How to build a customer portal without code (a real walkthrough)

Step 1 — Lock in the data model #

Before clicking anything in the page builder, draw the tables. For a typical portal you need four:

• Customers — your customer accounts (this is also a Users table).
• Projects — owned by a customer, with a status.
• Invoices — owned by a customer and a project, with amount, due date, status.
• Files — uploaded against a project or invoice.

In Tadabase: create the four tables, add Connection fields (Projects → Customers, Invoices → Customers, etc.). On the Customers table, enable login. That is your users table.

Step 2 — Two roles, one rule #

Create two roles: Customer and Staff. The only rule that matters is the one on every component you build: "Only show records where Customer = logged-in user." Tadabase exposes the logged-in user as a filter value on every component, so this is two clicks per page.

Step 3 — Three pages, in order #

1. Dashboard — three summary numbers (open invoices, active projects, files), and a recent-activity list. All filtered by logged-in user.
2. Projects — list of the user's projects, each link going to a Project Details child page with files and a comments thread.
3. Invoices — table of invoices, with a "View PDF" button that opens a Tadabase-generated PDF for that invoice.

Step 4 — The PDF (the part that wins the deal) #

Tadabase generates branded PDFs from a visual template editor. Wire one to the Invoices table, drop in your logo and the invoice fields, and add a button on the Invoice details that downloads it. This is the single most "looks like a real product" feature you can add in twenty minutes.

Step 5 — Polish you should not skip #

• Custom domain — portal.yourbrand.com beats yourbrand.tadabase.io every time.
• White-label CSS — twenty minutes of brand colors goes a long way.
• A workflow that emails the customer when a new invoice or file appears.
• A signup flow that auto-assigns the Customer role on creation.