Serial Control View and Alternate Serial Control View offer you two views of Serials. Both views enable you to create subscriptions, add distributions, define captions, predict future issues, and receive items. Serial Control View was designed for users who work with a smaller number of issues and was designed to accommodate workflows in academic and special libraries. Alternate Serial Control View was designed for users who receive a larger number of issues and was designed for use in public libraries.

In version 2.4, the two interfaces have taken a big step toward unification. Now in the Serial Control View, within the Subscription editor, you will find an embedded version of the Alternate Serial Control View. This new unified interface tries to provide the best features of both views, giving full access to the Alternate view functions from within the tabbed Serial Control View. One exception is that you cannot predict new issues from within the embedded Alternate view; instead you should use the standard Serial Control View method of predicting issues, explained here. Also, some improvements were made to the embedded Alternate view to prevent losing features that were available in the old Serial Control View editors. These changes include: new "Edit Notes" buttons on the subscriptions and distributions editors; labeled dropdown for distribution summary options ("Add to record entry", "Use record entry only", etc.); new legacy record entry linkage (allows one to tie a distribution’s information to a particular serial record entry (i.e. a MFHD record)).

Outside of the Subscription Editor, the two views maintain their previous looks and usage. You are encouraged to use the new combination view and provide feedback to the Evergreen general discussion list.

The views are interoperable, but because they were designed for different purposes, some differences emerge. For example, Serial Control View enables you to create and edit serials in a single tabbed interface while Alternate Serial Control View leads you through a series of steps on multiple screens. In addition, receiving functions vary between views. Both receiving interfaces enable you to batch receive issues. However, the Serials Batch Receive interface, which is associated with Alternate Serial Control View, allows for more customization of each receiving unit while the Items tab in Serial Control View allows for greater flexibility in creating multi-issue units, such as in binding serials.