Primo provides a free plugin that allows anyone with a Primo instance to add Altmetric institutional repository badges. 


Once implemented these badges allow visitors to view the attention associated with a research output. 




Accessing the Details Pages through the badges

 

Clicking on the Altmetric badge takes you to the Altmetric Details Page, which displays the mentions we've tracked discussing the output. The view will be limited to the first 4 mentions captured from each attention source.

 

If your organisation subscribes to Explorer for Institutions your users will see every single mention we've ever captured for the output. Get in touch if you'd like to find out more about subscribing to Explorer for Institutions.


Adding the badges with Primo


These instructions apply if you are adding Altmetric badges to your Primo pages for the first time.


You should set up your implementation to use the supported public Details Page URL to check for the existence of Altmetric data. This ensures your implementation works correctly. 

  1. Check for Data: Use the URL https://www.altmetric.com/details/doi/ to check if data exists for a given DOI. 
  2. Request Type: Use a HEAD request for the check. 
  3. Response: A 301 response indicates data exists; a 404 response means no data exists. 


When configuring the badge in your Primo customization code, ensure you instruct it to load using the DOI. You must use the data-doi attribute and set it to the DOI of the item. Do not use data-altmetric-id, as this relies on the authenticated API to retrieve the Altmetric ID.


Fixing the badges in Primo - Updates for existing implementations 


We are aware that, historically, some of the Primo instances displaying Altmetrics have been using an unauthenticated call to the Altmetric Details Page API.


As of 10 November 2025, all Altmetric Details Page API requests require an authentication key. Therefore, existing implementations to display Altmetrics on Primo records through a call to the API are no longer supported. To update your implementation and restore Altmetrics on your Primo records, please follow the suggestions below. 


Implementation based on the documentation on the ExLibris Tech Blog 

  • The code for this implementation includes a call to https://api.altmetric.com/v1/doi/
    • This is a call to the Altmetric Details Page API, and requires authentication as of 10 November 2025 
  • The API call can be replaced with a call to Altmetric Details Pages via https://www.altmetric.com/details/doi/ . 
    • This request does not require an API key 
    • If the request returns a 404 for a given DOI, there is no Altmetric data for the selected DOI 
    • If the request returns a 301, there is Altmetric data for the selected DOI. 
    • The GET request could be replaced with a HEAD request 


Implementation based on the Primo Studio Metrics add-on available on GitHub 

  • The code for this implementation includes a call to https://api.altmetric.com/v1/doi/ 
    • This is a call to the Altmetric Details Page API, and requires authentication as of 10 November 2025 
  • The API call can be replaced with a call to Altmetric Details Pages via https://www.altmetric.com/details/doi/ . 
    • This request does not require an API key 
    • If the request returns a 404 for a given DOI, there is no Altmetric data for the selected DOI 
    • If the request returns a 301, there is Altmetric data for the selected DOI. 
    • The GET request could be replaced with a HEAD request 
  • In addition, instead of loading the Altmetric badge in https://github.com/uleodolter/primo-studio-altmetrics/blob/master/src/html/altmetrics.template.html using the altmetric_id attribute, load the badge using the selected DOI, replacing the data-altmetric-id attribute with the data-doi attribute and setting it to the DOI