Managing User Identifiers
User Identifiers Overview
User identifiers are an integral part of Rapido's user accounts. They identify the user's account and can be used to connect the user's account with external accounts, such as a Student Information System or a social media account.
Every Rapido and Primo user has a primary identifier. Your institution can optionally enable additional user identifiers that are available (or required) to be added to a user based on the user's record type: Public or Staff. Contact users cannot be assigned any additional user identifiers.
While Circulation Desk Managers/Operators can edit some user information from the Patron Services page, they cannot view or edit user identifiers from this page (they can view the primary identifier only).
User Managers/Administrators add or edit additional user identifiers when they add or edit users on the Find and Manage Users page (see Managing User Identifiers (Tab)).
Configuring User Identifier Types
Before adding additional user identifiers, the identifier types must be configured. Ex Libris creates and configures the types when setting up your institution.
- Ex Libris configures the list of additional user identifier types for each institution. However, most institutions have at least the following user identifier types available:
- Twitter ID, Facebook ID, and Google ID - For use when enabling social logins
- Barcode
- Any other user identifier types required
When configuring the list of additional user identifier types, Ex Libris can set which types are available to be added to staff users and/or public users (including patrons). - To configure whether at least one additional user identifier type is mandatory when adding a user, add the Identifier 1 field for the relevant record type. When registering a patron, you can add a user identifier type (other than the primary identifier) only if Identifier 1 is configured as a mandatory field.
- To require that the primary identifier be in a specific format contact Ex Libris support.
Viewing Additional User Identifier Types
To view additional user identifier types, you must have one of the following roles:
- User Manager
- User Administrator
You can view the list of additional user identifier types on the User Identifier Type code table (Admin > User Management > User Identifier Types). This page is read-only and can be configured only by Ex Libris.
User Identifier Type Code Table
The list typically includes a barcode, a code to indicate the ID from the student information system and any social media IDs supported for your institution.
Adding and Editing User Identifiers
To add user identifiers to patrons, you need one of the following roles:
- Circulation Desk Manager
- Circulation Desk Operator
- Circulation Desk Operator-Limited
- User Manager
- User Administrator
- You add a primary identifier to a user when adding a user (see Adding Users) or when editing users (Managing User Identifiers (Tab)). When adding a user, a primary identifier is mandatory.
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When editing a user, you can add, edit, or remove additional user identifiers (you can view, but not edit, the primary identifier). The list of available identifier types might be different for different user types (staff or public).
- An external user displays the primary identifier in two places on the User Details page - the header and the user information section. In some cases, these identifiers may be different. The primary identifier in the header is the preferred identifier.
- If the primary identifier of a user is changed, it currently causes users to lose access to their private sets and private rules in the Metadata Editor. In addition, when editing a primary identifier of a user, the associated records in the information (
) icon are lost.
Information icon without associated records after editing a primary identifier for a user
Mapping User Accounts to Other Systems
You can map your user accounts to user accounts in external systems either by mapping your user identifier in Rapido to the identifier in the other system or by sharing your identifiers with other systems.
- Student Information System (SIS) - When your institution already manages users in an SIS, Rapido needs only to a) retrieve the user information from the SIS and b) store only Rapido-specific information for the user. For example, the user names, passwords, and user identifiers may be managed in the SIS, while the user's loans and purchase requests are stored in Rapido. User identifiers for external users can be marked as internal (managed in Rapido) or external.
SIS information is imported regularly to Rapido using an integration profile. Information from the SIS overwrites any relevant conflicting information in Rapido. For more information, see SIS Overview in the Developer Network and Student Information Systems. You can define multiple SIS integration profiles, one for each combination of SIS and user record type. When defining a profile, you select the user identifier in Rapido to use to match the record exported from the SIS.
If your SIS does not offer authentication services, can create users as external in Rapido, but assign passwords for them directly in Rapido. In this case, all the user information is managed from the SIS, but the passwords are stored in Rapido and managed by the Ex Libris Identity Service. When the user logs in, Rapido attempts both the external IdP and the internal one. If you want to activate this behavior, contact Ex Libris customer support. - External Authentication: SAML, CAS, LDAP, Cloud IDP - If you use an external authentication system, you may need to map Rapido user IDs to the IDs used by the external system. For more information, see Institutional Identify Provider in the Developer Network and Authentication.
- Social Login - You can enable users to log in to Rapido using a social login profile (Google, Twitter, or Facebook). In these cases, the user's social login user name must be stored as an additional user identifier before the user logs in. See Social Login in the Developer Network and Social and Email Login.
Login using a link sent by email is also available. This feature uses the user's email address, which is not (technically) considered a user identifier in Rapido.
- Primo - Primo users are authenticated using a user identifier when retrieving information from Rapido.