This is what I was getting at with my original post. But if we ignore the current implementation (SFDC), which is a “flat” model, and just think about an ideal solution… Assuming you can edit (after the fact) in any project, as you suggest, then really we have a “multi-dimensional” profile, where each project is another potential “dimension” – a new/different profile for any given user. What I’m proposing is that, when you type in PCC, you are searching all “project profiles” of all users across all projects you have access to (and you could pick which “edited” variant you want, even), as well as “all users with their LFID profiles marked public”.
The latter (public LFID search) is similar to the SFDC data search you are proposing with, except that for privacy reasons we aren’t providing a global search of ALL LF users to PCC admins (which includes community members) – we’d just be allowing PCC admins to search across the data which would already be visible to them given their particular level of access to view each project (and staff members will have view access to every active/public project). In practice, this should 1) capture most engaged community members anyhow, and 2) if not, you’d at most need to enter their info once, and then they’d auto-complete in any additional screens you add them to.
That’s the heart of this proposal: moving from a flat CRM directory, where every admin (including community admins) either has edit access to change any given profile in a way that affects all users, or else has no ability to edit profiles (current behavior) … to a more flexible one that allows each project “tenant” in PCC a greater degree of agency, at the expense of complexity.
Feedback appreciated!