The Collections for External Records mapping table enables you to add records from external sources to Alma Collections. After additional configuration and the re-loading of the external records, the external records will include the collection breadcrumbs and the More from the same collection link on the full record page and be viewable on the Collection pages in Primo VE.

1. Open the Collections for External Records mapping table (Configuration > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Collections for External Records).

   For each external record that you want to add to an Alma collection, select Add Row to create a mapping row with the following information:

   • Source Value – (required) The ID of the external source record. This value may be from any metadata element in the record, such as a unique record ID or value repeated in many records (for example, subject = biology). You can map many records to one collection (for example, all records with the subject “biology” should be mapped to a specific collection) and map a single record to multiple collections.

   • Collection Title – (optional) Select the collection to which you want to add the external record. If selected, the Collection Id field will automatically fill in for you.

   • Collection Id – (required) After selecting the Collection Title, the collection's ID will automatically populate for you. Instead of choosing a Collection Title, you can enter an ID manually.

   If you prefer to import the records in bulk, create an Excel file with the following fields and then import the file into the mapping table: Source Value (required), Collection ID (required), and Collection Title.

   Example Import Excel File

   Source Value	Collection ID	Collection Title
   abd	8118989690000121	Art Collection
   10.3133/cir1428	8118989670000121	History Collection
   ace	8121940000000121	Books about Picasso

   A maximum of 2000 records can be imported at a time.

2. Add a normalization rule to associate the external records with the parent ID of an Alma collection:

   1. Open the MD Editor (Configuration > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Normalization Rules for External Data Sources).

   2. Select the Rules > Normalization (Discovery) tab for DC and XML sources or the Rules > Normalization tab for MARC sources.

   3. Add a normalization rule to associate the external records with an Alma collection, making sure to specify the PrimaCollectionForExternalRecords mapping table and save the mapping information in the collectionParentId field. For more details, see Configuring Normalization Rules for External Resources (Primo VE).

      Examples:

      • DC: (ID is taken from the dc.identifier field):

        rule "Collection for External Records"

        when

        exist "dc"."identifier"

        then

        set TEMP"1" to dc value "dc"."identifier"

        set TEMP"2" to lookup all mapping tables ("PrimaCollectionForExternalRecords",TEMP"1")

        set "discovery"."collectionParentId" to TEMP"2"

        end

      • XML: (ID is taken from xpath //ino:object/viaRecord/work/collection):

        rule "parent-collection"
        when
        exist "//ino:object/viaRecord/work/collection"
        then
        set TEMP"1" to xpath "//ino:object/viaRecord/work/collection"
        set TEMP"2" to lookup all mapping tables ("PrimaCollectionForExternalRecords",TEMP"1")
        set TEMP"2" in "discovery"."collectionParentId"
        end

      • MARC (ID is taken from the source's MARC 042. a subfield):

        rule "add collection for external records marc"
        when
        (TRUE)
        then
        addField "collectionParentId.a" with values from mappingTable "PrimaCollectionForExternalRecords" and "042.a"
        end

3. Perform the remaining steps of the Loading process:

   1. Create (or update) a Qualified Dublin Core, generic XML, or MARC21 Bib normalization process task (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Normalization Process Task). For more information, see Creating a Normalization Rules Process.

   2. Test your normalization rules and processes before loading the records into Primo VE (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Test Normalization Rules). For more information, see Testing Normalization Rules for External Data Sources.

   3. On the Import Profiles page (Configuration > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Discovery Import Profiles), create (or modify) and execute the Discovery Import Profile to import your source records with the new normalization rule. You can also use the Reload option to apply the rules to existing records. For more information about creating and running Discovery import profiles, see Configuring Import Profiles for Primo VE and Running a Discovery Import Profile.