User authentication: customize verification email?

[clarencemartin]

Mark,
can you explain, to me, about this feature?
I really don't understand this.

[efrain.c]

Mark,
can you explain, to me, about this feature?
I really don't understand this.

Hi Clarence,

This feature allows you to customize the emails sent to users. There are currently three emails that you can customize, the verification email sent to new users when they create an account, the forgot password email sent to users when they request a temporary password, and the temporary password email sent to users after they verify their request to reset their password. Along with this, you can also provide a landing page for the verification email and the forgot password email. Users will be redirected to these landing pages after clicking the buttons in the emails. This allows you to redirect users to a website tailored to your app after they click the button to verify their account. And for the forgot password email, you can redirect users to a website with instructions on what to do after they receive their temporary password.  

These features are controlled through LCM. You can now right-click on a project to manage your emails. Doing so will open a window with 3 tabs, one for each email mentioned above. Here you can choose your preference for each email and landing page. These features are completely optional. All projects created will default to the default emails and landing pages that we use today. If you prefer a custom email, you can upload a custom HTML file and we will host it for you on our servers. You will have to host your own websites and provide us the URL.

I plan to update LCM soon with a button that will download a template HTML file along with a readme file explaining the requirements for the HTML file. In the meantime, if you, or any developer, would like to use this feature and need a starting place, I can email you the HTML template.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[clarencemartin]

I would like to see an HTML template sample,.
Thanks.

[efrain.c]

Hi Clarence,

We pushed out an LCM update today with access to these templates. Once you restart LCM to get the update and sign in, right click on a project and select "Manage emails". You will see a new download button in each tab. Click this button to download the html templates.

[WhenInSpace]

It's good that there's now an email and landing page customization feature. 
I see it also covers password reset requests and temporary password. 
However, I can't find anywhere in the documentation what code to use to actually trigger the password reset request? Could you please explain?

[efrain.c]

It's good that there's now an email and landing page customization feature. 
I see it also covers password reset requests and temporary password. 
However, I can't find anywhere in the documentation what code to use to actually trigger the password reset request? Could you please explain?

Hi WhenInSpace,

The API for resetting passwords is not available at the moment. There has to be more thought put into it. Currently, a hash of the user's password is used to encrypt the local data on disk. If a user were to forget their password and change it, all of that local data would no longer be accessible. Unfortunately, we found this out the hard way in one of our apps. This is why there is no documentation on how to trigger a password reset. We will make the API available once we resolve this issue.

[Bizbuzz]

Hi! I tested to download the default verify user template, changed some parameters, uploaded a new one, but the default template is still used when receiving verification emails.
And the same goes for Landing page link.
What could be wrong?

[efrain.c]

Hi! I tested to download the default verify user template, changed some parameters, uploaded a new one, but the default template is still used when receiving verification emails.
And the same goes for Landing page link.
What could be wrong?

Hi BizBuzz,

You will need to re-export your toolkit for the app to use your email preference changes. You can consider putting a cdb_sdk() when your app opens so the app downloads the current toolkit automatically. (Note: cdb_sdk() will not download libraries, it only downloads the config file. You will still need to manually re-export new libraries manually when necessary)

[Bizbuzz]

Hi! I tested to download the default verify user template, changed some parameters, uploaded a new one, but the default template is still used when receiving verification emails.
And the same goes for Landing page link.
What could be wrong?

Hi BizBuzz,

You will need to re-export your toolkit for the app to use your email preference changes. You can consider putting a cdb_sdk() when your app opens so the app downloads the current toolkit automatically. (Note: cdb_sdk() will not download libraries, it only downloads the config file. You will still need to manually re-export new libraries manually when necessary)

[WhenInSpace]

It's good that there's now an email and landing page customization feature. 
I see it also covers password reset requests and temporary password. 
However, I can't find anywhere in the documentation what code to use to actually trigger the password reset request? Could you please explain?

Hi WhenInSpace,

The API for resetting passwords is not available at the moment. There has to be more thought put into it. Currently, a hash of the user's password is used to encrypt the local data on disk. If a user were to forget their password and change it, all of that local data would no longer be accessible. Unfortunately, we found this out the hard way in one of our apps. This is why there is no documentation on how to trigger a password reset. We will make the API available once we resolve this issue.

OK, this is interesting and a bit worrying. We have developed our own password reset/change features, as every app with a user login function must have one. People will always forget passwords, and in any case, changing your password from time to time is encouraged security behavior. 
But what you're saying then is that each time a user changes the password, the local data will become inaccessible?

This is less of a problem for my main project, as cloud will be master data and can always be sync:ed again. But what happens to the inaccessible local data then? Is it wiped and replaced by the new cloud -> local sync or would we get a build-up of abandoned garbage data, if users change their password often?