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I would like to start using ASP.NET's membership classes and tables with a new MVC4 project I am building.

Let's say for example I want to keep track of user's birthdays. When creating the account, how do I add in the birthday? Is this something I keep track of with Profiles? I'm a bit confused on the correct way to add new 'columns' of data for users?

marc_s
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Kyle
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2 Answers2

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To specifically answer your question, here's how Microsoft advises to create extra tables for storing additional user information: Storing Additional User Information

Here is another posting (I would take this approach), its implementing your own profile provider, rather than using default one, so you have full control over what is happening, how it stored etc.: Implementing Profile Provider in ASP.NET MVC Another great article by Microsoft about the same is Manage Web Users With Custom Profile Providers

It totally depends on utility and use. You can either

  1. use default profile provider (exercising)
  2. use custom profile provider (small scale sites)
  3. use your own tables to store user information (enterprise level).

In the latter case you can link between default membership (assuming you using default membership provider) and your custom profile information by including user.Guid inside your table, which is used by default membership as unique identifier.

Hope this information will help you.

Community
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Profiles is the right way although it has its disadvatages. The data in the database is not in a readable way but in special strings, and profile is loaded on every postback.

Look here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z1hkazw7(v=vs.100).aspx

Amiram Korach
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  • Is there another way without these disadvantages that is common? I have about 10 different values to keep track of. (first name last name mobile number streeet address city state etc) – Kyle Aug 23 '12 at 20:43
  • You can also put the data in a custom table and hold the membership UserID in this table too. This is what I always do. – Amiram Korach Aug 23 '12 at 20:51
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    You can also use this Table Profile Provider http://www.asp.net/downloads/sandbox/table-profile-provider-samples. – Tuan Aug 23 '12 at 20:54