Settings¶

Application version¶

This field shows the current version of the software. The value cannot be edited but is automatically updated when AtoM is upgraded to a newer release.

For more information on installing AtoM and searching for different versions, see:

• Installing AtoM with:
  • Linux
  • Windows
  • Mac OS X
• Search for updates

Check for updates¶

If yes is selected, an administrator will automatically receive a notification if a newer version of the AtoM software has been released and can be installed. This notification will appear in the browser for authenticated (i.e. logged in) users, as an orange bar across the top of the application alerting users to the newest release available.

This image shows a themed AtoM installation at the City of Vancouver Archives, showing an update notification in orange at the top of the screen. Only authenticated users will see this notification.

For more information on updates, see:

• Search for updates

Maximum image width (pixels)¶

One of AtoM’s design assumptions is that the display dimensions of files users upload typically will be too large to fit into the view page for an archival description. Therefore, when you upload a file, AtoM creates a reference display copy for displaying in the view page.

AtoM ships with a default setting specifying the maximum width of the reference display copy at 480 pixels. This is the optimized width given AtoM’s field width. Administrators, however, can increase or decrease the maximum reference image width to suit the requirements of their institution or network.

Results per page¶

By default, AtoM lists objects in list pages and search results ten at a time, with a pager at the bottom of the page to allow users to navigate through long lists of objects. Administrators can increase or decrease this default number.

For more information on navigating in AtoM, see Searching in AtoM and Navigating in AtoM.

Enable accession mask¶

This setting controls whether or not the Accession mask (described in the section below) is enabled or not.

When this setting is set to “yes,” then when a user creates a new accession record, the Accession number field will be prepopulated with the next unique value based upon the Accession mask settings - users can still manually edit the pre-populated value provided by the mask, so long as a unique number is used.

When this setting is set to “no,” then the accession mask will not be used, and when creating a new accession record, the accession number field will be blank.

See:

• Add a new accession record
• Accession mask

Accession mask¶

When working with an accession record, AtoM requires that a unique Accession number be added - for more information, see: Add a new accession record. To help ensure that accession record numbers are created in a consistent and unique manner, AtoM includes an accession mask, which can define a pattern by which the next unique accession number is generated. Turning the mask on or off is controlled by the setting described above, Enable accession mask.

On installation, the accession mask is enabled by default, and prepopulated with a suggested value that will generate unique accession numbers. Expressed in the mask setting as %Y-%m-%d/#i, this value will generate a unique accession number for every new accession record compiled from the following elements: YEAR-MONTH-DAY/Incremental#. So for example with the default mask setting, the first accession you create, if it was generated on January 01, 2018, would have an accession number of 2018-01-01/1.

This mask, or default counter, can be changed by an administrator to suit institutional needs, using text strings and PHP strftime parameters. To add leading zeroes to the unique incrementing number for example, you can add more i characters to the mask setting - so for example %Y-%m-%d/#iii would lead to incremental numbers like 001, 002, 003, etc.

The value of the incremental number is based on the Accession counter value, described below. An administrator can choose to manually change or reset the counter number if desired.

For more information on accession records, see Accessions.

Accession counter¶

AtoM provides you with the number of accessions created. If you delete an accession, it will still be included in the Accession counter total value. If this number is changed by an administrator, the next accession created will receive the next number in sequence. The value of this counter is used to inform the incremental value used in the Accession mask, described above.

Enable identifier mask¶

This setting controls whether or not the Identifier mask (described in the section below) is enabled or not.

When this setting is set to “yes,” then when a user creates a new archival description, the Identifier field will be prepopulated with the next unique value based upon the Identifier mask settings - users can still manually edit the pre-populated value provided by the mask. AtoM does not enforce the uniqueness of archival description identifier values.

When this setting is set to “no,” then the identifier mask will not be used to pre-populate identifier values, and when creating a new archival description, the identifier field will be blank. However, a Generate identifier option will still be provided below the field - if clicked, then the settings defined in the Identifier mask will be used to populate the field.

