CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I am implementing a profile to allow users to participate in different volunteer categories (setup/teardown, fundraising, street team, etc) and am trying to decide what is the best route to take. I see pros and cons to each:

Groups
-easiest for coordinator to solicit volunteers and send updates via civimail
-must use 'mailing list' option, which requires a second opt-in. if a user wants to help in several capacities, that's a bunch of extra email to click through

Tags
-clearly defines what the constituent means to my organization for reporting
-no security. tags like 'board member' and 'major donor' would be visible for selection

Custom data
-allows me to create a 'volunteer' group of data, with checkboxes for each kind of volunteer work needed
-search criteria can be saved as a smart group for civimail
-available on profiles
-checkboxes save text data, when a 0 or 1 would be sufficient. potential negative effects on query performance and db size
-cons related to civireport?

As I write this, custom data seems like the best way to go. Any reasons not to use custom data, or a better way to implement custom data fields for better performance? I thought of using Yes/No, but am not a fan of radio buttons for usability and I don't know if it would do the nice grouping of fields in search like the checkbox field does. Thanks!

Xavier put some thought into this - take a look here: - More food for thought than a clear answer by the time you're read the ensuing discussion

http://civicrm.org/node/512