Webflow has a rigid sign-up process;
- It requires an email address, which cannot be changed
- It requires email verification, through a link click. Without it, the account will not be considered verified
However;
- Sign-up can be initiated by the user, or by the site admins ( by API invite )
- An automatic login occurs at the completion of the sign-up process
- With custom code, you can detect this and handle it differently from other logins- we refer to this as "first log-in"
Initiating Sign-Up
There are a lot of different approaches to the Sign-Up process, depending on the needs of your business;
- Public sign-up, anyone can join
- Public sign-up, as part of a membership purchase
- Public sign-up, while gathering additional information like a user profile
- Private sign-up, email invite-only
- Private sign-up, with a "secret" shared link
All of these scenarios can be handled by User Accounts in various ways.
Public sign-up, anyone can join
Notes;
- This is the simplest and most common approach, just give a link to Sign Up.
Public sign-up, as part of a membership purchase
Notes;
- Initiated as part of ECommerce membership sale
Public sign-up, while gathering additional information like a user profile
Notes;
- For added user information like City, Birthdate, etc, you can create custom user fields and add them to the sign-up form.
For more complex setups, we recommend you either;
- Create a form to collect your info ( such as an event registration ), and then after capturing that data, you initiate the email User Account invite using an automation, or
- Capture minimal information at sign-up, and then after the account is verified, get additional information on the User Accounts screen or through additional profile forms
Private sign-up, email invite-only
Notes;
- Use the API to invite users, using their email address
- Clicking the link in the Webflow email they receive will initiate sign-up and they can enter details like Name
Private sign-up, with a "secret" shared link
Notes;
- Webflow always has the Sign-Up page at /sign-up
- You can simply hide links to it, to make it non-obvious and that may be enough
- Another approach is to create your own hidden form anywhere you like, and to have it trigger an automation that sends the email invite
Specially-routing first log-in
An automatic login occurs at the completion of the sign-up process, see the Log-in flow lesson for discussion on how to control this.
