Im on a glide business plan, but we are wanting to build a B2C tool
Basically an order update portal
We sell cars and want customers to be able to input their reference number and see the status of their car order (we sell new cars so some people need access for upto 12 months) some only a few weeks, if the car is in stock
The portal does not need any super sensitive personal data
So i thought maybe we could generate a password which they could use in line with their order reference number or something
Basically, paying the Glide user charge for this on a BUSINESS plan is not feasible.
Other option is budget another glide account and just use the maker for unlimited users but that seems a bit wild for the use case.
Any ideas? Of secure, “customer zones” we could even use it as a enquiry showroom hub that they can add more vehicles of interest too at the start of their buying journey.
There wouldnt be any sensitive information really,. i was thinking of giving the customer a URL with a url parameter of their order refrence (or another uid) which glide will load the data in based on the matching ref.
i guess there is a problem with data security with this method due to no row owners etc? unless i can implement that witht hsi logic in mind
Yeah, in order for Row Owners to work properly, users need to be signed in. So you’d just be back to square one. I do think the Maker plan is your best option. I am aware that others have taken this approach. You can make a copy of your current App (keep same sheet), then transfer the copy to your Maker team, and the tables will be linked.
I think a neat user experience would be to just get an NFC card printer, print them an NFC card that has a link baked into the card which would direct them to a webpage with their status, you could in theory do this inside glide if security is not an issue. OR you could build your own web portal. they can then just tap the card against there phone whenever they want to check the status, and then hand in the card in exchange for the keys when they get their car!
If there are no real data security concerns, you could spin up a public app with your source table linked to that second app. You can hide all views from the navigation menu and land people on a search screen with no results, and limit the results of their search to a single row in a collection. You could alternatively link them directly to the record using a direct link in a transactional email, and no sign-in would be required.
I do not advertise this as a great solution, but it is a possibility if there is no data security issue. You will have to thoroughly test for that, and weigh the tradeoff of anyone having access to this data.
Can you help me understand why the $5 user fee is not feasible, if this person is buying a car? This seems like a small marginal cost–most users will likely only login 1 or 2 months, and you could send email updates in between.
HI David,
Firstly thank you for your time reading and commenting on my post
Without going into too much detail, our business operates on volume and big discounts on brand new vehicles is our USP.
We only really make a small handling fee (around 250usd) and from that we have to pay a sales person x% and we also have to give up around 20% to our lead generation source / referrer.
Our average lead time of an open order is currently 6.5 months
All of a sudden with 1k orders live at a time we have a big glide bill, for something that would of been 0 cost if that makes sense?
I just wish the business plan was able or had the potential to inherit the unlimited personal users from the Maker plan, that would really allow us to scale.
This is a pain many of my clients have felt, so also want to emphasize the importance of doing something uniformly here. I talked to sales on behalf of one of my clients and they were unable to add any concessions or assistance in helping with personal user login volumes on a legacy plan. This was a huge problem for them because they are working in a country with a badly inflated currency and even the $5 per user is a signifcant cost for them.