See:

• Add a new archival description
• Identifier mask

Identifier mask¶

The Identifier mask can be used to manage the creation of unique archival description identifier values when creating new descriptins. By enabling the identifier mask, all descriptions created through the user interface will be assigned an identifier based on a pre-defined pattern.

On installation, the identifier mask is disabled by default - to change this, use the Enable identifier mask setting described above.

The identifier mask is prepopulated with a suggested value that will generate unique identifiers. Expressed in the mask setting as %Y-%m-%d/#i, this value will generate a unique identifiers for every new archival description created, comprised of the following elements: YEAR-MONTH-DAY/Incremental#. So for example with the default mask setting, the first description you create, if it was created on January 01, 2018, would have an identifier of 2018-01-01/1. The value of the parameter, #i, represents the Identifier counter value.

This mask, can be changed by an administrator to suit institutional needs, using text strings and PHP strftime parameters. To add leading zeroes to the unique incrementing number for example, you can add more i characters to the mask setting - so for example %Y-%m-%d/#iii would lead to incremental numbers like 001, 002, 003, etc.

The value of the incremental number is based on the Identifier counter value, described below. An administrator can choose to manually change or reset the counter number if desired.

It is also possible to replace an existing archival description identifier with one based on the identifier mask by editing a description and selecting Generate identifier below the identifier field.

For more information on creating archival descriptions, see:

• Add a new archival description

Identifier counter¶

The identifier counter defines incremental integer at the end of a generated identifier, represented in the identifier mask as #i. AtoM provides you with a count of the number of archival description records created via the user interface. This value is then used as part of the Identifier mask as the incrementing number value.

Deleting an archival description will not affect the counter - it simply adds the next integer, rather than looking for unused integers. If this number is changed by an administrator, the next accession created will receive the next number in sequence.

Reference code separator¶

The reference code separator is the character separating hierarchal elements in a reference code (see Inherit reference code, below).The default reference code separator appears as a dash - in AtoM, which can be changed by an administrator to suit institutional practices.

Back to top

Inherit reference code (information object)¶

When this is set to “yes”, the reference code string will be built using the archival description identifier plus the identifier of all its ancestors (parent records), as well as the repository identifier and country code if they have been entered. The string will appear in this order with the applicable elements:

• Country code (derived from the country code of the country entered into the contact information of the related archival institution)
• Repository identifier (derived from the identifier field on the related archival institution)
• Fonds/Collection level identifier
• Series identifier
• Subseries identifier
• File identifier
• Item identifier

When reference code inheritance is enabled, AtoM will also display the full reference code in the edit page for archival descriptions, as contextual information to help orient the user.

Back to top

Escape special characters from searches¶

This setting allows users to define special characters that should be escaped when performing a search, to avoid errors.

AtoM uses Elasticsearch (ES) as its search index. In ES, certain characters are normally reserved to be used as operators in advanced searching - for more information, see: Advanced search using the AtoM Search box - particularly, Boolean operators. Normally, if you want to perform a search using these special characters without them being interpreted as operators, then you need to manually escape them with a \ leading backslash character. From the ES documentation:

If you need to use any of the characters which function as operators in your query itself (and not as operators), then you should escape them with a leading backslash. For instance, to search for (1+1)=2, you would need to write your query as \(1\+1\)\=2.

The reserved characters are: + - = && || > < ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \ /

Failing to escape these special characters correctly could lead to a syntax error which prevents your query from running.

Many institutions prefer to use a / slash character as the default Reference code separator. This can lead to errors for users trying to search for full reference code strings. However, with this setting, you can define characters (such as the /) that you wish to be automatically escaped when a search string is submitted as a query.

You can add multiple escape characters to the field by separating them with commas:

Back to top

Sort browser (users)¶

This setting controls the default sort order of records shown on Browse pages in AtoM - specifically, archival description results. Sorting can always be changed by users via the sort button available on related search and browse pages, but an administrator can use this setting to control the default sort when arriving on the page for the first time.

Administrators can configure default sort order for the browse display for both authenticated (i.e. logged in) and unauthenticated (i.e. public) users - this setting controls the default sort of records for logged in users, while the setting described below, Sort browser (anonymous), affects the default sort for public users.

