Create a User Portal without a Log-In

I had a use case where my client didn't not want their Knack app users to have a regular log-in setup with email and password. These were very elderly users, and he thought remembering passwords and credentials would be too much. So we came up with another approach that is a little easier managed. Check it out.

Interested in my Knack database services? ... Book a call with me here: https://calendly.com/daveparrish/callwithdave

If you are a fan of building great apps with Knack, please click the Subscribe button to join my channel, and ring the bell to receive notices on all my new instructional videos. Thanks!

Full Transcript

hey folks Dave here at Knack Builders

doing another video I'm gonna jump right

into this one

create a user portal

without having to do the email password

formal account thing this thing came up just the other day

for a project I'm working on

it's actually for one of these Honor

Flight

deals there's a hundred and some cities

in the US that have these honor flights

to take veterans to Washington DC to see

all the monuments well I'm doing a

project for one of these uh that manages

the whole process

the

vets can log or they don't log in

they click something on the website and

they fill out some information so now

they're in the mix to get selected it's

all based on age I think it's like

around 80 of them go and on a certain

date the oldest ones are selected for

this flight and these these happen

several times a year there's some other

folks that go too but I'm not going to

get into that

and once they're selected they need

to go into

a portal somewhere and open it up get to

their information

and then they have to update some things

and they have to check off a bunch of

waiver stuff and sign something

uh and my the account or the project

owner said there's no way these older

folks can handle

logging in that they're not going to

remember where to go They're not going

to consistently or not very often keep

their

credentials and they're going to lose

them we're just going to get a bunch of

calls it's going to cause a whole bunch

of issues so Dave can you come up with

another way well I did it I'm going to

show you what that is here thanks

[Music]

okay I'm back let's jump into this how

we arranged

for some unit users that can't really

handle

regular email password remembering

that type of stuff made it a little

simpler and still secure so they only

gonna see their stuff here's what I did

I'm gonna go grab the thing

it's pretty simple the first time I've

done it others might have done it this

is the veteran object

where we keep all their information

and what this does

is I made a field

how to find it here

access code

what this access code is

is

a unique code for that individual who

applied so when they apply they don't

have to create an account they just

enter their information it's a record

it's not in a user deal

and I've created an auto increment

and then I created another thing that

grabs their first initial then I put

this thing in between just to Beef It Up

on our flight 03 or whatever

so what this does

is

create a unique password that we can use

it only of them are gonna know in

terms of not other vets and then we can

do this I went over here pages

veteran access

what this is this View

it's a search

you know what I mean right here

search View

and we only have one thing

it's called the access code

I'll get you how they do that and also

we have it that or this access code must

have a

value to be submitted so someone's

got to enter something so here's how it

works let me go get one of those access

codes real quick

let me do it here

this is an admin sign I'll touch on this

what will happen is when they're

selected we're going to do this through

next by the way when they're selected

there's a 80 some oldest ones and

they're assigned to a flight an email is

going to go out

and say hey congratulations you've been

selected

here's your access code

and here's the URL

that you can access your information and

do what you got to do the account or the owner uh project

owner thinks that's going to work pretty

well for them they can handle that

um so I'm going to put this in

they're gonna know this they all have to

do is put it in

and here's their stuff it's not behind

anything it's just a regular search only

there's is going to come back with this

they can edit their basic information

email phone or whatever

and then they have to do this

before they can go on a flight they have

to

click a bunch of waiver stuff

they consent to this or that

so that's all they need

and it works well this code

if someone wanted to study it figure it

out they could say oh wow this is my

first initial and this is 30. this is

some sequence thing they can play around

with it potentially get to some other

ones so I'll probably beat this up by

using like a three-digit random number

and I think I did a video on random

numbers too every time you submit or

edit a record that random number updates

itself so if you're using random numbers

you got to do this little trick that uh

that retains it uh you do that with

conditional but I won't get into that so

here they can do that and if this this

is my particular use case but you could

do other stuff with this

I don't know maybe you had a

some sort of promotion the cards they

pick up at the register and then someone

wins it and then then you can or a promo

code and they enter a promo code in in

some sort of coupon comes up or it talks

about what they might have won that

there's one other use case I'm sure

there's others now you want to be

careful to keep this tight

so if you're dealing with financial

stuff or other this may not be the way

to go but there are I'm sure use cases

and this could be

I mean you can even do invoices off this

uh this could be their company you're

going to click down details of that

company add an invoice or add an

employee or whatever in it and then say

grab make this associated with you know

the company

that would work too but also if they

forget it here's the admin side here's

where they can manage all the

this is a working process but they can

manage all kinds of stuff we're going to

take them through

applying to where I stare on a plane and

roster on a bus and all kinds of stuff

but if someone forgot it they could call

the admin or email and that admin can

just go look and there he is okay

you lost that email here it is and they

can send it to them again that's how

that works hope all is well thank you.