2015-12-02 Meeting notes

Owned by Lauren Magnuson (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 03, 2015Version comment
2 min read

Date

Attendees

Goals

  • Finalize survey and deploy
  • Determine strategy for helping campuses set up printers for Alma and scripts relying on Millennium Patron API

Discussion items

TimeItemWhoNotes
10minFinal Review of 3rd Party Integrations Survey
  • Survey will be sent to Systems Working Group Listserv and Project Managers Listserv
10minPeopleSoft / Shibboleth for Vanguard Campuses Update 
  • Shibboleth: CO will work with Ex Libris for much of the work
  • PeopleSoft: Each of the three vanguard campuses will be working to convert their current patron extracts (CSV format) to Alma XML format
    • This will help us identify data source issues out of PeopleSoft
    • Next Tuesday: systemwide update about this work; start making plans about how quickly we can explore shared solutions
10minPrinting in Alma: Recommendation regarding setting up printers w/email addresses 
Alma is hosted in a SaaS environment. Due to security concerns and technical limitations, SaaS environments do not support direct connection of local or network printers. Instead, printing in Alma works using email. Each library/institution must define the email addresses of its local printers in Alma, which route staff-oriented, Alma-originating e-mails (including request and transit slips) to the appropriate printer.

Newer printers have their own built-in email addresses to support cloud computing. If you are using a new printer, therefore, the email address for notifications should be the printer’s email address. Older printers do not support direct emailing and will therefore require a print proxy. For information on applications available to manage printer routing, see Technical Requirements for Alma Implementation in the Documentation Center.
There are several applications available to manage printer routing. For example: 
- MS Outlook printing rules – It is possible to create an email address and link this address to a printer via your MS Outlook printing rules. 
- Automatic Email Manager (AEM) by Namtuk – For details, seehttp://www.namtuk.com/ Note: The above are examples only. Any print proxy that meets your institution's needs can be used. 

Please refer to developers zone articles:
https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/Printing-in-Alma
https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/Simple-Alma-printing
Call Number printing: Open Source client software to communicate with Alma API to collect Call Number and print it.
10minUse Cases for Millennium Patron APIs: Sharing existing code / best practices w/Systems Listserv? 

From reviewing the Alma Information forms, there are a significant portion of institutions utilizing the Millennium Patron API. 

In order to replicate these patron API functions, please take a look at the documentation linked below:

Alma has rich user APIs:

https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/apis/users

For example, here is the Alma API for user authentication:

https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/apis/users/POST/gwPcGly021r0XQMGAttqcPPFoLNxBoEZSZhrICr+9So=/0aa8d36f-53d6-48ff-8996-485b90b103e4

 Ian Chan (Unlicensed) - Does San Marcos have an example of a script (e.g., for EZProxy auth or something) currently using one of the Alma APIs that could be shared (maybe as a CSU-ULMS GitHub project)?

Action items