Hello:
I'd like to get any thoughts that any of you may have about what I am trying to do. I will attempt to explain it as clearly, and in as much detail as I can.

We use our database for keeping track of misc. things about our volunteers. We currently keep a separate master data file of information containing things such as Volunteer Names, SSN's, Addresses, Affiliated Location, etc.

When a user signs up for a userid, I would like to have DBMan present a box requesting certain challenge items, such as Last Name and SSN. DBMan should then consult the master vounteer file, and make sure this information is contained somwhere in the file (thus making sure they are indeed a volunteer). If it is, they should be presented with the standard user-id creation subroutine, allowing them to signup for an account. If the information is not found in the master file, DBMan should then go to a different subroutine that would ask the user for his/her information so that it could be emailed to the administrator to find out why they are not in the master file.

The purpose of this is mainly to keep users from signing up for accounts that are not already in the master file as volunteers. It also allows people that are volunteers, but somehow are not in the main files, an opportunity to contact someone about this problem.

Any ideas, suggestions, or code samples would be appreciated!

Also - Has anyone ever experimented with this same setup using .htaccess authentication? If so, what was used to generate the .htpasswd file?


Thanks,
Chris Kinsler

I was able to modify the signup screen to pass other variables (last name, ssn) to the password file. Would this help you in any way? If so, I will post how I did it.

I know you wanted to check a db file rather than a password file to see if they are signed up, but since the password file already checks to see if they are registered this might shortcut the issue.

Chris Whatley

Thanks for your response!

Unfortunately we still have to keep our master database in place to track all of the volunteer information. The reason for checking against this data is to make sure they are indeed a volunteer, before leeting them register for a user-id. In your recommendadation, we would be granting them a user-id before they are cross checked, which would not work for our needs =(

I do appreciate your suggestion though!
Chris