Options available include:

• Alphabetic: A-Z (but see the IMPORTANT admonition below) based on the title or authorized form of name
• Last updated: Will show the records most recently created or edited first
• Identifier: A-Z (but see the IMPORTANT admonition below) based on the unique identifier value added to the record
• Reference code: A-Z (but see the IMPORTANT admonition below) based on the reference code associated with the description. See the related setting, Inherit reference code (information object) for more information.

Important

The Alphabetic, Identifier, and Reference code sorts are all based on what is sometimes known as ASCII sort - that is, the sort is not a true alphabetic sort as humans think of it, but rather as computers do.

Elasticsearch does not naturally apply alphabetic sort in a human-friendly way (what is often known as “natural sort” in computer science) - instead, it applies what is known as ASCII sort, based on the order of the characters in the ASCII character encoding scheme. Consequently, some results may appear out of order, depending on how the values have been entered. Artefactual hopes to improve sorting in AtoM for future releases. In the meantime, below is an image of an ASCII table - sort order is determined based on this schema - so that a description whose title starts with “A” will be preceded by one starting with a number, which in turn will be preceded by one beginning with a quotation mark, which will be preceded by a description that begins with a space before its first character. If you are concerned about sort order, be sure to consider this when naming your records.

By default in a new installation, the sort order is set to “Last updated” for authenticated users. However, users have the option to reorder the page while browsing via the sort button located at the top of most browse pages.

Sort browser (anonymous)¶

This setting controls the default sort order of records shown on Browse pages in AtoM - specifically, archival description results. Sorting can always be changed by users via the sort button available on related search and browse pages, but an administrator can use this setting to control the default sort when arriving on the page for the first time.

Administrators can configure default sort order for the browse display for both authenticated (i.e. logged in) and unauthenticated (i.e. public) users - this setting controls the default sort of records for public (i.e. anonymous; unauthenticated) users, while the setting described above, Sort browser (users), affects the default sort for logged in users.

Options available include:

• Alphabetic: A-Z (but see the IMPORTANT admonition below) based on the title or authorized form of name
• Last updated: Will show the records most recently created or edited first
• Identifier: A-Z (but see the IMPORTANT admonition below) based on the unique identifier value added to the record
• Reference code: A-Z (but see the IMPORTANT admonition below) based on the reference code associated with the description. See the related setting, Inherit reference code (information object) for more information.

Important

The Alphabetic, Identifier, and Reference code sorts are all based on what is sometimes known as ASCII sort - that is, the sort is not a true alphabetic sort as humans think of it, but rather as computers do.

Elasticsearch does not naturally apply alphabetic sort in a human-friendly way (what is often known as “natural sort” in computer science) - instead, it applies what is known as ASCII sort, based on the order of the characters in the ASCII character encoding scheme. Consequently, some results may appear out of order, depending on how the values have been entered. Artefactual hopes to improve sorting in AtoM for future releases. In the meantime, below is an image of an ASCII table - sort order is determined based on this schema - so that a description whose title starts with “A” will be preceded by one starting with a number, which in turn will be preceded by one beginning with a quotation mark, which will be preceded by a description that begins with a space before its first character. If you are concerned about sort order, be sure to consider this when naming your records.

By default in a new installation, the sort order is set to “Alphabetic” for public users. However, users have the option to reorder the page while browsing via the sort button located at the top of most browse pages.

Default repository browse view¶

This setting will determine if the “card view” or the “table view” is the default view for the archival institution browse page, when users first arrive on the page.

Tip

Regardless of which setting you choose, any user can easily toggle between the card view and the table view on the archival institution browse page, using the view toggle button that appears to the right of the archival institution search box:

For more information on working with archival institutions, see:

• Browse archival institutions
• Search archival institutions
• Archival Institutions

Multiple repositories¶

Select “yes” if your AtoM application is acting as a union list or portal for descriptions of materials held at more than one archival institution or repository. The repository will appear as a column on the “Browse archival descriptions” page. The repository will appear as a link in the context menu.

