>My design question is this. I need all the peices of data on the logged on user at various stages in my app to verify which functions are open to them since authoriy varies between users. .... .... >Whats the best way to handle this?

I don't know the scope or budget of your project, but I can recommend Visual MaxFrame Professional (or most commercial frameworks) that have this functionality and much much more useful stuff built in. You get it all for a few hundred dollars - well worth the expense when you consider the time you'll spend developing the same functionality.

Grace and Peace my friend,