Creating a Profile Definition in the Profiles Resource

Article
11/12/2009

You use the Profiles resource to create new profile definitions. For example, the business manager may ask you to create a new profile definition to make additional data available from your Web site and Commerce Server Business Desk. You can create a profile definition that is automatically mapped to a data object. You can also create a profile definition that is not mapped to a data object. You use profile definitions to define the data that you collect about users who visit your Web site.

You can create custom attributes for a profile definition. For example, you can add a custom attribute called defaultParentURL that controls where profiles are stored in the underlying Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) store. For information about adding custom attributes for a profile definition, see Adding a Custom Attribute to a Profile Definition.

To add a new profile definition that is mapped to a data object

To add a new profile definition that is not mapped to a data object

To add a new profile definition that is mapped to a data object

Expand Commerce Server Manager, expand Global Resources, expand Profiles, expand Profile Catalog, expand Data Sources, expand the data source that contains the data object that you want to map the new profile definition with, and then expand Data Objects.
Right-click the data object the new profile definition will be mapped with, and then click New Profile Definition.

Important
- A primary key data member must exist on the data object to be mapped, or it will not map correctly.

In the New Profile Definition dialog box, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Name	Type a programmatic name for the new profile definition. The name can contain a maximum of 127 alphanumeric characters and the underscore (_) symbol. The name cannot contain spaces.
Display Name	Type the name you want displayed for the new profile definition. The display name can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.
Description	Type a description for the new profile definition. The description can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.

Click Next to open the Custom Attributes dialog box.
Click Finish to close the dialog box. If you want to add custom attributes to the profile definition, see Adding a Custom Attribute to a Profile Definition.

The new profile definition appears in the list of available profile definitions in Commerce Server Manager. The new profile definition contains the properties mapped to the data members of the data object from which you built the profile definition.

To add a profile definition that is not mapped to a data object

Expand Commerce Server Manager, expand Profiles, expand Profile Catalog, right-click Profile Definitions, and then select New Profile Definition.

In the New Profile Definition dialog box, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Name	Type a programmatic name for the new profile definition. The name can contain a maximum of 127 alphanumeric characters and the underscore (_) symbol. The name cannot contain spaces.
Display Name	Type the name you want displayed for the new profile definition. The display name can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.
Description	Type a description for the new profile definition. The description can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.

Click Next to open the Custom Attributes dialog box.
Click Finish to close the dialog box. If you want to add custom attributes to the profile definition, see Adding a Custom Attribute to a Profile Definition.

The new profile definition appears in the list of available profile definitions in Commerce Server Manager.

The new profile definition does not contain properties and is therefore not mapped to a data source. You must add properties to the new profile definition. For information about adding properties to a profile definition, see Adding Properties to Profile Definitions in the Profiles Resource.

Creating a Profile Definition in the Profiles Resource

See Also

Additional resources