How to get retool user id?

💬 Account & User Management
2

I asked a similar question at Retool Office Hours yesterday and the answer was currently no, unless you are Self-Hosted. They can query their user table directly to get this (ask elsewhere how to do this, I only know it is possible.)

One of us should add a feature request.

One of the other participants (sorry I did not catch who or I would give attribution) had the germ of an idea which I was able to grow into a workaround yesterday. When your user first logs into an app (maybe an onboarding app everyone signs into first) you run a js query.

  1. Have a user table which has their email (you control that at least) and a retool_id field.
  2. Query your users table by the current_user.id
  3. If you get no results, query your user table by email.
  4. If you get a result, update your user table with the retool_id
  5. If you get no result, the user is not in your user table yet or their email is wrong

Here is how I implemented that for my use case (external clients given access to their portal):

// Set 'Keep variable reference inside the query in sync' and 'Run on Page Load Option' options in Advanced Tab
let customer
// Get the customer by the logged in Retool User
customer = await qryCustomerByRetoolId.trigger()
if (customer.length > 0) {
  await currentCustomer.setValue(customer[0])
  return
}

// If we do not find that customer by a Retool ID then we look for them by email
customer = await qryCustomerByEmail.trigger()
if (customer.length > 0) {
  // If we find them this way then set the Retool ID in that record.
  // This will always happen when they first co to one of their pages and should not happen again.
  await qrySetRetoolId.trigger({additionalScope: {customer_id: customer[0].id}})
  // Remember the customer's record to use in the app
  await currentCustomer.setValue(customer[0])
  return
}

-- qryCustomerByRetoolId
select * from customer
where retool_id={{current_user.id}}

-- qryCustomerByEmail
select * from customer
where poc_email={{current_user.email}}

-- qrySetRetoolId

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If I fail to get an email match I display this Alert component:

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The account reps can manually add the retool_id.

Now when a client logs into their portal, I can link their retool_id to their customer_id and then get their records.

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