FAQs

• Set-Up
• Testing
• Troubleshooting

Set-up:

The SUNY Library Services E-Resources Training Guide provides a general overview of how to set up SUSHI.

Once you have all of the information that you need, setting up SUSHI is relatively easy. But finding the correct credentials can be challenging and often involves some trial and error. 

Tips and Tricks:

• Start with your vendor Admin platform, if it has one. SUSHI set-up information is often included in your vendor's usage statistics area. 
• Google the name of the product that you want to set up and SUSHI to see what you can find online
• Don't reinvent the wheel: Centennial College's SUSHI Credentials LibGuide gives you tips about how to gather SUSHI credentials from commonly used vendors.
• Post in the LSP group in Workplace to see if your SUNY colleagues have the information that you need
• If you get stuck and are unable to find the information that you need, contact the vendor's support team.
• Note that not all providers/platforms enable usage data ingestion options (SUSHI). Ex Libris keeps a list of SUSHI-certified vendors for release 5.

Set-up info for commonly used platforms in SUNY:

• EBSCOhost
• Gale - note that the Requester ID is your username when you log in to Gale (it is an unusual one as it has a / in the middle); Customer ID = loc|[name]; and add your requestor email address
• Elsevier - Elsevier asks for service endpoint (Alma) information, including Alma production and test IP addresses 

Testing:

Use the "Test Connection" tab on the SUSHI Account Details page to make sure that your connection to the SUSHI server working as it should. That test will generate a JSON file that shows your connection status and any errors that might have occurred.

Deciphering the JSON file:

• A successful connection will general a file that looks something like this: 
  {"Description":"COUNTERUsage Reports for Credo platform","ServiceActive":true,"RegistryURL":"https:\/\/www.projectcount er.org\/counter-user\/credo-referenc\/"}
• An unsuccessful connection will look something like this:
  {"Description":"COUNTER 5 Usage Reports for JSTOR","Note":"SupportURL: https:\/\/support.jstor.org\/hc\/enus\/articles\/360015483214","ServiceActive":true,"Alerts":"We are currently experiencing issues with our usage reporting service. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.","RegistryURL":"https:\/\/www.projectcounter.org\/counteruser\/jstor"} 

Troubleshooting:

Identifying whether or not the harvesting ran correctly:

• After the harvests, export the job report and review each report that failed to harvest successfully. This is important, as it allows you to see cases where stats are delayed (if so, make a calendar note to reharvest that vendor manually later in the month) or where a harvest failed because the platform changes, so you need to change the connection settings. 
• To tell if the harvesting ran correctly for a particular vendor, go to the Usage reports tab on that vendor in acquisitions
• To look at the success rate as a whole, for all vendors, go to Admin, Manage Jobs and Sets, Monitor Jobs, and look at the history tab for the date when the harvesting job was scheduled to run. 

• Click on Report, then choose SUSHI Harvest Report to find specific information on what ran successfully and what failed and why:

• In the example above, the JR1:R4 jobs may be failing because the vendor has moved on to R5 and is no longer supporting COUNTER R4.

Status Messages:

• Generated by Alma to let you know if your harvesting job was successful. 
• To view details of a job’s status – select the icon in the Status column:
  
• The harvest job may fail for a number of reasons:
  • The report was not retrieved: the harvester could not get the data that you want. This could be caused by a number of things: server problems at Alma, server problems on the vendor end, changes to the harvesting method, etc. Troubleshooting tips:
    • Check to see if the job has ever run successfully -
      • If not: use the Test Connection button on the SUSHI Account details page to make sure that you're connecting to the vendor server correctly
      • If so, try to run it manually to see if the failure was just a glitch. If the job won't run manually, use the Test Connection button  page to make sure that you are still connecting correctly. 
    • If your connection seems to be working correctly, but the job won't run without failing, check the documentation to make sure that your settings are correct, ask for help on Workplace, and/or submit a Saleforce ticket
  • No usage available for the requested dates: the harvester is dependent on the data being available at the vendor end. If the usage data hasn't been compiled by the vendor yet, there will be no data for the harvester to retrieve. Some vendors are notoriously slow in posting usage reports. The harvester cannot pull in content that does not exist on the vendor site. Troubleshooting tip: check the vendor site directly to see if the data is available.

Ex Libris Documentation:

• Troubleshooting Tips for COUNTER 5 SUSHI Harvesting
• Viewing Completed Jobs

Thanks to Colleen Lougan for initially creating this FAQ and to Elizabeth York for helpful tips on the Alma listserv.