Alma Fulfillment Resource Guide

Patron Purge Policies and Procedures

FLVC will perform a patron purge every year to remove patrons that have been expired for at least a year. Purging patrons keeps the database to a manageable size for searching and reports and improves patron privacy. Two weeks before the purge job is run a message will go out to the ILS Coordinators and Fulfillment listservs. A reminder email will go out the day before the purge jobs are started. An All Clear email will go out when the purge jobs are complete and ready for reviewing.

Before the patron purge job is run, FLVC will be running an API to make sure that the purge dates in user records match the expiry date in the record. If the purge date is empty but an expiration date exists, the purge date will be added to match the expiration date. 

FLVC will update all "patron" user groups that contain "ILL" in the description to have a purge and expiry date of 01/01/2050 as these patrons are for departmental use. 

Libraries should search for any other internal use patrons/dummy patrons etc to make sure their purge and expiry dates are well in the future.

Please send a message to help@flvc.org if assistance is needed.

Users will not be purged if:

• They do not have neither an expiry date nor a purge date set in their record.
• They have a balance due on their account.
• They have outstanding loans.
• They have any assigned PO lines, POs, or invoices.
• They have any locked bibliographic records.
• They have any assigned import profiles.
• They are currently working in the MD Editor.
• The user record is currently locked by a running job.
• (If Esploro is enabled for your institution) they have associated assets or grants.

Users with closed fines but no active fines or fees will be purged if all other factors are met. Analytics can be used to find these closed fines and fees if needed to answer patron issues in the future.

Once the purge patron job is completed the Purge Patron Report will be available to view patrons that had an eligible purge date but were not able to be purged. This is just informational and nothing needs to be done with these patrons unless it is part of your institutional workflow. 

To view the report:

1. Click Admin --> Monitor Jobs 
2. Click the History tab
3. Update the Submit Date Range to include the "Patron Purge Job Run Date" below.
4. Search for the job named "Users - Purge Records"
   1. The number of users that met the date qualification will show under "Records Processed".
   2. The number of users out of the above number that were not purged will show under "Records with exceptions".
   3. The number of patrons purged is the number of "Records Processed" minus the "Records with exceptions".
5. Click the ellipse next to the report and click "Report"
6. Patrons that were not purged and the reason will be viewable by clicking the "User Deletion Validation Failed" link in the Job Events section.
   1. If you would like to purge these patrons during the next patron purge all loans should be removed and active fines should be closed. Patrons can be manually deleted if you have the proper permissions but users removed this way will not have statistical or reportable data (in Analytics) maintained.