10+ hours a week saved with the custom portal
16+ years in the manufacturing industry
5+ years in workflow automation services
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Defiant CNC owner Jeremy Taylor started his first experiments with automation a few years ago when working for a manufacturing enterprise. The company’s approach to data management was very manual — almost everything was done with pen and paper.
He decided to try some new approaches to workflow management and came across Airtable. After applying it company-wide as a back-end for managing data, Jeremy eventually started helping other companies as an Airtable consultant. Many of these businesses also needed a front-end solution that could go along with Airtable, which is how he found Softr.
When Jeremy started his own business, Defiant CNC, he needed a portal to manage his clients: a place where he could collaborate on 3D models of parts to be manufactured, and manage quotes, invoices, and billing.
To streamline client communication, Jeremy built a client portal with Softr and Airtable to organize his workflows and reporting in one place.
Here’s how it works:
The whole manufacturing process is accounted for in the portal, and clients are able to follow the progress and see how many parts have already been made for a particular job. They can also update their orders (request additional quantities of the same part, for example).
A top Softr feature for Jeremy is advanced permissions, which allows setting highly customized view and edit permissions for each client.
“It’s really easy to set up the whole system and give access to the users," he said. "You set up the permissions for a given user group and send them a magic link, and within a few seconds, they’re logged in and have access to all the data they need.”
The whole process of interacting with Defiant CNC’s clients is much clearer with the portal. Jeremy estimates that it has saved him 10+ hours a week and spared him the need to hire additional employees for administrative work.
He’s now working on adding inventory management capabilities to track the quantities of parts that are available, planning the manufacturing process, and receiving orders accordingly.
He’s also happy with how other companies in the manufacturing industry have benefited from the Softr solutions he’s built for them.
“My clients have different use cases, and I’ve tried all sorts of platforms that integrate with Airtable. Softr is my favorite solution that I recommend to my customers for client portals.”
“It’s really easy to set up the system and give access to the users. You set up the permissions for a given user group, send them a magic link, and within a few seconds they’re logged in and have access to all the data they need.”
“Creating a customer portal with Softr allows us to give our customers that bit of extra value. They always comment on how easy it is to use, and they love the fact that it updates with data from Airtable in real time.”
