April 2023 Summaries

PropelAuth has introduced customizable JSON metadata fields for both user and organization objects, expanding beyond its existing default properties such as IDs, email addresses, organization names, and optional profile fields. Developers can use new library functions and endpoints, including methods to update and retrieve user metadata, to attach arbitrary application-specific information without changing core object schemas. Suggested uses include assigning A/B testing groups, storing user preferences or demographic details, tracking feature-announcement exposure for marketing, implementing routing logic, and marking organizations as internal for specialized permissions.

PropelAuth has introduced a redesigned dashboard with updated interface elements and features intended to improve configuration, testing, and management workflows. The release adds a staging environment alongside existing test and production environments, allowing users to test changes in an isolated setting while keeping dashboard edits tied to the selected environment. Frontend configuration now supports a wider range of deployment setups, while API keys can be given descriptive names and assigned read-only access for services that do not require modification permissions. Other additions include organization search for accounts with many organizations, streamlined styling controls and live environment-specific previews for hosted authentication pages, and tooltips explaining color settings. PropelAuth is also inviting customer feedback and plans further releases, including recently announced custom metadata for users and organizations.

PropelAuth founder Andrew Israel describes how early customer interviews and cold outreach shaped the company’s direction, revealing that B2B businesses had a particularly strong need for improved authentication tools. To support early-stage founders in the same collaborative startup community, PropelAuth created its now-discontinued Free Until Funded program, which provided its Growth Plan at no cost until a startup raised $1 million, with no deadline for fundraising. The program was intended to align PropelAuth’s incentives with customers’ efforts to launch, gather feedback, and iterate, while allowing participants to retain access to the pricing plans available when they joined despite possible future pricing changes. Early-stage startups are directed to contact PropelAuth support for current startup offers.

Berri.ai and PropelAuth can be combined with Next.js to build an authenticated application for uploading and querying user-interview transcripts. The example sends uploaded text files through a Next.js API route to Berri.ai, which creates a hosted chatbot URL capable of answering questions about the submitted material, such as whether users have reported problems with a mobile app. PropelAuth secures upload and retrieval endpoints by validating access tokens, provides signup, login, and account-management interfaces, and can later support multi-tenant organizations for team-based access control. Each generated chatbot URL is stored against the authenticated user’s ID in a database and retrieved only for that user, while the frontend embeds the Berri.ai chat interface in an iframe and includes an authenticated file uploader. The approach minimizes custom development by relying on Berri.ai for document-based AI chat and PropelAuth for identity management, leaving room to extend the product into a team-oriented commercial service.

PropelAuth reports that it has completed its latest annual third-party penetration test with no noteworthy findings. The platform emphasizes its security features, including two-factor authentication, enterprise SSO/SAML, brute-force detection, and role-based access controls through custom roles and permissions, which are intended to protect accounts and support secure application development. Questions can be directed to PropelAuth’s support team.