A Drupal5 Sandbox

Ideally, we would like membership information to enter into a system from one entry point and follow a seamless sequential processing thereafter. But we know that ain't so, especially when you are trying to synchronize basically two applications here.

As have been noted elsewhere, CiviCRM has a way of automatically synchronizing Drupal user accounts with its contact profiles but not the other way around. For example, when users create accounts via Drupal's Create new account, the account created automatically becomes a CiviCRM contact which can be used in events/activities defined in CiviCRM. But when a user joins by filling out a CiviCRM membership sign-up/payment page (the Join Drupal5beta2-CiviCRM1.6 Sandbox link on the right sidebar brings a user to such a page), the info is stored in CiviCRM tables in the database but do not automatically translate into Drupal user accounts which would allow these members to participate in Drupal-based activities such as forums, blogs, etc.

A solution to the latter situation calls for an additional module plus manual intervention to integrate membership management in Drupal/CiviCRM as documented at http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Creating+a+Drupal+user+fo.... The first situation (Drupal to CiviCRM) also has its own challenges as we have to integrate the profile info entered by the user with a CiviCRM membership dues page. I'm currently looking into this.