Adding custom properties to the Membership user , what are the options?
One of a frequently asked questions is “how to add a custom columns/properties to the MembershipUser class?”.
Based on my experience , there are many ways to do that :
- You can use the user profile services to store those custom properties, article [here].
- Create a custom database table with a 1-1 relationship with the membership users table and handle the read/write operations on that custom table using ADO.NET or any other data access technology, article [here]
- Create a custom MembershipUser that inherits the MembershipUser class and add the new properties.articles [here] and video.
But which method is the best for you ?
every method has proc/cons , i will list them all in the table below:
| Storage method | Pros | Cons |
| User’s profile | Doesn’t require any additional code, just you need to declare the custom properties in web.config and you can then use the Profile class to read/write or manipulate these values | not suitable if you are going to display the user information via an external reporting tool like Reporting services. |
| Custom database table | Very flexible and can be displayed using any external reporting tool. | Needs more work to handle the data access code and write some helper classes to manipulate the custom user properties. |
| Custom MembershipUser and MembershipProvider | Cleaner,maintainable and flexible solution.Also integrates with the current Login controls. | It needs more more effort because it will requires to write custom membershipUser and MembershipProvider … |
