External Patrons
The majority of patrons are loaded into Alma via a nightly batchloading process from CUNYfirst. These are called "external" patrons because their details are maintained (externally) in CUNYfirst. Changes to these users in Alma will be overwritten by details stored in CUNYfirst. Included in this category are active staff, faculty, and students. They are loaded into Alma with the role "Patron." They sign into Primo VE ("OneSearch")—to place requests, renew items, save queries, etc.—using their CUNY Login credentials.
Internal Patrons
Local ("internal") patrons are those who are not maintained in CUNYfirst and their accounts are created and maintained exclusively in Alma. (They are iinternally maintained.) Libraries decide who gets provisioned a library account but some common examples are affiliated high school students, alumni, and Friends of the Library. They sign into Primo VE ("OneSearch")—to renew items, save queries, etc.—using the username/password assigned to them at the time of their account creation in Alma.