Customer portal and order tracking

Blueprint for a customer database with internal order tracking and a distinct customer portal — the first example from What is Bobuild?.

Goals

• Employees manage customers and orders in a backoffice
• Customers log in and see only their orders
• Status changes can notify the customer by e-mail

Data model

Object	Key fields
Customer	name, email, password (portal login), active (Yes/no)
Product	name, sku, price
Order	customer (Reference → Customer), status (Choice: Placed / Paid / Shipped / Cancelled), placed_at (Date and Time), notes (Long Text)
OrderLine (optional)	order (Reference), product (Reference), quantity (Number), unit_price (Number)
Operator	email, password, name, roles (Multiple choice)

Prefer OrderLine when you need quantities; a Reference Array of products on Order is enough for a minimal demo.

Portals

Portal	Login	Contents
Backoffice	Operator	Customers grid, Orders grid, Product catalogue, charts
Customer area	Customer (active = true)	“My orders” grid filtered to the logged-in customer, order detail, optional profile form

Set the default portal in Pages so the bare domain opens the right entry point.

Key widgets and tasks

1. Backoffice → Orders grid — filters by status; batch task “Mark shipped” for selected rows.
2. Order detail — Detail widget + form to update status / notes.
3. Form task on status update — when status becomes Shipped, send e-mail to {customer.email}.
4. Customer area — grid of Order where customer is the logged-in user (use login context / filters available in the Builder for the current user).
5. Optional public catalogue page without login, linking into registration.

Security notes

• Never put operator passwords on the Customer object.
• Hide notes meant for staff from the customer detail layout.
• Use login rules so inactive customers cannot enter.

See Security overview.

Build order

1. Objects and sample data
2. Backoffice grids and forms
3. Customer login + “my orders”
4. Shipping notification task
5. Snapshot, then polish menus and branding

Related

• Hands-on warm-up: Request portal tutorial
• Recipes: Sum of prices, Priced dropdown, Line total, Discount tiers
• Tasks for richer status automations