Alma requires a current, non-expired account before patrons can use the system.

How expiration dates affect patrons in Alma / Primo

How expiration dates are set

• Student expiration dates are determined by he last date the record was downloaded from Workday + 180 days.  
• Faculty / Staff expiration dates are determined by he last date the record was downloaded from Workday + 365 days.  

Workarounds for expiration date issues

• Enrollment and employment status can be confirmed in Workday
• Desk Supervisors can manually update a patron expiration date, then item due dates can be extended. 
  • Patron expiration dates that have been manually updated will be overwritten the next time we receive a record from Workday.  Workday loads are run every weekday.  

Acquisition of UARK Patron Records

UofA patrons and affiliates have a uark.edu email account and are considered "external" patrons in Alma because their data is maintained external to Alma in Workday.  

Patron records are received and processed in Alma each weekday morning in two files:

• all active students (circa 35,000 records) 
• all active faculty and staff (circa 13,500 records)

Files are loaded in the order

• students
• workers (so that worker records can overwrite student records for the same person) 

We exclude these records from import into Alma:

• From the employees feed 
  • Contingent Worker, Graduate Assistant, Work Study, Student Worker, Research Assistant, Graduate Assistant, Extra Help Assistant in the BusinessTitle
  • LegacyID with "T" which denote an employee from another campus 
• From the students feed 
  • Students with Academic_Record_Status = "Inactive"

Troubleshooting UARK Patron Load Issues

• Some legitimate employees or affiliates may have inadvertently been excluded from the daily feed.  When a UARK patron not in Alma requests library privileges, Mullins Desk Supervisors should:
  • ask for the UARK ID card to verify 
  • check the person in Workday 
  • create a record manually, marking it as external with an expiration date one year or six months in the future, depending if the patron is a student or employee.  
  • If you feel the patron was omitted in error, then open a ticket by sending email to libweb@uark.edu.  
• We have had some instances where Universal IDs or emails have changed.  Report the issue to libweb@uark.edu.  

UA ID Numbers

• Universal IDs
  • With the introduction of Workday Student in 2025, a new "Universal ID" was implemented which is a unique 9-digit ID number for a person across the UofA system.
  • Universal IDs can start with any number other than 0.  
• Legacy IDs
  • Every student and employee on campus through Fall 2025 will also have a nine-digit Legacy ID which starts with 0.  
  • Beginning Spring 2026, Legacy IDs will no longer be assigned.  
  • Due to limitations In our Alma loader, a legacy ID is required for a record to load successfully.  When the legacy ID is blank in an incoming record, we create a unique identifier for the Legacy ID field that is l- (L for legacy) + the universal ID number.  

Either number may be printed on the patron's UA ID Card.  

Acquisition of Records for Non-Affiliates

Community borrowers and other patrons who have no current affiliation with the UofA are considered "internal" patrons in Alma because their data is  maintained in the Alma system. They do not have a uark.edu email account and do not receive remote access to online resources as part of their borrowing privileges. Examples of Non-affiliated patrons are Community Borrowers, ARKLink students from other universities in Arkansas, alumni, and high school students. 

The graphic below shows that library staff create records for non-affiliated patrons in Alma. 

Check for yourself or ask a User Services supervisor to check that the patron has a unexpired account in the Alma system.

• If unable to locate by ID number, try uark.edu email address

Patron not found?

Proceed to Step 2

Patron record found but not current?

Proceed to Step 3

Patron found but patron can't login to OneSearch / My Library Account?

Proceed to Step 4

Patron found but patron can't use self-checks or lockers or ID Card has different number than we have in Alma?

Proceed to Step 5

Verify the patron's status in Workday. 

Found in Workday? 

1. Create a temporary record in Alma,  Required fields include:
   1. primary identifier / uark.edu
   2. uark.edu email address (type is school)
   3. Legacy ID (Barcode) and Universal ID.  
   4. User group (undergraduate, graduate student, faculty, or staff)
   5. Expiration date (usually today + 30 days) 
2. After saving, toggle the record type from internal to external. 
   1. External records can be overwritten by Workday feeds - we want that. 
3. Save and ask the patron to test by having them log into OneSearch (https://uark.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/account?vid=01UARK_INST:01UARK&section=overview )
   1. If they can't login, proceed to Step 4. 
4. Report the issue to libweb@uark.edu so we can investigate why we did not receive the record. 

Not Found in Workday but should have privileges?

In some cases, for instance Retirees and Emeriti or some kinds of affiliated faculty, we are still working on data issues.  

1. Verify the patron information by checking their ID card and uark.edu email account.  
2. Create a temporary record in Alma,  Required fields include:
   1. primary identifier / uark.edu
   2. uark.edu email address (type is school)
   3. Legacy ID (Barcode) and Universal ID.  
   4. User group (undergraduate, graduate student, faculty, or staff)
   5. Expiration date (usually today + 30 days) 
3. After saving,toggle the record type from internal to external. 
   1. External records can be overwritten by Workday feeds - we want that. 
4. Save and ask the patron to test by having them log into OneSearch (https://uark.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/account?vid=01UARK_INST:01UARK&section=overview )
   1. If they can't login, proceed to Step 4. 
5. Report the issue to libweb@uark.edu so we can investigate why we did not receive the record. 

Patron found in Workday but record is not active

1. Explain that students are already graced for 180 days and employees for 365 days (unless the employee has been terminated). 
2. Students will need to check with the registrar and employees with their HR staff on why their record is not active in Workday.  
3. At the Desk Supervisor's discretion, expiration dates can be extended manually in Alma.  Be sure to keep the record "External" so that Workday can continue to update it.  

Patron is active in Workday but Alma expiration date is incorrect

1. Confirm the patron's status in Workday.  
2. Extend the expiration date manually by one month.
3. Report the issue to libweb@uark.edu. 

If the patron record looks correct in Alma but the patron reports issues logging into OneSearch, here are a few items to check:

Is the patron record type marked "External" or "Internal?"

External

External Users login with their uark.edu ermail and password and should choose "Login using your UARK credentials."

• Make sure that uark.edu patrons are marked "External." 
• If repeated attempts to login do not work, ask the patron to try an incognito or private browsing window. 

Internal

Internal users, such as community borrowers, login with the email address on file in their Alma record and a password provided to them. 

• Double-check the email address stored in the primary identifier and email fields. 
• Desk managers can issue a new password, if necessary.

Still no luck?  Open a ticket with libweb@uark.edu. 

At times we find an encoding mismatch between the patron's ID card and the data we are receiving from Workday.  

1. Check the materials out to the patron manually. 
2. If the card is older, for instance with a picture of Old Main instead of a Razorback, suggest the patron may wish to visit the ID Card Office in the Union to obtain a new card.  An advantage to the new cards is that they do have tap enabled.  
3. Report the issue to libweb@uark.edu so that we can investigate.  

Patrons will want to login to OneSearch to:

• view or renew their checkouts
• place a hold / request an item from LINX or other print collections
• see loan terms for their specific patron user group (for example, 16 weeks)
• save favorites and searches
• set up alerts for new materials
• see some results in OneSeach only available to logged-in users
• see some links in OneSearch (such as ILLiad links) only available to logged-in users