User Loan Counts at Other I-Share Libraries

As of April 2021, there is a report available in your ftp directory on the CARLI files server (files.carli.illinois.edu) called 'User loan counts at other i-share libraries XXX.xlsx' where XXX is your three letter code. The report lists which of your users have loans at other I-Share libraries. The report lists the user's name, primary ID, institution at which they have loans, the number of loans at that institution, and the user's expiration and purge dates.  It is a replacement for the Voyager report “list_patrons_with_materials_charged_from_other_ishare_libraries" that was available on the web-reports server.  One potential use for this report is to help staff identify and help students who need to clear their accounts.

The report is run daily by 7:00am, with the most recent file replacing former versions of the file. The report is based on Analytics data so it is as of 6:00pm the previous day. The first line in the report lists the date of the data.  There will be a file every day; if there are no loan counts to report that day, the contents of the report file will read "No user loan counts at other I-Share libraries as of MM/DD/YY 6pm".

Information about the data in this report:

• The last and first names are from the linked user record in the Alma of the item charged. This means the case (upper/lower) may not match what’s in your Alma.
• The primary ID, expiration date, and purge date are from your Alma. It is possible that the primary ID and purge date are present for some lines for a given user, but not all.
  • The actual field Alma uses to connect linked user records to the user record in their home Alma is not available in Analytics. The report uses the email field to do this and a match is not always found. This means in some cases the primary ID, expiration date, and purge date are missing in the report.
  • The missing primary IDs, expiration dates, and purge dates are not a problem in Alma, just a limitation in Analytics. Primary IDs and purge dates could be missing for several reasons:
    • The linked user record does not have an email address. This can happen in linked user records that were converted from stubs in Voyager.
    • The email address in the linked user record does not match the email address in the home record. This normally happens when the email address is updated in the home record but the linked user record has not been refreshed. This can occur in both linked user records converted from Voyager stubs or in linked user records created directly in Alma.
    • Multiple user records in the home Alma have the same email address. In this case the report does not know which user record to use so it leaves the primary ID and purge date blank.
• The Statistical Category 1 is for your use if you use the category to keep track of certain groups of users, such as graduating seniors. Before you can use this category, you need to follow the steps in Steps to add Statistical Categories for Analytics. If the email address in the linked user record is missing or does not match the home record, this field is left blank.
• The email address is how the home record and the linked record are linked. If the email address in the linked user record is missing or does not match the home record, this field is left blank.