Alma (ExLibris): Notify expiring users

This Python script is intended to work with Alma (ExLibris) to notify users by e-mail that their account is about to expire.

Prerequisites

• (Linux) Server - not tested on Windows!
• Python 3.6 or higher
• Mail Transfer Agent (e. g. Postfix)

  Warning
  Make sure your server is configured properly for sending e-mails. Otherwise, the notifications could be treated as spam.

• Alma from ExLibris, an Alma API key with read permissions for the Analytics API and an appropriate Analytics report (see comments for "path" config in config file for more information)

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/AKBibliothekWien/alma-notify-expiring-users.git

2. Change into the directory of the repository

   cd alma-notify-expiring-users

3. Create a virtual environment

   python3 -m venv .venv

4. Activate the virtual environment

   source .venv/bin/activate

5. Upgrade pip

   python -m pip install --upgrade pip

6. Install the python dependencies

   python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Configuration

1. Copy the config.example.py to config.py
2. Adjust all configs to your needs (see the comments in the config file)

Testing

1. In the config file, set your test e-mail address to the config to_email_test. Every e-mail that would normaly be sent to a user will now be sent to this e-mail address.

2. Run the script and check if everything works as expected:

   • Within the path of the repository, activate the virtual environment if not already activated.

     source .venv/bin/activate

   • Run the script and check your e-mails.

     python notify-expiring-users.py

3. When testing is finished, comment out the to_email_test config or set it to None. Now the e-mails will be sent to the real users.

Run the script once daily

1. Use a cronjob that runs the script once daily.

   Warning
   If the cron job runs multiple time per day, the users that are about to expire will receive multiple e-mails. Therefore it is recommended to run the job only once a day.

2. Cronjobs can be run for a specific user or from the systems /etc/crontab file. Choose which way is the most appropriate for you.

3. A cronjob in /etc/crontab that runs the script every day at 06:00 o'clock could look like this:

   0 6 * * * root $path_to_repo/.venv/bin/python $path_to_repo/notify-expiring-users.py
   

   Warning
   Make sure that you use the python from your virtual environment!