Question

When adding a Service Availabilty Rule to a GES, why are undocumented OpenURL Attribute Categories listed as options when creating input parameters?

Answer

There are 4 general categories of OpenURL attributes that may be returned by Alma’s Link Resolver:

• Requester (prefix = .req)
• ReferringEntity (prefix = rfe.)
• Referent ( prefix = rft.)
• ServiceType (prefix = svc.)

Any attributes returned by the link resolver, that do not belong to any of the 4 categories above, are unused; they should not be selected when creating an input parameter for a Service Availability Rule (see the Other category in Commonly Used OpenURL Attributes for the URL Template).

These additional categories/attributes are listed because they are part of the OpenURL process, even though they are not currently supported by Alma/Primo. When the Link Resolver was designed, every OpenURL attribute had to be included even if Alma and Primo themselves do not support them.

For this reason when adding a Service Availability Rule to a GES (at Configuration> Fulfillment> Discovery Interface Display Logic> General Electronic Services> Service Availability Rules tab), there are attributes which do not belong to any of the 4 supported categories. If an unsupported parameter is added, the rule can still be saved. In Production, the parameter will not be applied. 

Additional Information

See Commonly Used OpenURL Attributes for the URL Template

• Article last edited: 01-Jun-2021