Adding a New Property to a Profile Definition

You use the Profiles resource to add properties to a profile definition. Properties determine the data collected with the profile definition. For example, if you create an Address profile definition, you would add a property named "City" to it. (You can also add properties to a profile definition using the Profile Designer module in Commerce Server Business Desk. For information about using the Profile Designer module, see Business Desk Users.)

To add a new property to a profile definition

1. Expand Commerce Server Manager, expand Global Resources, expand Profiles, expand Profile Catalog, expand Profile Definitions, and then click the profile definition to which you want to add a property.
2. In the profile designer screen, in the Properties list, select the property group to which you want to associate the property you are adding, and then click Add.
3. In the Add dialog box, select Add a new property, and then click OK.
4. In the profile designer screen, in the Attributes section, do the following:

   Use this	To do this
   Name	Type the programmatic name of the property. The name can contain a maximum of 127 alphanumeric characters and the underscore (_) symbol. The name cannot contain spaces.
   Display Name	Type the name you want displayed in Business Desk. The display name can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.
   Description	Type a description for the property. The description can contain a maximum of 127 Unicode characters.
   Type	Select the property type from the drop-down list. The default property type is string.
   Type Reference	Required for site term and profile types. Click the ellipsis [...] button to select the site term or profile you are adding to the property definition. This feature is available only if you have selected the site term or profile for the property type.

5. In the profile designer screen, in the Advanced Attributes section, click Active to indicate that this property is available in Business Desk. Inactive properties are not displayed in Business Desk.
6. In the Map to Data box, click the ellipsis [...] button to open the Data Source Picker dialog box.
7. In the Data Source Picker dialog box, expand the data source that contains the data object that contains the data member with which you want to map the property.
8. Expand the data object that contains the data member with which you want to map the property, select the data member, and then click OK.
9. In the profile designer screen, in the Advanced Attributes section, do the following:

   Use this	To do this
   Key Type	Select a key type from the drop-down list. Each profile definition requires a property that is a primary key and a property that is a join key, or a property that is a dual key (both primary and join).
   Required	Specifies that this property is required on your Web site and in Business Desk. However, this attribute is not enforced by the Profiles resource. This attribute is read-only if you have selected a key type.
   Exported	Select this option to specify that this property will be imported into the Commerce Server Data Warehouse. You can export only mapped properties. You cannot export properties that are multi-valued and of the type Boolean or properties of type binary, long string, or password.
   Defer Cache	Select this option to specify that this property will not be loaded initially when the profile is retrieved, but will be loaded when this property is accessed. Each deferred cache property is retrieved individually from the OLEDB Provider when it is accessed.
   Multi-valued	Select this option to enable the collection of multiple values that are associated with this property. This value is not available if you have selected a key type for the property.
   Searchable	Select this option to specify that this property is indexed in the underlying data store and is available for searching using the Find By function.
   RDN	Type the Relative Distinguished Name (RDN) for a directory store. Set this value if this property maps to an RDN attribute of an LDAP class in the underlying store.
   Hashing Key	Select this option to indicate that this property is used to distribute profile instances across multiple data source partitions. This property is read-only for non-partitioned data sources. You must query on this key to retrieve profiles.

10. Click Apply.
11. To save the profile definition, click on the toolbar.

The profile definition is saved with the new property.

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