Re: Only one record visible?

Chris_Connelly · ‎Jul 21, 2019

Hey everyone, I am a property manager with 6500 clients. I am making bases for all of my buildings with A LOT of info.

What I am wondering is if I can have the client come into my Wordpress site and some either call for or go to just THEIR information? I have a portal section of my website. they are logged in with meta. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. The easier the better! :slightly_smiling_face:

JonathanBowen · ‎Jul 22, 2019

Hi @Chris_Connelly - you can share views of tables with restricted data, but, with 6500 clients, I wouldn’t recommend this approach for you - way too many views!

A different, but better (IMHO), approach would be to use the AT API and show clients a single record in a purpose-built web app (rather than WP). Doesn’t need to be too complicated - could be done quite simply.

Each record in AT has a unique Record ID - example: recwqphkExTf50wa6 (“rec”, plus a random string of letters and numbers). There’s no sequence to these records within a base.

You could use the API to display a client’s data at the URL:

https://airtable.yourdomain.com/recwqphkExTe50wa6

if you were happy that, in practice, that these can’t be guessed (and remember that a record must be tied to a base ID and an API key to be called via the API so some additional security here) or if you are after more security, implement an account system where this ID is tied to an email address.

Hope this helps - appreciate it isn’t “easy”, but a web developer would be able to put this together pretty quickly. You’d also have the bonus that by using the API the display of the data could match your corporate branding so might look more professional.

JB

Chris_Connelly · ‎Jul 23, 2019

Hey man sorry for the late response! I didn’t get a notification about this. This is a great idea actually! Right now we are slowly building up our portals so we don’t have to do the entire 6500 customers at once so this is very helpful! I really appreciate it

Chris_Connelly · ‎Jul 23, 2019

Do you have any suggestions on building this web app?

JonathanBowen · ‎Jul 24, 2019

Hi @Chris_Connelly - as you’re already on WP, it is tempting to try and add it into this, but in my experience, you’d be better off running this as a separate app (maybe on a subdomain of your WP site). I often feel there’s less complexity and things are easier to build if you separate things (or keep things apart) that aren’t naturally connected. The look and feel could be identical to your WP site so your clients/site visitors wouldn’t notice the difference for the most part.

In terms of the tech, any web language would fit the bill and there would be some hosting costs, but these would be pretty minimal. I’ll send you a DM with some specifics.

JB

Moe · ‎May 28, 2020

We’ve built a product that turns your Airtable into a client portal. You can either share it as a link with your clients or you can embed it in your website. Luckily you don’t need to develope a custom app. Our extension just works out of the box.