Creating KIM Persons; Integrating with IDM

OLE uses Kuali Identity Management software, which is a component of the Rice middle-ware that handles users, roles, responsibilities and permissions.  OLE interacts with KIM to determine what permissions a user has and to define workflow responsibilities.   In the OLE User Documentation on KIM you will find how to create users through the Person document.    

The Person document allows you to identify each user to KIM (and, by extension, to OLE). Each Person document includes data about a user's relationship with your institution as well as the roles and groups to which this person belongs.

In KIM a person is a unique combination of an 'entity ID' and a 'principal ID.' The entity ID represents a person with a unique number, and the document associates the entity ID with the user's principal ID number and principal name (often referred to as a user name or user ID). When searching for or working with users in KIM, you usually reference either the principal ID or the principal name. A single entity ID can have multiple principals associated with it, but the base KFS/OLE implementation of KIM assumes that each entity ID has only a single principal.

Patron names, addresses, emails, and some other information "live" in the KRIM tables, but there is also a separate table, OLE_PTRN_T, for the OLE-specific functions in the patron record. You can set up your patrons as KRIM persons, or keep them only in the patron file by loading them as an XML file.

KRIM Entity Workbook: The workbook that details the KRIM tables required to describe an entity.

Early adopters Chicago and Lehigh chose to import all their patrons and staff as KIM Persons, and then gave permissions to their staff. Michelle Suranofsky shared her scripts for creating the patron load: loadpatrons.php. Then she runs a script to convert staff patrons to KIM persons so they can be assigned permissions: stagepatrons.php