How to Store Custom User Profile Properties in Sitecore


Sitecore works best for storing users and custom user profile properties for a user. It works based on .Net Security Mechanism. Custom profile properties are very much useful when you need to store information of a user which you need to be available throughout the system. It can be accessed anytime. No need for doing database transactions for the values which are stored as a custom property for a user. It can be used to store values for a user like Full Name, Birthdate, Gender, etc.

I have built a demo application for you to understand in an easy and simple way of implementing Sitecore User Profile Custom Properties. Here we are storing Full Name in custom properties with the Property Name “Full Name”.



Let us first do Sitecore Configurations.
(1) We’ll first start with the properties that we want to store. 
Go to Core database. We have to define a new template item and add all the property names that you want to store. We are storing Full Name.
Sitecore Path: /sitecore/templates/Users/Custom Profile
Here we have created a new folder Users and added a new template Custom Profile derived from Template. You can create a new template anywhere under the templates section.


(2) Normally the user get stored with Profile - User: /sitecore/system/Settings/Security/Profiles/User

Add a new Item with the Template that you newly created.

Our Sitecore Configurations are done! J But we haven’t finished yet.

Now we'll start with Create User Account:


var user = Sitecore.Security.Accounts.User.Create("Consumer\\" + "info@nikkipunjabi.com", "nikki");
user.Profile.ProfileItemId = "{6D01FC92-6B3A-4D17-84A9-FE1BD20E0D3E}";
user.Profile.SetCustomProperty("Full Name", "Nikki Punjabi");
user.Profile.Save();
user.Profile.Reload();
Note: Consumer – is the newly created Domain and Template ID: “{6D01FC92-6B3A-4D17-84A9-FE1BD20E0D3E}” is the ID of the new User Profile that we created! We have to pass the domain and update the Profile ID of the user Otherwise we won’t be able to see the Custom Property Values in Sitecore. It is must to Save the Profile else value won’t be saved.
Now this will create a new user and will have “Nikki Punjabi” as a value of Custom Property – “Full Name”.
Now let’s look at how to fetch Custom Property of a user.  

bool loggedIn = Sitecore.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationManager.Login("Consumer\\" + "info@nikkipunjabi.com", "nikki");
if (loggedIn)
{
      string customPropertyValue = Sitecore.Context.User.Profile.GetCustomProperty("Full Name");
}

You can also see the Custom Property Values for a user in Sitecore.

Demo Application:
Sitecore Custom User Profile Properties Demo

Demo Application File: Download
If you know any other better approach or have any good idea then do give a shout by contacting me.
Reference:
https://briancaos.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/sitecore-users-custom-profile-properties/
Good Reads:
https://sdn.sitecore.net/upload/sitecore6/sc61keywords/security_api_cookbook_usletter.pdf

Happy Sitecoring!

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