CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

can you explain what the purpose of the profile is for - collecting data, exposting data, or what?

It still isn't really clear to me what you are asking. Have you read the chapter on Profiles in the Manual?

You can set up a profile that signs people up to a Group either through the Adv Settings option, or by using Groups field that are set up for public possibly.

And you can let people edit their info by setting the Profile to be 'Drupal User Edit'.

I think we can probably help you more if you spell out some scenarios of when Individual A first comes to your forms, and when Individual B comes back to your site to add/change info.

And since Organisations don't have fingers they can't fill in forms directly themselves, so sometimes you may be needing individuals to enter information 'on behalf' of their related Organisation.

If the latter, familiarise yourself with the My Dashboard option for logged in users, who can then modify core contact data for related INdividuals and Organisations if they have permissioned relationships set up under Relationships.

Thanks again yeah it is Joomla. But it is not about users entering info. My actual question is regarding the database design itself: should it be one profile for all with just different groups [individuals, donors etc]  or should I create multiple profiles for each category: individual profile, donor profile, member profile etc...
Am I making sense?
 

LOLLLLLLLLLLL ok. Yeah I speak drupal too but in this case I am speaking Joomla.
Yes maybe I am using the word profile wrong.  I want to do it all within civicrm, so that is not the issue. But how about this: is it multiple tables for each with relationships to each other, or just one table with the individual info? how about that? does this make sense?

  ok thanks for trying... I really appreciate it.
 We'll see then.

i don't think your questions are joomla specific. but i think you're trying to answer the question in terms of database tables, when you really don't need to.

here are some key pieces to understand:
* you are correct that profiles can be used to collect data from contacts
* but a profile can only collect for a single contact type. so if you need to collect info for indivs and orgs, it will need to be done in two different profiles
* don't worry about the database tables. Civi worries about the tables. you just create your custom fields and collect core + custom fields together in a profile for data collection
* while a single profile can only collect and work with data for a single contact type, donation pages can have "on behalf of" functionality turned on -- which lets an individual initiate a contribution on behalf of an organization. the contribution is then attached to the org, but both an org and individual record is created -- linked as employer/employee (relationship). the only current shortcoming of this structure is that any fields included via profile can only be for the individual.

i think part of your question was also about reusing profiles for different purposes. You can certain reuse a profile -- it's just a collection of fields -- a window into your data. so if you have a general individual profile, you can attach it to a donation page, a membership page, and an event registration. you just need to be careful that you realize any changes to the profile will impact multiple applications of it. so sometimes it's better to have a dedicated profile for each dedicated application.

HTH