Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers

Administering the Profile

Many sites allow users to maintain their own profiles or at least to edit the data they provided through online forms. Commerce Server 2002 uses a feature called Customer Services to allow registered users to view and modify their profiles.

Another approach to managing users is central administration by one or more administrators. Users communicate changes through phone calls or emails, and the administrators dutifully update the profiles. This approach eliminates the possibility of incorrect data entry on the part of users and it creates jobs for administrators.

A third path is to set up decentralized administration delegated through a user hierarchy. For instance, a membership organization could designate a primary ...