Persona Viewtool

The $personatool is a Velocity ViewTool that provides access to persona-related functionality within dotCMS templates. It allows developers to retrieve, manage, and force personas for visitors, enabling personalized content delivery.

The following example shows how the persona tool is mapped in the toolbox.xml file:

	<tool>
		<key>personatool</key>
		<scope>request</scope>
		<class>com.dotcms.rendering.velocity.viewtools.PersonaTool</class>
	</tool>

Methods #

Method	Parameters	Return Type	Description
`forcePersona`	`String id`	`Persona`	Forces a specific persona onto the current visitor by persona ID. Returns `null` if persona not found or ID is empty. Removes persona from visitor if not found.
`find`	`String id`	`Persona`	Finds and returns a persona by ID with permission checking. Returns `null` if ID is empty.
`getPersonas`	None	`List<Persona>`	Retrieves all personas available on the current host and system host (global personas). Returns `null` on error.

Usage Examples #

Example 1: Getting All Available Personas #

## Retrieve all personas for the current site
#set($personas = $personatool.getPersonas())

#if($personas && $personas.size() > 0)
  <h3>Available Personas:</h3>
  <ul>
  #foreach($persona in $personas)
    <li>$persona.name</li>
  #end
  </ul>
#end

Example 2: Finding a Specific Persona #

## Find a persona by ID
#set($personaId = "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000")
#set($persona = $personatool.find($personaId))

#if($persona)
  <h2>Persona Details</h2>
  <p>Name: $persona.name</p>
  <p>Key Tag: $persona.keyTag</p>
#end

Example 3: Forcing a Persona for Testing #

## Force a specific persona for the current visitor (useful for testing/preview)
#set($testPersonaId = "marketing-director-persona")
#set($forcedPersona = $personatool.forcePersona($testPersonaId))

#if($forcedPersona)
  <div class="persona-notice">
    Now viewing as: $forcedPersona.name
  </div>
#else
  <div class="error">
    Unable to force persona. It may not exist or you lack permissions.
  </div>
#end

Example 4: Conditional Content Based on Persona #

## Get all personas and check if a specific one is active
#set($personas = $personatool.getPersonas())
#set($targetPersona = $personatool.find("developer-persona"))

#if($targetPersona)
  ## Show developer-specific content
  <div class="developer-content">
    <h2>Technical Documentation</h2>
    <p>Advanced API references and code examples...</p>
  </div>
#end

Notes #

The tool respects dotCMS permissions and only returns personas the current user has access to view
When forcePersona() is called with an invalid ID, it removes any existing persona from the visitor
All persona operations are tied to the current request context
Global personas (from system host) are included in getPersonas() results alongside site-specific personas
Error conditions return null rather than throwing exceptions to the template layer

Persona Viewtool

Methods#

Usage Examples#

Example 1: Getting All Available Personas#

Example 2: Finding a Specific Persona#

Example 3: Forcing a Persona for Testing#

Example 4: Conditional Content Based on Persona#