Portlet Personalization

One feature of portlet forms that is unique among FDA form types is portlet personalization. Users can toggle between standard mode (where they interact with the application) and personalization mode, where they can select different options that affect how the application runs while in standard mode.

For example, say that the application by default displays all accounts that are overdue by 30 days or more. Users might be able to choose instead to view accounts that are overdue by 60 days instead, or by accounts in a certain region that are overdue. Alternatively, they might have an option which displays the information in a summarized format instead of showing all the data you show by default. Personalization values are user specific.

You control what options users have. Every option you provide, be it as simple as a filtering function or as complex as invoking additional functionality, is a data dictionary (DD) item passed in with the data structure. The DD items appear when the user toggles to personalization mode, and the user can trigger them by choosing the options and then returning to standard mode. If you do not include any such items in the data structure, then personalization mode is disabled for that portlet.

Because the available options are based on the form's data structure, those values are passed in by runtime to the form if they have been set.