Bookshelf v8.0: Personalization Profile Business Component Used in Version 7

In version 6, these business components are used to store persistent user profile attributes, but in version 7, the Personalization Profile business component is used instead. Any reference to the user profiles in those business components have to be modified.

Basic information such as name and email address should be stored as persistent attributes. Your business needs will determine what other attributes are important to store from one session to another. In general, the most frequently used attributes are made part of the persistent profile.

Retrieving Persistent Attributes

Values for persistent attributes are loaded in the session when a user logs in. Persistent attributes are retrieved using GetProfileAttr(). For more information on GetProfileAttr(), see Profile Functions.

Saving Modified Persistent Attributes

Table 6. Saving Modified Persistent Attributes
If...	Then...
Persistent attributes are modified by a user and the session is updated, either directly or by the user's actions while logged in.	The modified values are not saved to the database until the session is terminated. This is because the profile attributes are cached. Caching profile attributes allows extremely fast access to them when building pages, while providing persistence between sessions.
Persistent attributes are modified in an administration screen and saved, for example, by a call center agent using the Profile view under the User Profile Preferences screen.	The changes are saved to the database at that time.

GetProfileAttr and Personalization

GetProfileAttr only works for fields explicitly defined in the Personalization Profile business component. GetProfileAttr does not work with system fields, which are not explicitly defined in the business component; it returns a NULL value for them.

The Id system field is an exception. This particular system field was added in order to be available to GetProfileAttr, even though it is not in the Personalization Profile business component.