Purpose: The aim of this paper is to describe a project to provide an online web portal that can be used as a front-end for all university users--students, teachers, staff--and services, library, administration, e-learning, and e-mail. Design/methodology/approach: The profile model proposed is mainly inheritable, defined by profile components with transactional templates, security rules and layout templates. This approach is being tested on a campus prototype portal. The prototype is an underway project in development at our university. Findings: This paper explains that, even though different from the overall approaches, the basic profile and the profile management system proposed are solid alternatives when addressing personalization of organization users. Originality/value: This new approach explains how user modelling applications can be integrated into any organization without the cost of reengineering the entire information system already in place. (Contains 4 figures and 1 table.)