Extending the existing User model in Django

Question

Let's say I have an app that has 3 kinds of user

• Employee with fields like work_number , department etc.
• Member with fields like phone_number , .....
• Agent with fields like company_name ,.....

They're different.

I write models like this:

class Employee(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)
    department = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    .......

class Member(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)
    .......

class Agent(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)
    .......

Now I can :

u = User.objects.get(username='xxxx')
u.employee // it works...

but, ONE user has THREE profiles (employee,member,agent) !!!

It's not matches my business, the business role is ONE user could be and must be only one kind of 3 profiles.

What's the best way to solve this?

Answer 1

Why not have a single profile with a role associated (even if certain fields will never be filled for a specific role)?

You can handle the validation through forms and instead having 3 different models you would have 3 different forms.