Profile Definitions

Article
11/12/2009

A profile definition is a set of characteristics that define any business-related item, such as a user, a company, or a business process. If your site developer used a Solution Site to build your site, you should have the five following sample profile definitions:

Address
BlanketPOs (purchase orders)
Organization
Targeting Context
User Object

To create additional profile definitions for your site, work with your system administrator.

For example, assume you request a new profile definition named Music, and you want to store the following profile properties: First Concert, Last Concert, Favorite CD, and two more properties that are not yet determined.

The system administrator creates the new profile definition, Music, which will have five properties: three you know now, and two you will add at a later time. The system administrator also extends your profile database by adding enough columns to store the data collected with the five properties of the Music profile definition.

After the system administrator creates the profile definition and extends the profile database, you can do the following:

Use the Profile Definition Designer module to add the first three properties and modify the attributes of the profile properties you added.
Map the three profile properties with three of the data members provided by the system administrator to the appropriate database columns.

Note

Your system administrator can complete these tasks by using Commerce Server Business Desk or Commerce Server Manager.

At a later date, when you determine other information you want to collect by using the Music profile definition, you can use the Profile Definition Designer module to add the remaining two properties and map them to the database columns created by your system administrator.

Profile Definitions

See Also

Additional resources