Unexpected behavior with Row Owners and Role assignment on first sign-in

[nathanaelb]

@Jeff_Hager

There are a lot of things that need improvement in Glide. But at the end of the day I still believe it’s crucial for the developer to understand the architecture of the stack they are using and security best practices in general. It’s knowledge that just takes time and experience to understand and master. Just because anyone can fly an airplane in a video game, doesn’t mean they should be doing it in real life, and likewise just because anyone can now build a no-code or vibe coded app these days, doesn’t mean they are following best security practices. Some of that stuff is very complex and always will be complex because it’s a constantly changing landscape and there is always someone looking for an exploit.

I agree with you. People need to know what they are doing especially when it comes to sensitive areas like security and privacy. I won’t argue with that, quite the contrary.

Here’s my point. I just finished setting up this role-change feature. It took me a couple of hours: setting up an initial screen to choose the role, onboarding flows for each role, visibility conditions at the screen level and button level based on role and dates, following Darrens’ explanation on webhooks (thanks @Darren_Murphy, wouldn’t have done it without your video), the app interaction workflow and trigger webhook workflows (which I probably didn’t set up optimally), optimizing a little so screens don’t flicker, troubleshooting when realizing that certain buttons wouldn’t display because certain workflows wouldn’t trigger, a custom form, etc. It’s much, much too complicated. I’m sure some creators on Glide can do this in their sleep. I definitely cannot. It might feel logical when one understands the Glide system well, but it’s so convoluted. That’s what I mean by having to have a Glide PhD.

I am absolutely convinced (perhaps mistaken but I doubt it) that most users of the platform cannot achieve this. And to your point, perhaps they shouldn’t have to nor be able to. It’s true that maybe this is an edge case, and it is probably rare in an internal business app setting that users need to change their own role.

I’m happy this is behind me, I don’t want to have to do this again, what a headache.

[Darren_Murphy]

@nathanaelb

following Darrens’ explanation on webhooks

It’s actually a bit simpler if you use a Manual Trigger workflow instead of a Webhook, as you can reference the passed parameters directly, without having to parse any JSON. I don’t think the Manual Trigger was available when I created the video.

[nathanaelb]

@Darren_Murphy

without having to parse any JSON

I didn’t parse any JSON at any point. In fact the only JSON-related operation I used was the “Query JSON” action in the webhook workflow.

I copied what I could visually see and understand from your video. At one point you mention something about a JSON Object (I believe) but don’t show it, so I set things up without that part.

What I set up works, parsing the JSON or not. I’m not touching it

[Darren_Murphy]

@nathanaelb

I didn’t parse any JSON at any point. In fact the only JSON-related operation I used was the “Query JSON” action in the webhook workflow.

Yes, that’s what I was referring to. If you use a Manual Trigger, you can skip that step.