Managing Patron Services

The following page provides general information about managing NOAA staff (Federal Employees and Contractors as users in Alma. 

To manage users in Alma, you must have one of the following roles associated with your Alma account: 

• Circulation Desk Operator
• Circulation Desk Manager

You can manage users on the Find and Manage Users page (Alma > User Management > Manage Users).

If you cannot access this page, please contact NOAA's Alma/Primo VE System Administrators (jeff.rey@noaa.gov, emily.j.johnson@noaa.gov)

Choosing a Location (Circulation Desk)

Choosing a circulation desk is essential for staff who physically checkout items or use other circulation services. Each circulation desk is associated with a library and serves particular locations in that library. 

To choose a circulation desk in Alma:

1. Select and click on the leftmost icon, nearest to the Alma Search box
2. In the dropdown, Below I am physically at:, select your Library's circulation desk. 
   • The scope of your role will limit your ability to select a circulation desk. Furthermore, NOAA libraries currently only have one circ desk per library
3. Select Always show current location

Once You have completed those steps. You can close the dropdown by clicking on the X.

Patron Registration Methods

NOAA has implemented Single Sign On for patrons soon after Go-Live. The manual creation of patrons is only to be used if a patron record is not found in Alma. 

Alma Patron Registration

To register a new patron:

1. On the Patron Identification page (Fulfillment > Checkout/Checkin > Manage Patron Services), select Register New User. The Quick User Management page appears. 
2. In the User Information fields, enter the following information:
   • First name
   • Last name
   • replace pre-populated Primary Identifier with email username (e.g. john.doe in john.doe@noaa.gov)
   • For User Group, select Employee or [Library] Employee (e.g. La Jolla Employee, Silver Spring Employee)
   • For Email Type, check Work
   • For Email address,  enter patron's @noaa.gov address (e.g. john.doe@noaa.gov, jane.doe@noaa.gov)
3. In the User Management Fields, enter the following information:
   • Password - enter temporary password - convention of lastname + last four numbers of Employee Number (available via whitepages.noaa.gov)
   • Verify Password - re-enter temporary password
   • Force password change on next login, check
     • This will force user to re-enter a password upon their first login into Primo VE
4. In the User Identifier fields:
   • From the the Additional Identifier dropdown, select Additional ID 1
   • For the value, enter the patron's email @noaa.gov email
5. Select Update User. The patron is is save and you continue with editing the patron.
6. Provide patron with temporary password either:
   • in person
   • via Email

Primo VE Patron Registration/Password Reset

Patrons can register for an account or reset their password by clicking on the Sign In link on the top right of Primo. Clicking on the Sign In will open the Login prompt, with a Register/Forgot My Password link. This will take the patron to a Google Form. Upon completion, a NOAA Alma's System Admin will email a temporary password to the patron.