Transcript
In this lesson, we will focus on one of the most essential features of any app, user authentication. Whether you are building a client portal or another app that requires secure access, authentication is key to delivering a personalized and protected experience.
By the end of this lesson, you will know how to enable sign up and login functionality, configure authentication settings, manage user profiles, and customize user interactions. Let us start by going over how authentication works in Softr.
Authentication is managed at the app level, meaning you define whether your app is public or private in the app settings. Based on this, you can configure your application login and signup options.
Beyond these settings, you still retain full control over how your login and signup pages appear. Within those pages, you can customize the layout, fields, and styles to match your branding, ensuring a seamless experience.
[.blog-callout]
If you want to speed up this process, you can use the AI co-builder to generate your initial page layouts and user authentication flows automatically based on a simple prompt.
[.blog-callout]
For our specific application, we want users to sign up with an email and password. We will also restrict signups to email addresses that only include softr.io and automatically log users out every 7 days since our app contains sensitive business information.
To configure those settings, click on the user area in your app builder, then go to the authentication tab. Within the login section, you can configure whether your application requires users to log in or not.
For our application, we want users to log in, so we will select the login enabled option. Next, move down to the authentication methods section to control how your users log into your application.
You can enable email and password for traditional sign-in experiences, or choose the email with one-time code option if you do not want users to remember a password. Other options include signing in with Google or single sign-on for work credentials.
For our application, let us stick with the standard email and password approach and then move to the sign-up section. This section controls how users can sign up for your application with a variety of options.
You can disable sign-up to restrict access to pre-approved users, have an open sign-up for anyone, or a domain-restricted sign-up. We will choose the domain-restricted option for our application.
Once enabled, I will add the softr.io domain into the input. This ensures that only Softr employees can sign up for our application.
Finally, we have the security settings for authentication. This area allows you to configure advanced security options, including session duration and automatic logouts.
Since our application contains sensitive business information, I am going to choose the option to automatically log out users after 7 days. Now let us review the pages that Softr automatically generates for us.
Navigate to the pages area and click on login, which can be found under the utility pages section at the bottom of the pages list. This pre-built page includes everything users need to log in.
You can customize this page by changing the background image or adjusting the position of the login form, similar to how you customize other blocks in Softr.
Softr also makes it easy to handle rare moments like forgotten passwords with pre-built password reset pages. You can review the forgot password page to see how users can reset their credentials.
If users need to update their account settings, such as email or password, they can do so in the account settings page. Any changes users make here are automatically synced with your connected database.
[.blog-callout]
To ensure your user data is managed securely and efficiently, we recommend using Softr Databases. It provides a native way to manage your user records directly within the platform.
[.blog-callout]
Softr generates other utility pages as well, and I encourage you to check them out. These tools save you time and help you focus on solving the problems that actually matter.
Let us move on to how you can invite users to your application. For apps with restricted signup, you can manually add users for a seamless onboarding experience.
Navigate to the users area and click on add user. Enter the user details, such as their name and email, and sync them with your database.
To enable email notifications that are sent automatically when you add a new user, click on the notifications tab. Enable automated notifications and customize the template for any automated email Softr sends.
By combining these features, you can create a smooth and efficient onboarding experience. Once your authentication settings are configured, make sure to test everything.
[.blog-callout]
If you are building a client portal, setting up these automated notifications and custom Forms is the best way to keep your clients engaged without manual work.
[.blog-callout]
Click the preview button to see your app as a new user. Try signing up, logging in, and navigating to the account settings page to ensure everything works as expected.
You have now set up user authentication for your application, including signup, login, and user profile management. In the next lesson, we will focus on user groups and permissions.
You will learn how to control access to your app pages, blocks, and data, ensuring a personalized and secure experience for every user. Until then, take some time to explore your app's authentication features.
