User Profile in ATG

A user profile is a set of attributes that represent the data you want to store for a site user, for example login name, password, e-mail address, registration date, and so on. ATG applications use profile repositories to manage user profiles.

When a user starts a session on an ATG server, a new profile object is created. The profile object starts off empty if anonymous. If the user logs in, the information stored about that user in the Profile Repository is loaded into the profile object on the server. From this point onward, changes to the profile object will be saved in the Profile Repository at designated times.

The profile object may contain information gathered before the user logged in, and this information is merged while the login is done based on the requirements.

GROUP USERS:

There are two ways to group USERS for personalization:
– Profile Repository
        Profile Repository uses "organization" item descriptor to group "user". Each user can belong to one and only one organization. can link an user to organization using BCC or by scenarios.
        (for Detailed explanation of SCENARIOS click here)
– Segments
        User segments become read only boolean properties of a profile. Users can be in any number of segments.
Store application can use one or both the approaches depending on the requirements

Customizations to Profile:
A profile can be customized in N number of ways.

- can extend oob item descriptor
- can create a new item type
- can customize to include a new payment method like loyal points
- can customize components related to profile like wishlist, giftlist, saved carts, price lists etc..

for example on customizing profile repository click here