Synchronization

The purpose of a profile service is to import information about portal users from an external system into the portal so that the information can be used by the portal and other services. The first step is to synchronize the user information in the external system with existing users in the portal; this is the process that must be handled by the remote service. As with authentication services, the synchronization process is handled by the portal Automation Server, as scheduled in the Job associated with the Profile Source object in the portal.

Property Mapping: User Information

The profile information imported by the profile service must be associated with portal properties so that it can be accessed by portal objects and other remote services.

Development

The following topics provide detailed instructions on developing custom profile services:

• Profile Service Internals describes the interfaces that must be implemented when creating a profile service, and how the interfaces will be called by the portal.
• Implementing an Authentication Service provides step by step instructions on implementing the required interfaces, with example code.
• Deploying a Java Authentication Service and Deploying a .NET Authentication Service describe how to deploy the profile service to a Java or .NET application server.
• Configuring an Profile Service describes how to configure the profile service in the portal.