Subworkflow - Retrieve Patron Home Account from Linked Account

Looks up a patron's Home Institution account information (Primary ID and User Group) from the preferred email address in the patron's linked account.

At a glance

• Status: Active
• Environment / Tags: Network Zone, Live, CLS Long Lost Items
• Applies consortium-wide?: Yes
• Runs on: WRLC Alma Network Zone and the patron's home Alma Institution Zone
• Trigger: Executed by another workflow (subworkflow)
• Primary outcome: Looks up a patron's home institution account using the email address stored on a linked account and returns the patron's Home Institution Primary ID and User Group.
• Who receives results: No direct recipients. The results are returned to the calling workflow.

Why this exists

Many consortium workflows begin with information from a linked patron account rather than the patron's actual home institution account. Some Alma APIs require the Home Institution Primary ID in order to create fines, update user records, or perform other patron-related actions.

This subworkflow provides a reusable way to locate the patron's home account using their preferred email address, eliminating duplicate logic across multiple workflows and ensuring subsequent workflow steps operate on the correct user record.

What it does

• Receives data from another LibOW workflow.
• Uses the supplied Home Institution code to connect to the appropriate Alma Institution Zone.
• Searches that Institution Zone for a user whose preferred email matches the incoming email address.
• Retrieves the complete Alma user record for the matching patron.
• Extracts the patron's Home Institution Primary ID and the patron's User Group.
• Adds those values to the existing workflow data.
• Returns the enriched data back to the calling workflow.
• Continues processing even if the user cannot be found, allowing the parent workflow to determine how to handle missing results.

Where it runs

• Alma IZ(s): Any WRLC member Institution Zone specified by the incoming patron_home_institution_code
• Systems touched:
  • Alma APIs (Users API)
  • Alma Network node
• Reports / queries used: None

How it works

Logic overview

1. The subworkflow is called by another workflow.
2. The Alma Network node switches context to the patron's Home Institution using the supplied institution code.
3. The workflow searches for a user whose preferred email matches the supplied email address.
4. Once a matching user is found, the workflow retrieves the complete user record.
5. The Home Institution Primary ID and User Group are extracted.
6. Those values are added to the original input before the data is returned to the parent workflow.

If results exist

• The workflow returns the original input fields plus:
  • home_primary_id
  • home_user_group

If no results

• The Alma API nodes are configured to continue processing even if no matching user is found or an API error occurs.
• No alternate branch is defined. The calling workflow is responsible for determining how to handle missing output.

Artifacts produced: None. This workflow does not generate reports, files, emails, or other output artifacts.