Select “no” if your AtoM application is being used only by a single institution. By selecting “no”, the repository name will be excluded from certain displays because it will be too repetitive and the creator rather than the repository will now appear as a column on the list archival description page.

Enable institutional scoping¶

Institutional scoping adds additional visual cues and user interface elements to better support searching and browsing within the holdings of one archival institution when used in a multi-repository system. We strongly recommend that the setting above, Multiple repositories, is set to “Yes” when using this setting.

When enabled (i.e. set to “Yes”), this setting will add an institution block to the repository view page, consisting of the repository logo, as well a dedicated search box and browse menu that will both return results linked to the current archival institution.

Similarly, when an archival description search or browse page is filtered (or “scoped”) to a particular repository, the institution block will appear, and (if applied) the custom background color of the institution will also be displayed behind the scoped search results.

Additionally, the Institutional search box delimiters are disabled when Institutional scoping is enabled - the global search box in the AtoM header bar will only return results from all repositories, while the dedicated search box inside the institution block can be used to search the holdings of the scoped repository. As such, the institution block offers users a method of remaining “scoped” to one institution’s holdings - users can still search and browse across all repositories using the global search box and browse menu found in the AtoM header bar, but the institution block provides a method of better limiting results to one institution as a user explores.

Finally, the institution block will also appear on the view page of a related archival description, but only if the description is arrived at via one of the scoped elements - i.e. the holdings list on the repository view page, or from a scoped search or browse page. If a user arrives at the archival description via a global search or browse page, the institution block will not appear.

An administrator can customize the search box header text via Admin > User interface labels, using the institutionSearchHoldings field - for more information on changing these settings, see: User interface labels. At installation, the default text label is “Search our collection.”

The institution block’s dedicted browse menu can also be customized via Admin > Manage menus, under the browseInstitution menu - for more information on working with menus, see: Manage Menus.

Back to top

Default archival institution upload limit (GB)¶

Enter the upload limit in GB allowed for uploading digital objects. Use “-1” as the value for unlimited upload space. This setting can be modified by an authenticated (i.e. logged-in) administrator.

A value of “0” (zero) disables file upload.

For more information, see Upload and manage digital objects.

Total space available for uploads¶

This field will display the used space for digital objects as well as the total space available.

Upload multi-page files as multiple descriptions¶

Select “yes” if you would like each page of a multi-page file to be attached to a separate child-level description. For example, a PDF file with 10 pages uploaded to a description would result in 10 individual descriptions, one for each page in the file.

Select, “no” if you would like one multi-page file to be attached to a single description.

Show tooltips¶

Tooltips are online text designed to assist users to enter data in edit pages. While adding or editing an archival description, tooltip text is usually derived from the standards on which the edit templates are based (e.g. RAD, ISAD, etc).

Administrators can select “yes” to to have tooltips appear in edit pages as the user enters data. Selecting “no” will disable tooltips.

Generate description permalinks from¶

This setting allows an administrator to determine if the slug (or permalink) generated from an archival description when it is saved is derived from the title, or from the reference code of the description (for more information on how reference codes are constructed in AtoM, see above: Inherit reference code (information object)). By default, AtoM will derive the slug from the title of a description - the title will be sanitized by removing capitalization, spaces, and special characters; it will also be truncated if it exceeds a certain length. Administrators can now choose, via this setting, if they prefer that the slug is derived from the identifier or the reference code (with or without the country and repository code included) instead.

Note that this setting does not apply retro-actively to descriptions already created. It will only apply to new descriptions created after changing the setting.

For further context on slugs in AtoM, see: Notes on slugs in AtoM

Default publication status¶

This setting determines whether new archival descriptions will automatically appear as draft records or published records. Note that this setting also affects imported descriptions. For more information, see Archival Descriptions.

Show available drafts notification upon user login¶

This setting, when enabled, will display a notification with a count of the number of draft archival descriptions currently available in AtoM. A link to the Description updates page is also provided if users wish to review the current available draft records - for more information on working with the Description updates page, see: Description Updates.

