Getting all the ingredients together for baking an app

Getting all the ingredients together for baking an app

Good day everyone. After reading a lot of the help docs and watching videos, I now started on my app. To prevent hours and hours wasted on going down the wrong track, I would like some clarification on the following. But first some background:

I have a small charter company - all we do is is transport our client's kids between boarding schools and home towns on weekends. In the app they book (only) their own kids for one or both of the directions (to home or to school) - in a single booking, to save on record count and file size. The app then populates another form (or report, maybe - my current app does not have this) with the pickup and drop-off points and times, in sequence.  The driver also has a checkbox  to confirm completion at each point. All entries are written to the Trips table.  So:
      1. I am already creating a Registration form for the clients. They will be portal users whose details I will import from my current app.
        1. I see nowhere where the form is connected to a table.
        2. What is the difference between form edit and form builder, when I right-click on the form title in the portal? I cannot do anything in edit mode, I have to go to builder mode from there.
        3. I currently handle the many-to-many relationships between clients and their children with an intermediary table.
          1. If the Registration form has as (repeating) subform for add children, does it create a link automatically? I have Autonumber fields for the ID's of both users and children in their respective tables.
          2. Or do I need a workflow to add the two ID's to the intermediary table?
          3. Is a repeating subform even possible? I mean to add more children linked to the same user, maybe with an Add button on the subform. If not, how should I handle it? Some users have 3 children making use of the service.

      2. When onboarding users, the help docs say that customer portal users are your clients, vendors etc.
        1. and they cannot have email adresses in the same domain as the super admin. If I don't have a custom domain, this point is surely moot? My customers all have webmail addresses like gmail and yahoo.
        2. In the Creator price comparison it says all plans get 3 portal users free, but in the  Portal price comparison it says 5 free.
        3. Some of my clients use the service irregularly and pay per trip booked. The rest pay a fixed monthly fee. I will add each client's portal user cost of $0.5 to his fee but it will not work for the ad hoc clients. I will therefore not add them as portal users but that means I will have to do their bookings. Is this possible?

      3. After registration, users should open at a form with all their available options.  (Currently a Main Menu form with buttons)
        1. Must the form be in the portal? Or can I use a stateless form as a menu?
        2. Can they access their portal then from the menu? It does not seem so from the Help docs. 
        3. A Page seems to be the wrong choice for a user interface. All the users access the app from a phone so a button-based layout seems best. Should/must I use a page anywhere, and is it suitable for a phone? It looks like a good opton for the Customer portal, though, where I can add some metrics. Didn't I read somewhere a portal is a page?
        4. If I add Quickbooks integration, is the Billing portal a separate entity or can it be incorporated in the User portal? (Or page...)
I apologize for the many questions, but I'm eager to get it running soon - at least the onboarding because it will take time for the new users. 

Many thanks,


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