Getting started with Portfolio

To get started using Portfolio, you should first understand the different parts of the Portfolio system and how they work together. Portfolio has three main parts: a Searching interface where patrons search for library items, an administration tool (called the “Admin console”) to configure and customize the Searching interface, and an agent (called the “Discovery ILS Agent”) that extracts and indexes data from your ILS server to use with the Searching interface.

Before you begin configuring and using your Searching environment, you must establish communication between your ILS database and the Discovery ILS Agent so that the Discovery ILS Agent can extract bib and item data from your ILS database and make it available to Portfolio for searching. Once this communication has been established, the Discovery ILS Agent can extract and index your bib and item data.

When the Discovery ILS Agent extracts and indexes your library data, it extracts and indexes specific tags from your item and bib records. The information in these specific tags is displayed in various places throughout the Searching interface. You should review the information about how the tags from your ILS data are used within the Searching interface.

Lastly, you should be able to recognize unexpected software errors that may occur in Searching or in the Admin console, and be aware of how Portfolio recovers from them.

This section explains these topics: