Personalization and Profiles 2008

7/30/2019 Personalization and Profiles 2008

1/21

Personalization


2/21

Many web applications must becustomized with the information that is

specific to the end user who is presentlyviewing the page.

Earlier this was done by using Cookies,

Session or Application objects. Cookies enabled storage of persistent items

so that when the end user returned to a web

page any settings related to him wereretrieved.


3/21

ASP.Net 2.0/3.5 provides you with a newfeature called Personalization.

This feature can make an automatic associationbetween the end user viewing the page and anydata points stored for that user.

The personalization properties that aremaintained on per user basis are stored on theserver and not on the client.

These items are placed on the data store of your

choice. This is good for creating highly customizable and

user specific sites.


4/21

The Personalization Model-

There are 3 layers in this model The middle layer is called the Peronalization

Service Layer.

This layer contains the profile API.

This layer helps you to program end usersdata points into one of the lower layer datastores.

Also in this layer are included server controlspersonalization capabilities.

Below this layer is the default PersonalizationData Provider for working with SQL Server.


5/21

Creating Personalization Properties

For creating Personalization Properties ,the first step is what data item from the

user you are going to store.ASP.Net has a heavy dependency on

storing configurations inside XML files.

These customization points concerning theend user are defined and stored within theweb.config file.


6/21

Within the element you define all the properties you

want personalization engine to store. These properties can be for authenticated

users or for anonymous users.


7/21

Using Personalization Properties

After defining the Personalization properties in

the web.config file it is possible to use it inthe code.

Using the Profile class.

The same thing can be achieved using aSession Object but the personalizationproperties are not key based.


8/21

Adding a group of Personalizationproperties

If you want to store a large number ofpersonalization properties for a particularuser.

These properties are not for a particular page

but for the entire application. The items that you have stored about a

particular user in the beginning can beretrieved at the end.

The personalization engine enables you tostore your personalization properties ingroups.


9/21


10/21

The personalization groups are definedusing the element within the

element. Using Grouped Personalization properties

You can access defined items in a logical

manner using nested namespaces. Profile.MemberDetails.DateJoined

Defining types for a Personalizationproperties

By default these properties are created astype string.


11/21


12/21

Providing default values


13/21

This means that when you add a new enduser to the personalization property database,

Member is defined instead of remaining ablank value.

Making Personalization properties read-only-


14/21

Anonymous Personalization

Anonymous users can also utilize thepersonalization properties .

This is important if a site requiresregistration.

So end users do not always register for

access to the greater application until theyhave first taken advantage of some basicservices.


15/21

Many e-commerce sites allow anonymoususers to shop a site and use the sites

shopping cart before the shoppersregister.

Enabling Anonymous identification of theEnd User By default anonymous personalization is

turned off because it consumes databaseresources.

For anonymous user , information is stored by

default as a cookie on the end users machine.


16/21

Changing the Name of the Cookie

Changing the length of the time the Cookie is

stored

Anonymous Option for Personalization Properties

Once the capability for anonymous users are in place, you have to specify which personalization properties

you want to enable for anonymous users .


17/21

Migrating Anonymous Users

You must be able to migrate anonymous

users to registered users.

For eg. After the user has selected items inthe cart he can register to purchase them.

So at that moment he switches fromanonymous user to registered user.

There is a profile_MigrateAnonymous event

This event requires an event delegate of typeProfile_MigrateEventArgs.


18/21

Determining whether to continue withAutomatic saves

The page automatically saves the profilevalues to the specified data store at the endof the pages execution.

This capability can be turned off by usingautomaticSaveEnabled=false in the element.

Then you will have to invoke the

ProfileBase.Save () method.


19/21

Personalization Providers

The Personalization API layercommunicates with a series of default

data providers. By default it uses SQL Server Express.

You are not restricted to this.


20/21

Working with SQL Server Express Edition

This is the default provider used by the

personalization system provided by ASP.Net. In the App_Data folder it places an ASPNETDB.mdf

file.

In the machine.config there are sections that deal

with how the personalization engine works withdatabase.


21/21

The location of the file specified by theconnection string attribute points to therelative path of the file.

In the section the personalizationengines reference to this connection string isspecified.

A provider is added using the element.

Personalization and Profiles 2008

Documents

Transcript of Personalization and Profiles 2008