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.