This notification, when enabled, will be visible to all authenticated (i.e. logged in) users.

SWORD deposit directory¶

The SWORD deposit directory is currently being used to support packages deposited by Archivematica into AtoM. If you do not know the name of your deposit directory, consult with your systems administrator. The default is /tmp.

Back to top

Google Maps Javascript API key setting¶

This setting allows you to store and use a Google Maps API key - AtoM relies on this setting to be able to add dynamic Google maps to the view page of a repository, and to the Metadata area of a digital object, when latitude and longitude values are provided. For more information on these features, see:

• Add a Google map to an archival institution
• Add dynamic maps to your digital object metadata

You can request a Google Maps API key free of charge - all you need is a Google account. For more information, see:

• https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-api-key

Back to top

Generate archival description reports as public user¶

This setting relates to the creation of file and item-level reports for archival descriptions - for more information, see:

• File and item list reports and printing

This setting determines whether or not Retrieval information is included in the reports generated or not - that is, physical storage information such as location, container type, and name.

When this setting is set to “Yes”, then reports generated will not include physical storage information. When set to “No”, then the reports will include physical storage information.

Back to top

Cache description XML exports upon creation/modification¶

AtoM includes several options for exporting archival description metadata in XML format - for more information, see: Export XML.

Additionally, users can enable the OAI plugin to allow harvesters to collect archival description metadata via the OAI-PMH protocol, in EAD 2002 or Dublin Core XML - for more information, see: OAI Repository.

Normally, when exporting or exposing archival description metadata, the XML is generated synchronously - that is, on request via the web browser. However, many web browsers have a built-in timeout limit of approximately 1 minute, to prevent long-running tasks and requests from exhausting system resources. Because of this, attempts to export or harvest EAD 2002 XML for large descriptive hierarchies can fail, as the browser times out before the document can be fully generated and served to the end user.

To avoid this, AtoM includes this setting, which allows users to pre-generate XML exports via AtoM’s job scheduler, and then cache them in the downloads directory. This way, when users attempt to download large XML files, they can be served directly, instead of having to generate before the browser timeout limit is reached.

When this setting is set to “Yes,” then anytime an archival description is created or modified via the user interface, this will automatically trigger a background job that will generate and cache EAD 2002 XML and DC XML for the related resource. With any new description or edit, two jobs are initiated - one to generate the EAD 2002 XML, and the other to generate the Dublin Core XML.

Highlighted in red is an example of the 2 jobs triggered by an edit to an archival description when the Cache XML setting is turned on - one job to generate an updated version of the cached EAD 2002 XML, and another job to generate an updated version of the cached DC XML.

The XML generated will be cached in AtoM’s downloads directory - 2 subdirectories named ead and dc will automatically be created, and the XML will be stored by type in these two subdirectories.

When users attempt to download XML from the view page of an archival description, AtoM will check if there is a cached copy of the requested XML and if so, it will serve it. If there is no cached version available, then AtoM will fall back to the default behavior of generating the XML on request.

In an OAI-PMH request, if a cached version of the EAD 2002 XML is available, AtoM will serve it in response to oai_ead requests - if there is not a cached version, then AtoM will return a “Metadata format unavailable” reponse. In contrast, if no cached DC XML exists, the OAI Repository module will generate DC XML on the fly to respond to the request. For further information, see: OAI Repository.

By default, cached XML files are generated for public users, meaning that draft descriptions are not included in the XML.

There is also a command-line task available that will generate cached EAD 2002 and DC XML for all existing descriptions. See:

• Generate and cache XML for all archival descriptions

If you are making many edits to your AtoM site, you may want to disable this setting until your edits are complete and then run the command-line task, to avoid constantly triggering many jobs.

Treeview type¶

This setting allows administrators to choose between two different display formats for the treeview. For more information about the treeview in AtoM, see: Treeview.

The Sidebar setting refers to the classic treeview that appears in the left-hand context menu of an archival description. The Full width treeview, introduced in the AtoM 2.3 release, will display below the description title, and above the first information area of the description. The display space of the full-width treeview can be expanded by users by gripping and dragging the bottom bar of the treeview downwards to expand the viewing area.

