Each visitor is represented by a user profile, which is a set of properties that describes and maintains information about a site visitor. When a visitor enters the Quincy Funds site, the type property in the profile identifies him or her as an investor, a broker, or a guest, and the content on the home page is customized to the visitor’s interests. Guest profiles contain basic information such as the type of browser that is used to access the site. Profiles for investors and brokers maintain detailed information such as preferences and contact information.

In addition to having a specific profile type, visitors are segmented into profile groups according to information in their profiles. At Quincy Funds, investors are segmented according to their investment strategy; they can belong to one of three profile groups: aggressive, conservative, or moderate.

All profiles contain a locale property that identifies the appropriate language (English, French, German, or Japanese) in which to display the navigation bar and feature articles.

For detailed information on profiles, see Setting Up Visitor Profiles in the Personalization Guide for Business Users.

On each user’s home page, he or she can view the feature and new articles tailored to his or her interests. The following functions are available to investors only:

Brokers can do the following:

The remaining sections of this chapter walk you through the various features of the site as a guest, an investor, and a broker. Note that many of the links are non-functional (or else take you to the list of funds) since this is only a demonstration application.