[Archivesspace_Users_Group] Container and Location management reports

[Detelich, Alicia]

Hi Adrien,

We use top containers, container profiles, and locations. Our reporting needs vary, but often they are related to answering questions like:
               “What boxes/materials are in this location?”
“How much space do those boxes occupy?”
“What’s in the box(es)?”
“How many VHS boxes do we have?”
“How many linear feet is collection X?”
“Here’s a list of barcodes that should be in X location, are they actually there?”
“How many boxes are in ArchivesSpace that aren’t associated with a descriptive record?”

To answer these questions, and others, we’ve typically used database queries. The API is not usually the most efficient way to retrieve ArchivesSpace data, though we have used the search endpoints for some reporting functions. For instance, this tool - https://github.com/ucancallmealicia/barcode_search - will take a list of barcodes, which are stored in top container records, and retrieve data about the containers and their associated descriptive records. This helps us to manage transfers of material to off-site storage.

For the most part, though, SQL queries are the way to go. You’ll find a bunch of examples in these repos:
                https://github.com/ucancallmealicia/mysql_demo
                https://github.com/ucancallmealicia/archivesspace-sql
                https://github.com/YaleArchivesSpace/yams_data_auditing

We haven’t used the out-of-the box reporting functionality, but we are considering it now that the module has been updated to allow users to add custom reports using raw SQL. Doing so would allow non-technical users to run these reports without having to ask technical staff for assistance. It has worked well during testing, though I think we as an institution will need to determine some criteria re: which reports we want to add before we start using it, since the reports are shared across repositories.

Hope this helps,

Alicia

Alicia Detelich
Archivist
Manuscripts and Archives
Yale University Libraries

From: <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> on behalf of "Hilton, Adrien" <adrien_hilton at harvard.edu>
Reply-To: Archivesspace Users Group <archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>
Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 9:53 AM
To: "archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org" <archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>
Subject: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Container and Location management reports

Dear Colleagues,

I’m wondering if anyone at a repository that currently uses containers, container profiles, locations, and/or location profiles might offer me some advice regarding reporting.

What kinds of data do you find yourself needing most regularly? How are you getting that data? Customized reporting, out of the box reports, database queries, API, others?

Thanks in advance,
Adrien
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