Personalization is a tool for restricting access to a page or section (multiple pages) of your site to only those users who are authorized. For example you may restrict access to your Human Resources pages or other pages with sensitive information.
Personalization only works in a dynamic environment. You may add a login page within your static site for visitors to access personalized content, but the personalized pages will remain within your dynamic URL. This is because personalization requires interaction with the database to confirm user IDs, etc.
You can restrict access to a single page, a section of your site (a group of many pages and child pages) or to your entire site. When personalization is activated on a portion or all of your site, visitors to your site must have a valid user ID and password to view the restricted areas.
There are several components involved in personalizing a section of your site.
Restricted Section: This consists of either a single page you want to restrict access to or, more likely, it is the parent page of a whole section you wish to restrict access to. For example, you may have a parent page for the Human Resources department and any number of child pages and grandchild pages, etc. in a typical page hierarchy.
Login page. You need to create a login page that users use to log in to the restricted portion of the site. The login page can be placed anywhere - you can create it as a child of your Home page. The critical part with the Login page is that you must set the Post Login Page to be the entrance page of the restricted section. So you might use the Login page to log in to the parent Human Resources page. You require a separate login page for each area of your site that is restricted.
Application Form: You need to create an application form if you are going to allow users to apply for access to the restricted portion of the site. You may or may not need this. If you want public users to be able to log in - say to a calendar of events, a blog, or an RFP (request for proposal) page type, you need an application form. If you are going to only allow internal employees to have access, you can control this from within the User Manager of the ACM without the necessity of the application form. You can decide how many different application forms you need on your site. You can use the same application form for different restricted areas as long as the information you are collecting on the form is the same. When you create your login page, you specify which application form is to be used when people don't have an account and wish to apply for one.
Authorized User Group(s): You need to create the groups of users who are authorized to log in to the secure sections of your site. You also need to make sure that all of the right people have been added to the group. You can create a group that is permitted access to the page or section, and then on the Application Form, you can indicate that users should be added to this group automatically once they have been approved. Thus the minute they are approved they will belong to the correct group and be able to access the restricted pages. The name you give to the group should indicate that the group is for accessing the restricted area.