Other differences include:

• The sidebar version does not indent lower-levels, while indentation is used in the full width treeview
• The Identifier is included in the sidebar treeview nodes. With the full-width treeview, users can configure which elements are included in each node - for more information, see below: Full-width treeview settings.
• The results in the sidebar treeview are truncated - the first 5-6 nodes in the hierarchy are displayed by default, after which an approximate count of remaining nodes in the current level is provided, with the option to expand the results to display more. All nodes are shown in the full-width treeview.

Below are screenshots of the same fonds, shown with each version of the treeview enabled, for comparison.

Sidebar treeview

Full width treeview

For more information on each treeview type, see:

• Sidebar treeview
• Full-width treeview

Sidebar treeview settings¶

Settings in this area relate only to the sidebar treeview. They will not affect the behavior of the full-width treeview.

Full-width treeview settings¶

Settings in this area relate to the functionality and display of the full-width treeview. They do not affect the behavior of the sidebar treeview.

Currently all elements in this section relate to what information is displayed in the treeview for each node. Users can configure whether the identifier/reference code, level of description, and/or dates of creation are included in each node’s display.

When all elements are displayed, the ordering of the metadata elements is as follows:

[Level] ID - Title of description, dates

So for a Series level description with an identifier of 004 called “Photographs” and created in 1959, the display with all elements would be:

[Series] 004 - Photographs, 1959

Each configurable element is described further below.

New 2.4.1 installations¶

Update cookie banner¶

• By default, the new cookie notification banner will be set to “off” in new installations, meaning it will not display unless an administrator enables it. This can be done in Admin > Settings > Privacy Notification.

• The default message will require review, and the URL to the Privacy Policy static page should be updated to match your site’s base URL. Currently the message reads:

  This website uses cookies to enhance your ability to browse and load content. More Info: http://10.10.10.10/privacy
  

Administrators can edit the text of the banner message, and choose whether or not to display the banner when a user accesses your site for the first time. Here’s an example of how the notification banner will look without modification:

• Update the URL in the message to the base URL for your site (see Site information)
• If desired, you can use the current custom link syntax formatting to style the hyperlink - see Formatting for more information

Upgrades to 2.4.1¶

After first upgrading the cookie notification banner will be disabled by default, and the text field empty. Additionally, if no further action is taken, the new default Privacy policy static page will not exist. If you don’t intend to use the banner or need the Privacy policy static page, no further action needs to be taken.

The notification banner can also be enabled without taking any action to create the Privacy policy page. However, if you would like the default Privacy policy static page to appear, a system administrator will need to run the following task following the site upgrade:

php symfony tools:run lib/task/tools/addGdprSettings.php

This task will create the new Privacy policy static page, list it under the Quick links menu, and populate the cookie notification banner with a default message. When enabled (via Admin > Settings > Privacy Notification), here is how the default message will appear:

Follow the instructions above in the section for New 2.4.1 installations to customize the cookie notificiation banner message and the default Privacy policy static page.

Custom theme updates¶

• If you have a custom theme and the file scaffolding.less has been customized, this file will need to be updated. Changes are identified here - see the changes to scaffolding.less
• If a theme has been customized, but the file scaffolding.less is being referenced from the arDominion theme, then there are no modifications required.
  • This can be checked in your theme’s plugins/<themefolder>/css/main.less file. Look for: @import "../../arDominionPlugin/css/less/scaffolding.less"; - if this line is present, no modifications should be required
• Check if _header.php has been overridden in the custom theme. If so, the change highlighted in this issue need to be made
• Post upgrade, run make from your root theme plugin folder to rebuild the CSS, and clear the application cache:
  • If you are using the Dominion theme, run: make -C plugins/arDominionPlugin
  • If you are using a custom theme, then you might want to run the task above for Dominion, as well as for your custom theme: make -C plugins/<yourPluginDirectory
• And finally, in all cases, clear the application cache afterwards: php symfony cc

Back to top