Selecting Profile Properties for Import

You use Business Desk to select which profile properties are to be imported into the Data Warehouse.

Note

• It is important to take proper security measures when you collect personal profile data on your site, import the data into the Data Warehouse, and display the data in analysis reports. For information about securing profile data and the Data Warehouse, and controlling access to reports, see Securing Your Site.

This section contains:

• Mapping Profile Properties to Columns in the RegisteredUser Table
• Customizing the Name of the Data Warehouse Column for a Profile Property

To select profile properties to be imported into the Data Warehouse

1. In Profiles, click Profile Definition Designer.
2. In the Profiles screen, select the profile definition that contains the property you want to import into the Data Warehouse, and then click on the toolbar.
3. In the Profile: <profile definition> screen, in the Properties list, select the property or property group that you want to import into the Data Warehouse.
4. In the Detailed Information section, click Advanced Attributes.
5. Select Exported, and then click on the toolbar.
6. Click Publish Profiles.
7. In the Publish Profiles screen, select the site that you want to publish profile definition changes to, and then click on the toolbar.

Data for this profile property will be collected in the Commerce Server database.

Note

• You cannot edit the name of a property after it has been created. You can edit the display name, but the actual programmatic name remains static. If you want to change the programmatic name, you must delete the property and add it again with the new programmatic name.

Mapping Profile Properties to Columns in the RegisteredUser Table

Commerce Server 2002 ships with several profile definitions that you can use for your site. If you choose to create custom profile definitions and still want to use the Commerce Server 2002 analysis reports, you will need to map the properties of your custom profile definitions to the tables and columns in the Data Warehouse that provide the data for analysis reports. If you choose to store your data in custom tables, you will need to create new reports that access the data in those tables.

Each exported profile property must be mapped to a profile data source for storage before being imported into the Data Warehouse. For information about mapping profile properties to data sources, see Mapping Profile Properties to Storage Locations.

If you create a custom profile definition to collect user data on your Web site, and you want to use the data collected with it in Commerce Server profile reports, you will need to store the information in the existing columns in the RegisteredUser table in the Data Warehouse.

If the data is not needed for reports, or if you are writing custom reports to use the data, running the Profile data import DTS task will create a new class (table) and columns in the Data Warehouse.

To map the data collected with your user profile definition to the RegisteredUser table in the Data Warehouse, you need to add the following to your user profile definition:

• DWClassName. A profile definition custom attribute that allows you to define the name of the object (in this case the RegisteredUser table) in the Data Warehouse to which the profile will export data. If the class (table) does not exist in the Data Warehouse, the DTS task will create it.

• DWMemberName. A profile property custom attribute that allows you to define the name of the data member (in this case the column in the RegisteredUser table) in the Data Warehouse where the profile property will be stored. If the member name (column) does not exist in the specified Data Warehouse class (table), the DTS task will create it. For a list of data members (columns) in the RegisteredUser table, see RegisteredUser.

  Note

  • If you choose to store the data in a new column, assign the name of the new column as the value of DWMemberName for the property to be stored in that column. The DTS task will add the column to the RegisteredUser table when it runs. The data in the new column, however, will not be used in any Commerce Server reports. If you want to run reports on data in new tables and columns in the Data Warehouse, you will need to create new reports. For information about creating new reports, see Creating Custom Reports.

• Date_Last_Changed a profile property of type DATETIME that is needed by the DTS task to perform incremental updates. This property is included in the sample profile definitions that ship with Commerce Server 2002. For information about adding a property to a profile definition, see Adding Properties to Profile Definitions in the Profiles Resource. For information about the sample profile definitions that ship with Commerce Server 2002, see Sample Profile Definitions.

For more information about Data Warehouse classes, see Dividing the Data Warehouse into Primary Business Categories. For more information about Profile classes in the Data Warehouse, see Profile Management Classes in the Data Warehouse.

To add the DWClassName custom attribute to a profile definition that maps to the RegisteredUser table in the Data Warehouse

1. Expand Commerce Server Manager, expand Global Resources, expand Profiles, expand Profile Catalog, expand Profile Definitions, right-click your user object profile definition, and then click Properties.
2. In the Properties dialog box, on the Custom Attributes tab, click New.
3. In the Custom Attribute dialog box, do the following:

   Use this	To do this
   Name	Type DWClassName.
   Display name	Type Data Warehouse class name.
   Description	Type Class name in Data Warehouse.
   Value	Type RegisteredUser.

4. Click OK to close the Custom Attribute dialog box.
5. Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

After you have added the DWClassName custom attribute to the user profile definition, add the DWMemberName custom attribute to each property in the user profile definition that will be exported to the Data Warehouse. The DWMemberName custom attribute is used to map profile definition properties to the columns in the table specified with the DWClassName custom attribute.

To add the DWMemberName custom attribute to a profile property that maps to a column in the RegisteredUser table in the Data Warehouse

1. Expand Commerce Server Manager, expand Global Resources, expand Profiles, expand Profile Catalog, expand Profile Definitions, and then click the profile definition that contains the property to which you want to add the custom attribute.
2. In the profile designer screen, in the Properties list, select the property to which you want to add the custom attribute.
3. In the profile designer screen, in the Advanced Attributes section, in the Map to Data box, click to open the Data Source Picker dialog box.
4. In the Data Source Picker dialog box, expand the data source that contains the data object that contains the data member with which you want to map the property.
5. Expand the data object that contains the data member with which you want to map the property, select the data member, and then click OK.
6. In the profile designer screen, in the Advanced Attributes section, select Exported to specify that this property will be imported into the Commerce Server Data Warehouse. You can export only mapped properties.

Note

• You cannot export properties that are multi-valued and of the type Boolean or properties of type binary, long string, or password.

1. In the profile designer screen, in the Custom Attributes section, click New.
2. In the profile designer screen, in the Custom Attributes section, do the following:

   Use this	To do this
   Name	Type DWMemberName.
   Display Name	Type DWMemberName.
   Description	Type Data Warehouse member name.
   Value	Type the name of the column in the RegisteredUser table where the data should be stored.

3. Click Accept, and then click Apply.
4. To save the profile definition, click on the toolbar.

The profile definition is saved with the custom attribute.

Customizing the Name of the Data Warehouse Column for a Profile Property

For profiles, you can customize the name of the column in the Data Warehouse for the new profile property. In addition, you can export the property to a particular column that already exists in the Data Warehouse.

To customize the name of the column for a profile property

1. In Profiles, click Profile Definition Designer.
2. In the Profiles screen, select the profile definition that contains the property you want to import into the Data Warehouse, and then click on the toolbar.
3. In the Profile: <profile definition> screen, in the Properties list, select the property or property group that you want to import into the Data Warehouse.
4. In the Detailed Information section, click Custom Attributes.
5. In the Custom Attributes section, click New, and then do the following:

   Use this	To do this
   Name	Type DWMemberName.
   Value	Type a name for the column.

6. Click Accept, click Apply, and then click on the toolbar.
7. Click Publish Profiles.
8. In the Publish Profiles screen, select the site to which you want to publish profile definition changes, and then click on the toolbar.

A column with the name you specified is added to the Data Warehouse the next time you run the Profile data import task.

Copyright © 2005 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.