Changing a Profile Property

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You can use the Profiles resource to change profile properties to update the data you want to collect from your Web site. For example, you create a profile definition with a property that you use to collect data about the country/region in which the users who visit your Web site live. When you view the data collected with that profile property, you discover that a property of the type string is not the best way to collect useful location data from your users. You use the profile designer screen to modify the attributes of the property so that it collects data that is more useful.

To change a profile property

  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 you want to change.

  2. In the Properties list, expand the property group that contains the property you want to change, and then click the property you want to change.

    Or, click the property group you want to change.

  3. In the profile designer screen, in the Attributes section, do the following:

    Use this To do this
    Display Name Edit the name you want displayed in Commerce Server Business Desk. The display name can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.
    Description Edit the description for the property. The description can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.
    Type Select the property type. The default property type is string. The property type of this attribute must be the same type as the data member to which this attribute is mapped.
    Type Reference Click the ellipsis [...] button to select the site term or profile you are adding to the property definition. This feature is available only if you have selected the type site term or profile.

  4. In the profile designer screen, in the Advanced Attributes section, click Active if you want this property to be available in Business Desk. Inactive properties are not displayed in Business Desk.

  5. In the Map to Data box, click the ellipsis [...] button to open the Data Source Picker dialog box, and then select the data member to which the property maps.

  6. 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.

  7. Expand the data object that contains the data member with which you want to map the property, and then select the data member.

  8. Click OK.

  9. In the profile designer screen, in the Advanced Attributes section, do the following:

    Use this To do this
    Key Type Select a key type from the drop-down list. Each profile definition requires a property that is a primary key and a property that is a join key, or a property that is a dual key (both primary and join).
    Required Specifies that this property is required on your Web site and in Business Desk. However, this attribute is not enforced by the Profiles resource. This attribute is read-only if you have selected a key type.
    Exported Select this option to specify that this property will be imported into the Commerce Server Data Warehouse. You can export only mapped properties.

    You cannot export properties that are multi-valued and of the type Boolean or properties of type binary, long string, or password.
    Defer Cache Select this option to specify that this property will not be loaded initially when the profile is retrieved, but will be loaded when this property is accessed. Each deferred cache property is retrieved individually from the OLEDB Provider when it is accessed.
    Multi-valued Select this option to enable the collection of multiple values that are associated with this property. This value is not available if you have selected a key type for the property.
    Searchable Select this option to specify that this property is indexed in the underlying data store and is available for searching using the Find By function.
    RDN Type the Relative Distinguished Name (RDN) for a directory store. Set this value if this property maps to an RDN attribute of an LDAP class in the underlying store.
    Hashing Key Select this option to indicate that this property is used to distribute profile instances across multiple data source partitions.

    This property is read-only for non-partitioned data sources. You must query on this key to retrieve profiles.

  10. Click Apply.

  11. To save the profile definition, click Ee825455.save(en-US,CS.20).gifon the toolbar.

The profile definition is saved with the changes.

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