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    Failing links from External Vendor sites

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    • Product: Primo Central
    Question
    Why are Full Text links from external vendor sites failing?
    Answer
    To understand why these links fail it is helpful to understand the third-party linking feature in Alma.
    As a link resolver, Alma provides services for searches performed in sources other than Alma.
    1. An end user performs a search in an external source
    2. The source sends an OpenURL request to Primo
    3. Primo modifies the incoming request and forwards it to Alma
    4. Alma processes the request and determines the possible services available
    The OpenURL sent from Alma to Primo is created utilizing metadata from the vendor's site.  When the metadata on the vendor's site is incorrect or inconsistent with the target platform, it may lead to linking failures and false availability results.
    As with other OpenURLs, the most common cause for linking problems is metadata inconsistencies between publishers, database vendors, and link resolver knowledge bases.
    However, unlike cases where the "irregular" metadata is ingested in Primo Central, in these external situations, the "bad" metadata originates from the external platform. As such, the Content Operations team cannot modify the metadata to improve linking results.
    Additional details and configuration instructions for the external linking feature, can be found at:
    https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/060Alma-Primo_Integration/050Configuring_the_Primo_Front_End_for_Alma_Link_Resolver/010Introduction_to_Configuring_the_Primo_Front_End_for_Alma_Link_Resolver.
    • Article last edited: 14-Oct-2019