[Archivesspace_tac] release candidate available - ArchivesSpace v2.8.1-RC1

[Christine Di Bella]

Hello ArchivesSpace members,

The ArchivesSpace team is pleased to announce a release candidate, v2.8.0-RC1. You can download it at https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/releases/tag/v2.8.1-RC1 or test it out without downloading at http://test.archivesspace.org/staff  (username admin /password admin).

This release candidate includes improvements to the spreadsheet importer, additional settable record type preferences, some bug fixes and small feature improvements, additional translations for the public interface and reports, and a number of infrastructure upgrades. Included within these are a number of performance, indexer, and small backend and staff interface improvements courtesy of work Hudson Molonglo developers James Bullen, Mark Triggs, and Payten Giles did for Queensland State Archives as part of a larger project.

For spreadsheet importer fans: Some changes have been made to the spreadsheet importer in this release candidate to extend its functionality and improve its performance, especially with large spreadsheets. Of particular note: there is now a validation option so that a user can do a test run with a file, providing the opportunity to clean up any errors outside ArchivesSpace before doing the actual import; the importer now accepts either Excel spreadsheets or CSV files that use the templates at https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/templates; and, while it is accessed from a resource record or resource component as before, the import now runs as a background job so that it can more easily handle large files and to make the log file downloadable and saved within ArchivesSpace. Also, a number of bugs that were introduced with the conversion of the spreadsheet from a plugin to ArchivesSpace have been fixed for this release.

We encourage you to test these improvements, especially for the spreadsheet importer, with your own data if you can. (Hey, there are worse ways to pass time this week than importing a few gnarly spreadsheets!) Every bit of testing and feedback helps us ensure that the changes are doing what they should and improves the release.

Thanks to the many community members who made contributions to this release, including both individual archives staff and developers, as well as our Development Prioritization sub-team, Testing sub-team, and Core Committers Group. It also benefitted from some friendly Hacktoberfest<https://archivesspace.org/archives/6563> competition among the ArchivesSpace and extended LYRASIS team.

Please try this release candidate out over the next few days and let us know at ArchivesSpaceHome at lyrasis.org<mailto:ArchivesSpaceHome at lyrasis.org> by November 9 if you notice any problems with the specific areas addressed in this release, or if anything that was working before no longer is. Assuming good testing results we're aiming to put out the release itself next week.

Please get in touch if you have any questions. Thanks as always for your feedback and support.

Christine

Christine Di Bella
ArchivesSpace Program Manager
christine.dibella at lyrasis.org<mailto:christine.dibella at lyrasis.org>
800.999.8558 x2905
678-235-2905
cdibella13 (Skype)

[ASpaceOrgHomeMedium]

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