How to structure two different types of users, with different back-ends

Hello,

I am trying to build an app that is similar to Angie’s list. I will have two types of users that can create accounts that will enable a back-end user profile.

User Type 1: Customer

This user will sign up and create a profile, and be able to search for vendors in a geographical area

User Type 2: Vendor

This user will create a profile after signing up, but will also be listed with other vendors by geographical area.

I am having a difficult time understanding how I setup my sign up and log in for these two different user types. I created a page with icons representing a customer & vendor that navigates the user to a sign up based on the user type. So basically i created two clone sign up pages, but how do I actually create a database that will separate these two users from each other. Again, just like how Angie’s List website operates.

I apologize if my question is confusing, but any help would be great!

Thank you,

Nick

There are probably at least a few ways to do this. Someone else may have a better idea than this, but the main way that jumps out to me is:

In the User data type, you have a field “Is Customer?” with type yes/no and another field “Is Vendor?” with type yes/no. When they sign up as a customer, in that workflow, you set “Is Customer?” to yes. When they sign up as a vendor, in that workflow, you set “Is Vendor?” to yes.

(You could instead have just 1 field “Type” which is a text to which you assign either “Customer” or “Vendor”, but I assume you’ll have some users who are both types, so it may be better to have separate fields as outlined above.)

You could do this all on 1 page instead of 2, but whatever is better for you.

4 Likes

I’m trying to do something similar but I’m getting stuck. I’d like to do Type and choose between three options (I have two types of vendors and one type of end client).

How do I pre-set the Type to one of these options? In the User data type I added a Customer Type field (text format) but when I go to the workflow to add the type to the Sign Up, it doesn’t let me enter random text. How do I get these three customer types to show as options I can choose from?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi Jamie.

If you’re using a text field to store user type (which I think makes sense in your case with three different types), you won’t be able to explicitly set the options for that field to a specific set of texts. You’ll just need to guide user input - and your own workflows - to store only the relevant texts.

For your app, do you need to set this “Type” field based on user input from the sign-up form (like selecting an option from a dropdown)? Or do you have three separate workflows for each user type?

In the first case, you could use Bubble’s dropdown element, with “Choices style” set to static options and your three user types listed in the choices input. In your sign-up workflow, you’d click “Change another field,” select your Customer Type field, and make a dynamic reference to the dropdown’s value (dynamic references are made by clicking the blue “Insert dynamic data” bar).

In the second case, you’d similarly press “Change another field” and select your Customer Type field. From that point, you should be able to enter in any plain text you want (see screenshot below).


The text you enter will be the user type relevant to that workflow.

Does this all make sense? And does this answer the question? Happy to clarify any of the above or answer any follow on questions.

Happy Bubbling!

David
AirDev - Custom Software for Everyone

Hi David,

Thanks so much for your response!

My “Customer Types” are Veterinarian, Pet Business, and Pet Owner.

When I enter Customer Type = and type Veterinarian, nothing happens…it just lets me type it and then it doesn’t recognize it when I click out of the box.

What am I missing :frowning:

Here is a shot of what it looks like when I click outside the box after typing Veterinarian

P.S. currently I’m in the process of creating three separate workflows, as the design will be pretty different. So all I’m really looking to do is pre-set a new account that’s created from this page to “Veterinarian.”

Thanks!!

One more option you could do is set it up as a yes/no field. And make it check box.

Eg, someone signing up ticks the boxes for their type and you register it as a yes in the database against that field.

You can then run flows for that vendor as “If Current User’s Customer Type is X”

1 Like

No problem, happy to help!

To enter a text value here, you’ll want to make sure you’re typing outside the “More…”, as this box is expecting some sort of dynamic data. I’d first try to delete the “More…” box. Or you can try typing your text value before or after the box. If for some reason that does not work, you should just use the click the trashcan icon to delete that row entirely and then re-add the row for Customer Type.

Let me know if the problem persists!

David
AirDev - Custom Software for Everyone