
They are working on moving course reserves into Leap.
Lots of minor improvements regarding Acquisitions.
Polaris Updates and Patches
PIAC asked if Polaris updates would ever move to a more frequent model like Vega. Clarivate stated that they currently have no intention to move to more frequent updates. Previously they considered quarterly updates and that required them to concentrate more on smaller updates that could be achieved in that shorter amount of time and had to sacrifice making larger updates. But, to help this process overall Clarivate is also looking into ways to improve patching, making it faster and more readily available.
Problem Reporting
PIAC had reviewed open problem reports and submitted some to Clarivate for review that were found to be of high priority. Clarivate stated that submitting at this point right before an update was ideal as it gave them a list to work off of with priorities set by users and they were even able to let us know some of those problems had already been resolved with this most recent update.
Customizable TOMs
Clarivate is working on a video on the marc expression language (MEL) on the admin side to help regarding custom TOMs. For features directly related to this, it might not be viable to change information directly in the table at this time. Clarivate is investigating options with the Data Explorer and AI assistant, as that will be more effective.