Reputation: 2551
I am starting a new ASP.Net MVC 3 app and I'm hoping to be able to use the built in Membership provider.
The issue I have is that my application can be used by various organizations and it is important that the information shown is only applicable to the organization the user is working for.
The no brainer approach would be to insist all users use their email addresses as their username so everyone is unique and can be associated with their respective organizations. The problem is, some users don't have email addresses so there is no reliable way of ensuring unique names and I don't want people to know the Usernames already in use by different organizations. (USernames should only be unique to the Organization, not the entire app)
Ideally, I would want the User to enter their organization name in one field, then their username in another (and then the password!)
So we could have Jane login from one organization.....
Organization Company1
Username Jane
Password ********
and then someone else also called Jane could login from a different organization..
Organization Company2
Username Jane
Password ********
So my question is, what is the best way of modifying the Membership system to allow for this extra field?
Upvotes: 1
Views: 981
Reputation: 1031
I think there is a built in option in the membership. look into the APPLICATION field in table my_aspnet_users. reference here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.security.membership.applicationname.aspx
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 13083
The built-in (default ASP.NET) membership provider does not provide a concept of an Organization/Company/Firm or Department. You will have create your own tables in the database for those with a foreign key to the aspnet_users
table to be able to store that additional information (I wouldn't go changing the default aspnet_users table because it might make it incompatible with the current default provider or future ones). You will then need to use the default provider for the default functionality and create a Service class to support the extended functionality. I know, I have done it. It gets complicated and dirty, takes time but it's completely doable.
Most likely you will end up creating your own provider and that starts with the requirement to support Users in Companies. In case you thought that changing the default provider to support that wouldn't be necessary. The requirement about uniqueness within the company is another one you will have to implement.
Upvotes: 2
Reputation: 5480
The provider pattern used by membership is designed so that you can extend it. You can inherit from the default provider and from the default membership use class to add the fields you need. This saves you from having to write a provider from scratch. As @mare pointed out, there are potential pitfalls though.
I would overcome these by perhaps having a login form that prompts for organisation, username & password, but behind the scenes combine the org & username & use that as the internal username.
Upvotes: 2
Reputation: 4619
I'd go about writing a custom MembershipProvider to suite the requirement.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f1kyba5e.aspx
Upvotes: 4