CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

This is a general design question that I hope is in the right forum.  I just want to get some feedback on what we are trying to do.  I'm still learning CiviCRM, so I don't know if this design direction is reasonable or not.  We are running Joomla 1.5

We've got CiviCRM and Joomailer/MailChimp installed.  The Civi mail functions are too limited for what our user wants to do.  He wants CiviCRM for paid membership signups, which will include a username and password.  On the Joomla side, there is site registration required (username & password) in order to access some of the site functions.  However, he wants people to be able to sign up for newsletters without creating an account; just add their email and name to a list.  EVERYBODY will get the newsletters unless they opt out.

So does it seem reasonable to do ALL of the signups (membership,  site registration & newsletter only) through CiviCRM.  It certainly would simplify everything.  I know Civi creates records in the Joomla user table, but I'll need to pass email opt-in flags, plus the email-only users won't have passwords.  It's OK that those users won't be able to edit their accounts. 

Joomailer/MailChimp imports its data from Joomla's user table, but I can write my own functions for data extraction if need be.

My other option is to have Civi do the paid memberships,  Joomla handle the site registration and MailChimp handle newsletter signup.  But it sure would be nice to do it all in Civi.  So are there any pitfalls I need to know about? 

Thanks to all who can help.

Mick