Export user blocks
Institutions might want to keep information regarding user blocks and balance in their SIS. This is in order to block such users from certain activities until they clear their outstanding obligations to the library.Users that have blocks and/or active balance which is more than 0 will be exported.Note that internal users are also exported. They will be ignored by the SIS as no match will be found for them.
The information that is exported includes brief user information, the user’s active balance and list of the user’s blocks. See the export xml structure.
If you want to export user blocks, an external system profile of Users type must be defined, with active export user blocks action.
Following is a list of the decisions that must be taken when defining a profile:
- Match ID – The IT department and the library must determine the identifier that Alma and the SIS have in common in order to provide a matching point. This may be the primary identifier or any other identifier. The determined identifier will be exported as part of the XML for each user.
Match ID – Example
- If your institution uses the student ID as the user identifier in the SIS, this ID type should be defined in Alma as a possible additional identifier in the User Identifier Type code table (accessible to Ex Libris staff only). See Alma OLH for more details.
- In the SIS integration profile, the student ID should be defined as the match identifier (by selecting it from the Match ID type drop-down list).
- The export file XML will include this identifier for each user in the userId field.
What should be exported? The exported population should be determined according to the following considerations:
| Population | Considerations |
|---|---|
| User group(s) | There are institutions that handle only some of their users in a SIS. Thus only users of these user groups should be exported if they have blocks or balance which is not zero. If left empty, users of all user groups will be exported (according to the other parameters). |
| Block type(s) | An institution can decide to export blocks of certain types only. |
| Fine/fee age (days) | The users whose fines/fees are older than the stipulated number of days are exported. By default, this number is 30. Put 0 in order to include all fine/fees. |
| Threshold amount | The users whose fines/fees exceed the stipulated threshold are exported. By default, the threshold amount is 0. |
For more regarding the profile definition, see Alma OLH.