Forms: a profile can be used as a form to collect information from your contacts. You can also add profiles to contribution, membership sign-up, and event registration pages to collect additional information from donors, members, and event participants. Profile forms can also be used as simplified data entry forms. View/edit user account (Drupal only): it is often useful to allow your constituents to manage their own data through your website. T his use of profiles allows people to edit their information when they are managing their Drupal account; this information is then automatically updated in CiviCRM. Website user registration: you can include a set of fields in the new account registration form (Drupal) or create a profile that includes website user registration fields (Joomla!). Directory: a profile can be used to create a searchable directory for visitors to your site. Search results: using profiles allows you to display selected fields in the results of an advanced search. Batch data updates (mass updates): there is often a need to update a large number of records all at once; this process can be streamlined using profiles. Another important point about profiles is that the same profile can be reused in multiple ways.
COLLECTING DATA FROM CONSTITUENTS T his section reviews the different methods by which you can use profiles to collect information from your constituents. A later section will discuss how to share information from CiviCRM with your constituents.
Volunteer sign-up form Let's walk through an example of a profile used as a volunteer sign-up form. T his simple form includes fields for First Name, Last Name, and Mailing Address. It also includes a reCAPT CHA widget to protect your site from automated abuse (described further below).
T o build a a form similar to this one:
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