Add a communications portal

[kp_DFINITY]

I manage a very large grant program (100+ active grant recipients ongoing), and we're doing most of our data tracking in Airtable.  We want to add a customer/grantee portal, and I have seen various Airtable add-ons mentioned. (We do not want to add each grantee as an Airtable user.)

Our main need in this portal is something that can handle/track communications between our team and grantees. We need something that threads or lists all the communications that went to that particular grantee, regardless of which team member sent the message.  ie: Sometimes one team member starts a conversation, then others pick up and continue the conversation. This needs to be clear and easy to follow (no massive "original message" bits tacked onto the bottom of every reply like happens when clients using ZenDesk hit "reply" in email.) It would also need some sort of notification when the grantee sends us a message. 

Has anyone had direct experience with any of the portal-creation add-ons to tell me if any of them include a feature like this? I am trying to choose which add-on to try out. 

[Sistema_Aotearo]

Yeah, I agree. It's a shame that even interface commenters are paid users. The new comment abilities would be perfect for this sort of thing.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Softr has a comment feature that looks like it might be useful here: https://docs.softr.io/displaying-and-creating-data/vikC2AWEpQGkZd4jGyoVxo/comments/e2uAn1UjcxwdpcrDv...

And their Free plan allows for 100 external users

[kp_DFINITY]

Thanks. I will look into that. 

Does anyone know if noloco or miniextensions has something that would work for communications like this? 

[Mariam_Ispiryan · Accepted solution]

It's fully possible with Softr's free plan. 

Check out this template from Softr as an example: https://www.softr.io/templates/client-portal 

You can set up different user groups and permissions to allow the users to only view, comment/update certain data.

You can also create separate pages for an individual grantee. The page will include all the data mapped from Airtable (we have a list details block for this) which will also include a comment block, where all your team members can handle communication with the grantee and see others' replies.

You can find more here: https://docs.softr.io/displaying-and-creating-data/vikC2AWEpQGkZd4jGyoVxo/comments/e2uAn1UjcxwdpcrDv...