Each content item is defined by values you enter for a set of attributes. When you add an item, you enter values for the set of attributes that form part of the content type to which you add the item. The set of attributes can include three attribute types named content, matching, and related attributes. Your database developers can use the sample attributes delivered with the Broadway sample application to define your content, and create new attributes. The document One-To-One Database Administrator's Guide explains how.
The topics listed here provide conceptual information about content item attributes, and explain the kinds of attributes you can work with when you create content for a One-To-One site.
Content attributes and values provide information that can be displayed on your site. Attributes such as product name, price, and description can be displayed as headings, together with attribute values, such as a list of products with corresponding prices and descriptions.
Attributes also include system-generated, read-only information that is helpful to you, such as the date and time a content item is created or modified. Certain attributes, such as the location and measurements of the image file, provide the One-To-One system with necessary information about your content. For example, the system uses the location and measurements of an advertising image file to retrieve the image and determine its size when it displays the image on your site.
Attributes for content in Publishing Center are customizable. That means developers of your site's One-To-One database can customize attributes for your content. See the document One-To-One Database Administrator's Guide for information about extending the database schema to include customized attributes.
Certain BroadVision attributes are required. That means your site's administrators must enter values for them. Required attributes are displayed by the Publishing Center graphical user interface. If your development team uses a BroadVision content type in your Publishing Center site, required attributes for the type are always displayed. Your development team may also create required fields for the custom content types they create.
Values for some attributes, such as the attributes Creation Time, or Last Modified Time, are entered and maintained by the One-To-One system. Such system-defined values are displayed for your information in read-only typeface by the Publishing Center graphical user interface. You cannot change them.
Content attributes describe an item and distinguish it from other items of the same content type. Content attributes include distinguishing characteristics such as unique IDs, names, and descriptions.
Content attributes can differ among categories within a content type. For example, the content type Product might include the categories Clothing and CDs. Though the categories may belong to the same content type, and have common attributes, they might have unique attributes.
Information provided here for entering attribute values for BroadVision sample content types assumes your site uses attributes provided by the BroadVision sample database. Any other attributes displayed in your system will be those designed by your development team specifically for your business.
The table shown here displays sample content attributes, together with values, for the BroadVision sample content type Product. The values are the attribute values of the content item Broadway Balance Fund.
Observe that the content item Broadway Balance Fund includes an attribute named on-line. The attribute on-line has the value on-line. The value on-line means the content item can be displayed on your One-To-One site. Chapter 2, "Adding, modifying, and deleting content," explains how to enter content attribute values, and describes the values you enter for the BroadVision sample content types.
Product ID
|
Creation Time
|
On-line
|
Product Name
|
Department
|
Price
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
20003
|
9/8/96
|
On-line
|
Broadway Balance Fund
|
Balance Funds
|
$44.86
|
Most Publishing Center sample attributes have only one value. But some attributes of content in your Publishing Center site may require multiple values.
Publishing Center supports attributes that have multiple values. Developers of your One-To-One site's database can modify BroadVision sample attributes to include multiple values. Also, developers can create attributes that have multiple values.
Attributes that include multiple values are known as related attributes. Related attributes may be required, for example, by products that have multiple values for the attribute color, or for the attribute size. Thus a related attribute for color may have multiple values such as Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, and White. And a related attribute for size may have multiple values such as Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large as shown here:
Related attributes enable you to establish and maintain a site that is multi-lingual.
Full Forms and the sample Instant Publisher Forms delivered with Publishing Center provide the capability to work with related attributes. Chapter 2, "Adding, modifying, and deleting content" provides more information about Full Forms and Instant Publisher Forms.
Also, related attributes enable your site to personalize displays of products for visitors. For example, if you target related attributes with matching rules created by means of the system BroadVision Command Center, you can match products to that visitor's preferences for sizes, colors, and styles. To learn more about matching attributes, see the subsection that follows immediately.
Content items can have matching attributes in addition to content attributes. The One-To-One Matching Agent compares the matching attribute values of a content item to those in a visitor's profile to match and display content items of relevance or interest to that visitor.
On the Intranet, matching attributes can be used to display job- or employee-related content. For example, matching attributes can be defined to display targeted information on new product releases to manufacturing personnel, competitive product releases to marketing and engineering personnel, and new benefit information and sign-up campaigns to all personnel.
On the Internet, matching attributes allow businesses to display content of interest, such as ad campaigns, product-related on-line forums, special incentives to purchase, and on-line catalogs of products and services for sale, to site visitors.
"The Matching Agent" next provides an overview of the One-To-One Matching Agent, how it works, and what must be set up before you can use it. "Entering matching attribute values" describes how to enter values for the matching attributes of a content item. For a technical description of the Matching Agent, refer to the document One-To-One Matching, an on-line document contained on the CD that delivers the BroadVision One-To-One system package.
Matching Agent is a feature of BroadVision One-To-One that lets you target content to interests of specific visitors by comparing content matching attributes with visitor profile ratings.
The Matching Agent compares a weighted ranking of values in matching attributes of a content item to a rating of those attributes in a visitor's profile. The profile rating specifies the level of a visitor's interest. For example, the Matching Agent may compare the amount of action or romance in a movie to a visitor's interest in action movies and romantic movies. Using the score that results from this comparison, the system displays content of interest or relevance to a visitor.
The Matching Agent compares a visitor's profile matching attribute values with those entered in the Publishing Center Matching Attributes for a specific content item, and calculates how much that item matches the interests of the visitor. The system displays on a site all the content items scoring above a designated cutoff in descending order beginning with the content item of most interest to the visitor. The default cutoff is zero. The default display order is descending. Your database administrator can change either default.
To use the Matching Agent, your One-To-One developers must define the matching attributes that are displayed in your Publishing Center site, and assign a weight and ranking to them in the database. The document One-To-One Database Administrator's Guide provides more information. Your One-To-One site also needs to solicit visitors' interests. You enter the matching attribute values into the database when you create content items in the Publishing Center. "Entering matching attribute values" explains how to do this. The values you enter are compared to the interests your visitors express when they visit your One-To-One site.
The status of a content item determines whether the item is available for display on your One-To-One site, and whether it is available for use by the Matching Agent, and other matching methods.
The status of a content item is either off-line or on-line. The table shown here defines the status off-line and the status on-line.
Regardless of status, all content items in the One-To-One database are available, potentially, in your Publishing Center site. Access privileges specified in your Publishing Center account determine whether you have access to an item, and whether you can modify its attribute values, including its status. "Understanding access groups and privileges" explains the different kinds of access to content your Publishing Center account can provide.
Before you modify any value of an attribute of a content item, it is a good idea to change the item's status to off-line. Later, when you finish working the item, change its status to on-line. "Moving content online and offline" provides instructions on changing the status of a content item.
When you add new content items, Publishing Center assigns them, automatically, the status of off-line. That means new content items are not available automatically for matching and display purposes, unless you change their status to on-line.
Off-line status lets you develop an item and have it approved for display on your site, and for display as the target content of a matching rule. When the item is ready for display, you can move it on-line by changing its status to on-line -- provided you have appropriate access.
Changing the status of a content item that is referenced in multiple categories changes the status of the references to the item in all the referenced categories.