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How to Build a Vendor Portal in Pory

How to build a white-label vendor portal with Airtable integration for suppliers to submit and manage their information.

How to Build a Vendor Portal in Pory

Introduction

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a vendor (supplier) portal for "Globex Innovations," a fictional tech startup specializing in smart home devices. We'll use Airtable for managing product information and Pory to build the external portal for vendors to manage their catalog.

Why use Pory for building portals?
🔓 End users won't need to know or use Airtable.
💰 You won't need to purchase extra seats for users.

Prerequisites

  • An Airtable account
  • Professional plan subscription. Learn more about pricing.
  • A table for users on Airtable with at least an email field (required for user accounts)

Objectives

  1. Employees can log into their account to view a directory of Vendors
  2. Vendors can log into their account to view, update and delete their products
  3. Vendors can log into their account to update their company information

Airtable Base

The Airtable includes 2 tables: Users and Products. You can copy this base into your account here.

It is important to store everyone who needs a user account in your portal in the Users table. I.e. Vendors and Staff members etc.

Pro Tip: To manage different groups of users in the Users table, we recommend creating a Single Select field called Groups to categorize users and then organizing each group with an Airtable View.

Step 1: User Management

The vendor portal will support two groups of users: Employees of Globex Innovations and the Vendors.

  1. Let's start by setting up user accounts in the portal. Follow the instructions and enter Vendor for the default group (skip if you have enabled user accounts already).

  2. Now let's create the Employee group.

vendor portal user groups
vendor portal user groups

Step 2: Vendor Directory

Let's create a vendor directory for employees to access after logging in.

  1. In the portal editor, create a new page called Vendors. Make sure it is restricted to the User Groups Employee. This means only users who belong to this group can view the page.
vendor directory page
vendor directory page
  1. Create a Airtable listing of vendors.
    Is this a user listing?: No (All employees should be able to see this listing).
    Airtable Base: Vendor Portal (You can copy the base above into your account).
    Airtable Table: Users
    Airtable View: Vendors (this is important as we do not want to see employees listed).
vendor listing setup
vendor listing setup
  1. Select the fields you would like to display in the listing, search and filters.
  2. Switch to the detailed view and add blocks to display more information.
vendor listing editor
vendor listing editor
  1. When you're happy, click the Save Changes button

Check out the Vendor directory here.

Step 3: My Products Listing

Let's create a listing for vendors to manage their products. Vendors should only see their own products in the listing.

  1. In the portal editor, create a new page called My Products and restrict it to the user group Vendor.
Create Products Page
Create Products Page
  1. Create a Airtable listing of products.
    Is this a user listing?: Yes (Vendors should only see their own products).
    Airtable Table: Products
    Select Field: User Record -> Products (users will see records that are linked to them from the field Products). Airtable View: None.
Products listing setup
Products listing setup
  1. Select the fields you would like to display in the listing, search and filters settings.
  2. Switch to the detailed view and add blocks to display more information.
  3. Click on Data & Permissions and update permissions for Vendor to include Edit, Create and Remove.
Products listing editor
Products listing editor

You can test out the permissions by Previewing as a user group.

Check out the My Products page here.
The ability to create, edit and delete products have been removed for the demo account.
To test these permissions, please create your own account in the portal by signing up.

Step 4: Account Management

Vendors and Employees can also log into their account and update their profile information. This is synced with their record stored in the Users table. To set this up, go to the Account page builder and select the fields to include in the profile page for each user group.

Vendor Directory
Vendor Directory

Step 5: Inviting Users

Pory supports inviting users to create accounts by either sending emails or generating invitation links using a formula on Airtable. You can also restrict sign up to people who only exists in the Users table.

Pro Tip: You can automatically assign users on account creation to groups using field values.

Demo time!

Check out the vendor portal by either logging in as an employee (credentials on log in page) or creating a new account as a vendor (default group).

Vendor Products
Users who belong to the group Vendor can now view, create and edit their own products from the My Products page.

Add a new product
Add a new product

Vendor Directory
Users who belong to the group Employee can view a directory of all the Vendors.

Vendor Directory
Vendor Directory

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