Allow Anonymous Access to Person or Dataset Portals
- 12 Sep 2024
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Allow Anonymous Access to Person or Dataset Portals
- Updated 12 Sep 2024
- 3 minute read
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Portals that use the Anonymous/Guest setting can be useful for displaying information to the general public as well as including links to forms and/or event registrations. However, there may be cases where users want the option to use the same portal with two experiences:
Logged In - If the portal user is logged in or accesses the portal via a personalized URL, they see personalized content
Not Logged In - If the portal user is not logged in or accesses the portal via a non-personalized URL, they see unpersonalized content
The Anonymous Access portal setting allows you to build a single portal that offers both experiences.
Portal Settings
Create a new portal or open an existing one, then click Edit in the top-right.
Select the desired Scope, either Person or Dataset. If you are making a new portal, you will need to Save and re-open the Edit popup.
Select Allow anonymous access to view unpersonalized content for the Anonymous Access setting.
Portal Queries
You can use queries to display personalized information. When a query is created, the Portal Identity filter is created automatically. This filter uses the @identity variable to query information about the end-user that’s logged in.
When the portal is accessed anonymously, the @identity variable will be null. A null value will cause all queries to return zero rows, and thus not display any personalized information.
Adding Filters to the Portal View
Filters can be used on Portal View parts to display certain content only to identified records.
For example, if the portal should only display specific information to prospects in a particular term, filters can be added to conditionally display the content. Those records accessing the portal anonymously would not see this content, and those records that login or use a personalized URL would only view the content if they met the filter criteria.
Adding Liquid Markup to the Portal View
Liquid markup can also be used in the portal view(s) to display conditional content.
For example, the portal may be set up to display 'Welcome, {{first}}!' if it knows who is accessing the portal (via a personalized link or login) or display 'Welcome!' if the portal is being accessed anonymously.
In the source code of the view where these messages display, the Liquid markup would resemble the following:
Welcome{% if first %}, {{first}}!{% else %}!{% endif %}
If first is populated in the portal query, then the view will display the first name. Otherwise, it will display nothing:
First name exists in the query:
First name does not exist in the query:
Additional customizations can be made, such as personalizing content based on other fields using Liquid markup.
Customizing Form Links
The same logic can be applied when creating links in the portal. For example, if the id of the record exists in the query, then add &person={{id}} (or ?person={{id}} if the form has an alias) to the form or event registration URL:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title></title> </head> <body>{% if id %} <a href="/register/request-info?person={{id}}">Click here to request information!</a>{% else %}<a href="/register/request-info">Click here to request information!</a>{% endif %} </body> </html>
The result of this code is:
Automatically linked to the associated record
(Pre-populates any previously collected data for that record)
Not automatically linked to a record
(ID does not exist. Will not pre-populate any data)
Mailing the Personalized Link
Many institutions will use a Deliver mailing to email records a link to the portal. The link in the mailing will include the person GUID to allow access to the portal.
Create a new mailing.
Create a recipients list. (Be sure to include the person GUID or dataset GUID.)
Edit the message and add the desired template, formatting, and text.
Include the link to the portal. (Be sure to note the 'key' syntax at the end of the URL.)
slate-university.edu/portal/person_portal_key?key={{Person-GUID}}slate-university.edu/portal/dataset_portal_key?key={{Dataset-Row-GUID}}Tip
Don't forget to replace person_portal_key or dataset_portal_key with the actual key of your portal!
The recipient list includes the Person GUID which is necessary to customize the URL in the mailing:
When adding the URL to the mailing, the key syntax is used, and the value of that key parameter is the Person GUID:
Test the Portal
These steps allow you to send a personalized link to the portal (if secure link is enabled). When the record clicks their personalized link to the portal, the portal will populate with their information.
If the portal URL is not personalized, records can still access the portal, but the content, forms, etc. will not be personalized.
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