In Blocks, you can make your tools available to people outside your organization in two main ways:
Public tools - open to anyone, no login required.
Great for: Contact forms, event registration, landing pages, help centers
Portals - Allows access for external users via login.
Great for: Customer portals, vendor dashboards, partner portals
Note: You don’t need to ask Ella to build a login page - it's already built-in. Just choose how you want to share your tool, and the login page is added automatically
What’s a Portal?
A portal lets specific users (like clients or vendors) securely log in and see only what’s relevant to them.
Examples of portals:
A client portal where users can track their orders status
A vendor portal where suppliers upload invoices and track payments
A partner portal for accessing shared dashboards
What’s a Public Tool?
A public tool is open to anyone with the link - no login needed.
Examples:
Contact forms
Event registrations
Surveys
Landing pages
Blogs
Help centers
Building Portals
Build your tool with Ella.
Go to Share → Publish → and choose: Private → Invited only or Anyone with a link.
Invite only – Only users you invite by email can log in.
Anyone with a link – Anyone with the link can log in using their email.
Set roles and permissions to control what each user sees.
Learn more about roles →Set publish settings.
Share the link. That's it!
💡 Reminder: Login pages are built into Blocks. You don’t need to ask Ella to create them.
Building public tools
Build with Ella (mention it's public)
Go to Share → Publish → Public
Choose your setup:
Option A: Everything public
No login needed
Everyone sees everything
Use for: Forms, landing pages, event sites
Option B: Mix of public and private
Some pages open to everyone
Some pages need invite (only people you add)
Use for: Public site with client-only areas
Option C: Mix of public and login
Some pages open to everyone
Some pages need login (anyone can sign up)
Use for: Tools that save user data
Pick your default (what visitors see first)
Configure publish settings
Share anywhere you want!
Example: Mixed public/private tool
What visitors see:
'Find a partner' Landing page (public)
Contact form (public)
What your partners see:
Lead dashboard (private)
Email automation (private)
All submissions (private)
Visitors explore your public pages and submit forms. Your partners can manage everything from their private dashboard.
Publish Settings: Controlling what external users can see and do
Publish settings let you control how external users interact with your tool’s data. These settings are defined per data table and are essential for shaping the user experience in both public tools and portals.
In Publish settings, you choose what users can do with each data table:
Private - Only you can access - Users can't see this data at all
Anyone can view, only you can build - Users see data but can't change it
Anyone can submit data, only you can read - Users add info but can't see what others submitted
Anyone can view and submit data - Users see and add data (careful with this one)
Example: Building a customer portal for submitting feature requests
You want customers to submit feature requests through a form.
✅ Set the "Feature Requests" table to:
“Anyone can submit, only you can read”
→ Customers can send requests, but only you see them.
You want customers to see their own requests and track status.
✅ Change the setting to:
“Anyone can view and submit”
→ Now users can see requests — but without more setup, they’ll see all requests.
You want each customer to only see their own submissions.
✅ Tell Ella:“Users should only see their own requests and data.”
Ella will apply row-level visibility rules.
Tip: You can also control this with roles - assign different permissions to different user types. Learn more about roles & permissions →
Good to Know
Your Data Layer = Your Tool’s Heart
The data of you tool powers everything:
Submissions
Automations
Smart agent workflows
Personalized experiences
Learn more about how the data layer works →