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 that is repeated in many records (for example, subject = biology). You can map many records to one collection (for example, all records with subject “biology” should be mapped to a specific collection) and map one 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 is automatically filled in for you.

   • Collection Id – (required) After selecting the Collection Title, the collection's ID is automatically populated for you. Instead of selecting 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. Open the MD Editor (Configuration > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Normalization Rules for External Data Sources), select the Rules > Normalization (Discovery) tab for DC and XML sources or the Rules > Normalization tab for MARC sources, and then add a normalization rule to associate the external records with parent ID of an Alma collection. 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. On the Import Profiles page (Configuration > Discovery > Loading External Data Sources > Discovery Import Profiles), 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 details, see Configuring Import Profiles for Primo VE.