# Setting up Users and User Properties

For the purposes of interaction management development, users are people who visit your portals. (System and portal administrators are also users.) Users can be registered (can log in), anonymous tracked visitors, or purely anonymous (non-tracked) visitors.

Note: One of the main reasons for setting up users is to provide interaction management functionality in your portals: personalization, campaigns, and behavior tracking. You can target all users with some type of personalized content. However, for campaigns and behavior tracking, you can target and track only registered and anonymous tracked users. Campaigns and behavior tracking are not currently supported for anonymous, non-tracked users.

There are different ways of setting up or identifying users in your portals. You are likely to use many of these ways:

- Adding Users with the WebLogic Administration Portal (registered users)
- Adding Users with the WebLogic Administration Console (registered users)
- Letting Users Add Themselves (registered users)
- Enabling Anonymous User Tracking (anonymous tracked users)
- Handling Anonymous (Non-tracked) Users (anonymous non-tracked users)
- Accessing properties in external user stores with a Unified User Profile

Adding Users with the WebLogic Administration Portal

You can add users and organize them into groups in your domain using the WebLogic Administration Portal.

For instructions on creating users and groups, see the WebLogic Administration Portal help system.

To access the WebLogic Administration Portal:

- On the production server: With the server running, enter the following URL in a browser: http://<server>:<port>/<portalApp>Admin. For example, http://localhost:7001/greatAppAdmin.
- On your development server: You can use the same method as used on the production server, or you can use WebLogic Workshop. With your portal application open and the development server running, choose Portal-->Open Portal Administration.

Adding Users with the WebLogic Administration Console

You can add users and organize them into groups in your domain using the WebLogic Administration Console. Add users this way for convenience if you work frequently in the WebLogic Administration Console rather than in the WebLogic Administration Portal.

For instructions on creating users and groups, see Security in the WebLogic Administration Console help system documentation.

To access the WebLogic Administration Console:

- On the production server: With the server running, enter the following URL in a browser: http://<server>:<port>/console. For example, http://localhost:7001/console.
- On your development server: You can use the same method as used on the production server, or you can use WebLogic Workshop. With the development server running, choose Tools-->WebLogic Server-->WebLogic Console.

Letting Users Add Themselves

You can build functionality into your portal application that lets users add themselves to the domain. Use any of the following features:

- <ugm:createUser> - The WebLogic Workshop Portal Extensions <ugm:createUser> JSP tag lets you add users to the domain.
- User Provider Control - The WebLogic Workshop Portal Extensions Create User Control lets you add user-creation functionality to Java Page Flows and surface that functionality in portlets.
- WebLogic Portal API - The WebLogic Workshop Portal Extensions API provides user management classes for creating users.

Enabling Anonymous User Tracking

WebLogic Portal lets you identify and retain information about non-authenticated visitors to your portals. When you enable anonymous user tracking, non-authenticated users receive a cookie after a predetermined time (30 seconds by default), and preference information is persisted in a database rather than in memory.

Each time an anonymous tracked user returns to the portal, the ID in their cookie matches the primary key in the tracked anonymous user database, their previous user properties are maintained, and your personalization and campaign rules will work for those users. When anonymous tracked users register in your portal, their user profile is moved from the anonymous tracked user database to the user database.

If users do not have cookies enabled or if they delete cookies frequently, there is no way to match the users with their existing records in the anonymous tracked user database, and on subsequent returns to the portal these users are treated as new anonymous users.

See Tracking Anonymous Users for instructions.

Handling Anonymous (Non-tracked) Users

You can target anonymous (non-tracked) users with personalized content using any personalization tool besides campaigns and behavior tracking--tools such as default (non-campaign) placeholders and content selectors. Campaigns and behavior tracking are not currently supported for anonymous, non-tracked users.

The main difference between completely anonymous (non-tracked) users and registered or anonymous tracked users is how long their profile information is retained.

For example, if an anonymous user visits a portal and sets her preferences to "favorite color=purple" and "favorite hobby=reading," those values are persisted in memory and can be used to display personalized content and trigger campaigns while the browser session lasts. However, if the user closes the browser and revisits the portal, she has to re-enter her user preferences. Registered and anonymous tracked users have their preferences saved in a database.

While anonymous users do not retain a consistent store of user preferences from session to session, you can still provide a fair amount of interaction management functionality. For example, many personalization conditions are based on such things as generic HTTP session and request properties you define, dates and times, and personal session preferences that have no relationship to registered users and their profile properties. For example, you could display personalized content for anonymous users accessing your portal with a specific type of browser during a specific timeframe.

Related Topics

Developing Personalized Applications

Overview of Content Management

Designing Interaction Management

Creating Personalization Conditions

Personalizing Portal Applications