Collecting and Managing User Data

Successful personalized experiences require an understanding of the data that describes your users. Liferay provides a flexible model for capturing both static and dynamic user attributes, empowering organizations like Clarity to deliver meaningful personalization. In this lesson, you’ll learn about the types of user data available to you in Liferay, along with best practices for collecting and managing it effectively.

Understanding User Data Types

Liferay supports two broad categories of user data that are key to segmentation and personalized experiences: static data and dynamic data. You can also use integrated data from external systems, along with contextual session property data, such as the user’s browser, cookies, and device.

Static Data

Static data describes inherent characteristics of the user that don’t change often:

• Default Profile Fields: These include standard attributes like name, email address, birthday, gender, job title, and more.
• Custom Fields: Liferay allows administrators to extend the user profile with additional custom fields. For example, Clarity might want to track whether a user wears glasses or contacts, or note their preferred communication channel (email vs. SMS).
• Affiliations: Users may be associated with any number of organizations, sites, roles, and user groups that provide additional information about them. For instance, Clarity customers interacting with a prescription renewal site might require different content than those accessing a customer service portal.

This critical identifying information about users provides the foundation for segmentation.

Dynamic Data

Dynamic data describes user behavior and interactions on the website:

• Page Visits: The content, products, and other information users have viewed on the site.
• Form Submissions: The data a user enters into Liferay forms. Clarity might provide forms for vision tests and appointment scheduling.
• Search Queries: The terms users enter into site search.
• Commerce Activity: The items users view, add to cart, or purchase, if Liferay Commerce is in use.
• Downloads and Resource Use: The files, brochures, or product guides the user accesses.

Behavioral data supports time-sensitive or intent-driven personalization, such as targeting users who recently viewed a specific brand of eyewear but didn’t make a purchase.

External Data

In addition to static and dynamic data collected within your website, Liferay can also ingest data from integrated external systems to further enrich user profiles. Commonly integrated systems include the following:

• Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
• Marketing automation tools
• Third-party identity providers via single sign-on (SSO)

For Clarity, integrating customer records from a CRM might enable segmentation based on prescription status, last exam date, or loyalty tier.

Collecting User Data Responsibly

Regardless of its type, user data should only be collected when it serves a defined personalization goal. In addition to increasing maintenance overhead, over-collecting data introduces privacy risks and even legal liabilities. International organizations like Clarity must remain compliant with privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and other similar frameworks.

To accomplish this, it’s crucial for Clarity to follow these best practices for ethical data collection:

• Minimize Data Scope: Only request fields that directly support personalization or business operations.
• Communicate Purpose: Explain to users how and why their data will be used before collecting it.
• Secure Explicit Consent: Use mechanisms like opt-in checkboxes, cookie consent banners, and confirmation modals that require clear, affirmative actions from users to consent to the collection of their data. Store and timestamp user consent records.
• Provide Access and Erasure: Enable users to request a copy or deletion of their collected data at any time. Liferay offers API-driven tools to accomplish this.

By taking the necessary measures to collect and manager user data responsibly, Clarity can deliver personalized experiences without sacrificing user privacy or exposing the company to risk.

Managing Data Retention

Business must implement clear policies that define how long to retain user data and under which conditions it should be deleted or anonymized. Data retention policies are shaped by legal requirements, user expectations, and internal risk management strategies. Here are some general best practices for managing the data lifecycle:

• Maintain Data Accuracy: Stale or incorrect data leads to irrelevant personalization and poor user experiences. Leverage regular review cycles, user-controlled profile updates, and automated syncs with external systems to ensure that data stays current.
• Automate Cleanup: Set time-based rules to purge inactive profiles or anonymize behavioral history after a set period.
• Establish Audit Trails and Logs: Track access and changes to user data to enhance transparency and security.

Liferay provides several tools to enact these best practices. However, it is ultimately the responsibility of the business to ensure that their technical implementation aligns with their retention policy. By taking the time to consider how they handle data throughout its lifecycle, Clarity can ensure that their personalized experiences are auditable, transparent, and respectful of user rights.

Conclusion

Whether you are working with static, dynamic, or external data, it’s important to follow best practices for collecting data ethically and establishing rigorous retention policies. Personalized experiences are powered by user data, and organizations like Clarity have a responsibility to be open about how and why they plan to use it.

Next, you’ll learn more about how user data informs audience segmentation.