Photos for user records in Alma
- Product: Alma
Desired Outcome Goal
We would like to add pictures of our users in Alma. How can we do that?
Procedure
Photos are not uploaded within Alma.
We assume that:
A. All user photos are present on another server, and the file name containing the photo includes one of the IDs contained in Alma. For example, this may be the path for the photo of patron John Smith, happening to have the University ID "D12345678" in Alma:
https://www.library.org/user_photos/D12345678.JPG
B. All other user photos reside in the same directory and all share the same file extension.
Go to the "User Management Configuration" -> "Configuration Menu" -> "Other settings". You will find three variables that need to be filled:
photo_identifier_type: This is the ID which you want to use. For example if the customer defined an ID called "University ID" with a code "UNI_ID", then enter "UNI_ID" here (without the quotes of course). Possible values are: USERNAME (the primary ID) or a code in the User Identifier Types code table (Admin> User Identifier Types).
photo_server_url: The URL must use HTTPS. In order to use HTTPS, the certificate may not be self-signed and must be signed by a known certificate authority. The URL must end with a forward slash (/). For example;
http://institution.edu/pictures/
photo_suffix: This is the file extension, for example "JPG".
Because of the above-mentioned restrictions it is not possible to have pictures in different file formats (some in JPG and some in png). All files need to share the same extension.
It might be necessary to open the firewall of the photo server to the Alma cloud.
In this case allow access for the relevant IP addresses as specified in the "Alma IP Range" section of the "Technical Requirements for Alma and Primo Implementation" document