Sitecore tip 26: use predefined rules to speed up your personalization setup

When you just started with personalization in Sitecore you probably did not run into this before. You have configured a few components or pages and learn what works and what not. But the moment you extend your configuration to a larger part of the website it becomes a tedious job. Just repeating the same configurations over and over again. Boring and time consuming.

A real scenario can be configuring pages for specific profiles. If a visitor matches a certain profile you want to change something. In my demo website I had two profiles. The Decision maker and the Influencer. Configure that very simple basic rule 100 times and you will blame Sitecore for being inefficient after the first 20 configurations.

But wait. Sitecore has thought of a simple solution that exists quit a while. You can configure so called predefined rules. Lucky you!

Now, I’m kidding around a little bit here, but working with predefined rules for a scenario like the matched profile can save you lots of time. You can configure predefined rules in the Marketing Control Panel (open the Content Editor and browse to /sitecore/system/Marketing Control Panel/Personalization/Predefined Rules). Create a new one, set the rule and save the item.

Then on places where you need the rule, choose for Predefined Rules from the rules engine and select the predefined rule you have configured earlier.

Happy efficient personalization!