Alma Fulfillment

Alma distinguishes two types of patron records:

• External users are linked to the Knox authentication system (my.knox.edu) for the purposes of 1) logging into their Primo VE accounts and 2) maintaining accurate account information through the automatic patron loads.
• Internal users are patrons whose records are added manually by circulation managers. These are typically community or local borrowers. 

Note: External and Internal users log into Knox Primo differently. 

• External users log into Knox Primo using their Knox email credentials
• Internal users log into Knox Primo using the username and password created for them when their record was added to Alma by the circulation manager.

After a user clicks the Login link to log into Knox Primo, two options are presented and the user chooses based on whether they have Knox credentials or do not have Knox credentials:

The two most common ways to look up a patron (Alma calls these "users") is by either the last name or primary identifier. From the Alma search bar, choose "Users" and then choose a search option:

For Knox faculty, staff, and students the primary identifier = Knox ID.

To look up a patron (user) by barcode, choose the "Identifiers" search option.

After entering search criteria to find a patron record you will see a list of users. Click on the name of the user/borrower to edit the patron's record. The record opens and you will see tabs across the top of the record. 

If you see a corner of a tab turned down, that means there is information on the tab. For example, in the image above we know there are no notes for this user because the corner on the Notes tab is not turned down.

See the page "Editing Patron Records" for more information about the content of these tabs.