Web Content Management can provide some tailored content through features like menu components or metadata such as keywords. But you can also take advantage of the Personalization feature of WebSphere Portal to further tailor content through the use of rules.
Personalization rules return a list of content, much like a Menu component. However, where Web Content Management menus are used for simple search rules, personalization rules are much more flexible and can be used for more complex search rules. In addition, rules are meant to be changed and managed by business users as needs of the business change.
Rules offer the ability to:
- Target content to dynamic profiles
- Deliver time-based campaign content
- Recommend content based on click stream or user affiliation
- Display content from external sources such as relational tables
- Display content based on a custom search rule using elements on the authoring template form
Depending on the kind of content tailoring you want to perform, you might want to use personalization rules their flexibility. Web Content Management enables personalization rules on custom attributes, and several selection menus in the personalization rule editor make rule creation easier.
When building rules using authoring template elements, only text, numeric, and date components are supported. For performance reasons, avoid having too many rules using authoring template elements. Instead, use standard metadata (such as keywords and categories).
Handling syndication of personalization rules
Syndication of content allows disparate server clusters to maintain the same level of content, but rules that are referenced by personalization components in Web Content Management are not included during syndication. Ensure that these rules are transferred or published before syndicating the content.
Here is one way of ensuring personalization rules are published first:
1. Create all personalization components in a separate library called External Components Library.
Note: If you are already using All Live Items to syndicate the library that contains the rest of your components, then a separate library is not necessary.
2. Enable workflow on all components.
3. Use a Web Content Management workflow with a workflow stage that enables your components to be created in a Draft state initially.
4. Create a Syndicator/Subscriber pair. Select your External Components library in the Syndicator.
5. Select All Live Items as your Item gatherer in your Syndicator.
6. Transfer your personalization rules.
7. In Web Content Management, approve your personalization components in the Draft state, as the transfer/publish process of the personalization rules completes successfully.
Note: If you need to change an existing rule and have it staged with some other Web Content Management-related changes, create a new personalization rule and update the personalization component in Web Content Management to use the new personalization rule. Then use the process above to deploy the changes and finally remove the old personalization rule after the changes are published.
Example: Display a list of content links based on a custom search rule
The following example shows how to display a list of links to Web Content Management content, based on a custom search rule.
1. Create a personalization rule using the custom search parameters.
2. Create a personalization component that displays content from the rule.
3. Add the personalization component to an existing page or configure a Web Content Viewer portlet to display it directly.
Related Content
Deploying WebSphere Portal 6.1 to deliver personalized Web content in a rendering portlet
Adding personalized content to your Web site
Redbook: Creating a personalization component
Info Center: Presenting personalized content