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Possibility to configure that a patron can login into his/her account in ***** AFTER expiration date, to view open fees / fines and or loans

Currently a patron whose expiration date has passed is not able to log into his/her ***** account. The patron can neither see open fines/fees nor loans.

We suggest:
* institution-wide option to allow or permit users read-only-access to there ***** accound after patron’s expiry date (in Alma)
* user manager role not necessary to do any changes in role expiration dates.
* no additional functionality outside Alma needed that uses the API to achieve the goal.

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Anonymous shared this idea  ·   ·  Admin →
Planned  ·  AdminMoshe Shechter (Alma Senior Product Manager, Ex Libris) responded  · 

Hi,

The login for an account that is managed in an external IdP (such as a Shibboleth IdP), is done by the IdP and not by Alma. Alma does not control the success of this type of login.

Alma does control the login status if the user record is internal, i.e. its password is managed in Alma. In that case, we will indeed allow the login to succeed even if the user is expired.

The user record status will be verified when calculating:

  • GetIt services (hold/digitization/resource sharing)
  • My Account renew loan option

In either case, the account will be considered active only if:

  • The user record status is active
  • The user record expiry date is not in the past
  • The user’s patron role is active
  • The user’s patron role’s expiry date is not in the past

The login, however, will not be affected by these conditions.

Thank you,
Moshe

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  • Alice Tippit commented  · 

    We also use SAML and run into the same situation in which the user is authenticated and passed back to Primo where they receive a message that the login process has failed because their library account is expired. We would prefer that these users be able to login as well. When will this planned idea come to fruition?

  • Beth Juhl commented  · 

    We use SAML authentication but if the Alma user account is past the expiration date, the authenticated user is just passed back to Primo VE with a message "The login process has failed. Please refer to the library for assistance." We'd really prefer that users can still log in after their expiration date for al the reasons given by others. If their university account is still active, they should be able to see their library account.

  • Bodil Wik commented  · 

    More details from Uppsala university:

    We are not able to use a Student Information System in order to register users in Alma. We use the API. Then the Alma user expiration date will not be synchronized with any local expiration date.

    When our users logs in using the university SAML authentication, the university server logs the user in, but in Primo the user is not logged in and the user will not receive any message explaining why. After the log in the user is just left in Alma without a clue to what just happened. The user is not logged in and thinks something went wrong and tries again but the same thing happens. The user is not given the possibility to understand what is happening.
    When a user (not affiliated to our university) logs in with the Alma authentication, the user will not be logged in, but there is a message that we have changed now so that it reads: “Invalid number and/or password. Or it is time to renew your account.” So at least these users have some chance of understanding what is happening.

    We would prefer that the user gets logged in and is able to see his/her loans and fines and fees but that there is a clear message displayed about the expiration date and the user will not be able to make requests or renew loans.

    This idea is planned. When?
    Best regards
    Bodil Wik

  • Bodil Wik commented  · 

    This is something Uppsala University is looking forward to as well.

  • Fredrik Solvang Pettersen commented  · 

    Hi, has there been any updates to this Idea? In my experience users who has reached their expiration date in Alma still get the error message "Invalid Username and/or Password. Please re-enter". It would be great if this error message could explain that the user has expired and to contact the library. As it is, the error is very confusing.

  • Aya Yukawa commented  · 

    We are also looking forward to this idea to be realized.

    When an expired user tries to login, he/she just gets usual "invalid User ID and/or Password" message and will not notice the account is actually expired. It's very confusing.

    Is there a planned release date?

    Thank you.

  • Anonymous commented  · 

    It would also be good if expired users could pay their fines and not just be read-only- so they could pay online rather than coming to the Service Desk to pay.

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