Build a customer portal
Retool Portals is in beta and only available on Business and Enterprise plans. You can sign up or book a demo with Retool to learn more.
This guide covers how to build a branded Retool portal for customers, vendors, partners, or even internal users.
Prerequisites
To get started building a Retool Portal, you must be on the Business plan or above. You also need to be logged in as an Admin user so you can create permission groups, add custom domains, and manage branding settings.
1. Set up your organization
With Retool Portals, you have additional options for branding and customization. This includes customizing the:
- Organization name
- Domain name
- Logo
- Favicon
- Accent and header colors
These options allow you to customize the portal experience so it matches either your brand, or your users' brand.
Add your organization name
When you set your organization name and enable Remove extra references to Retool, all page titles and mentions of Retool are replaced with your organization name throughout the product experience.
Add a custom domain
If Retool hosts your instance, follow the Configure a custom domain for your Cloud organization guide to add a custom domain to your cloud organization. If you are running self-hosted Retool, configure your custom domain in your cloud provider's settings.
After your domain is verified, you can log into your organization at <yourdomain>/auth/login. Log out and back in using your custom domain, and continue.
Set up Intercom for end-users
If you would like to provide support directly to your end-users, you can use the custom Intercom support feature. This allows you to bring your own Intercom Messenger client to Retool.
Customize Retool
You can customize login and password reset pages, as well as emails for inviting a user and resetting a password. Customization includes the logo, a favicon, accent colors, and more.
When customizing emails, to remove all references to Retool, you must enter a From name and a Reply-to address.
Emails are sent from email.retool.com by default, but you can reach out to try a new feature that allows you to use your own email provider.
2. Build your home page
To improve the onboarding experience into your portal, Retool recommends building a Retool app that serves as your home page. An example app might look like this.
The app above links out to other Retool apps. You can filter which links are available for the user based on their permission groups by writing JavaScript. For example, you can use the Hidden property to hide certain tiles if the current user isn't in the Pharmacist Manager permission group:
!current_user.groups.includes("Pharmacist Manager")
3. Configure permissions
Create and configure a permission group.mdx#configure-access-rules-for-a-permission-group) for your end users.
Within this permission group, make sure:
- The group only allows Use access to the relevant applications.
- Users have No access to the Query Library or other pages in Retool. Go to the permission group's Additional tab to set this.
The All users permission group must also have default permissions set to Define specific access. This ensures that new users only inherit the permissions based on the groups they belong to.
Set a landing page
To route users to this home page based on their permission groups after they log into Retool, create a landing page in your permission group settings. Users should not belong to any other permission groups with landing pages set. If users belong to multiple permission groups with landing pages set, they won't be routed to the appropriate Retool app.
4. Build your Retool app
Now that you've configured your organization, set permissions, and configured a landing page for your end users, it's time to build your main Retool apps. Refer to the web apps tutorial to get started.