Enabling End-User Personalization

Portal administrators can enable end users to personalize a portal Desktop. Portal Server personalization occurs when individual end users change their own Desktops.

Other ways to change the Desktop affect more than one end user and thus are not personalization. These methods include the following:

• Custom content delivery is a portal design activity that affects all end users authorized to use a specific Desktop. The Desktop Design Tool, for example, enables administrators to establish Desktop properties and functions.

• Role-based content delivery using Access Manager allows Desktop access based on identities of specific organizations, suborganizations, roles, and individuals.

• Automatic content delivery provides content based on what the system detects about end users. IP addresses, for example, can indicate end-user locations and preferred languages. In some contexts, automatic content delivery is defined as personalization.

  To support automatic content delivery in Portal Server, developing a custom ContainerProvider is required.

Examples of Desktop personalization that administrators can enable end users to control from the Desktop include the following:

• Editing preferences for pages, tabs, and channels

• Adding or removing channels

• Changing channel positions

• Changing column layout

• Selecting a Desktop theme

• Changing end-user information