As for plugins that Ive used:
API Connector: This was needed to run our url shortener. We have a url call to our domain which returns a shortened url. This plug-in automatically encodes your values, so we no longer needed two of blockspring’s plugins (XML/JSON Explorer and URL Encode). As a side note I also no longer needed the Random String generator from Blockspring as I now just truncate the unique Id that Bubble creates for every ‘thing’ in Bubble.
Braintree: We used to process through wufoo forms with a Braintree integration. Now that Bubble has a Braintree plugin, we could use our Braintree account to process right from Bubble. Now we don’t need Wufoo at all because we can create forms for taking orders as well as payment processing in Bubble.
Calendar: This is crucial for our timesheets and payroll. Only issue I have is I can’t remove the time of day that is prefixed to all event names on the calendar (12a for example). Nice to have it be clickeable and to color encode events!
Multifile Uploader: This is needed for adding projects. Clients can attach pdfs of their house floorplans. We can drag and drop email attachments to an order so other designers have the files they need.
Progress bar: Great to visually show on a project management dashboard. I needed to tweak it ([Solved] Progress bar cant handle thirds (1/3 done)). Also created a dashboard for clients to see the progress of their order.
Rich text editor: Emails are copied into this box to add as notes for new projects. Highlighting, bolding, underlining is needed for us.
Select pdf: Needed to automatically create pdfs from a page. We can create invoices and save to pdf with a single click with this plugin. Otherwise you would have to go to the page, print to pdf.
Zapier: We still have to export some our data to other apps like Google spreadsheets or Quickbooks Online. This makes it easy to translate which elements in bubble match the elements you want to create, edit, find in other apps primarily using webhooks.
Slideable menu: Starting to make mobile versions for timesheets and project management and the chat elements of the app. Nice to have something ready made as it is hard to get something to slide horizontally in bubble. If I try to build it myself, even if the menu is hidden, the space taken up by the menu will cover other clickable elements on the small mobile page and make them unclickable.
As for users and roles, mostly I used yes or no fields on the user element in the database (Admin?Superadmin?Manager?Designer?Accountant?Tech Support?Reviewer?, etc.). The yes or no could be toggled from a Page that showed users and their roles. Things could be hidden or shown based on the user’s role as well as searches could be limited by which role the user had. Applying a condition to an element could be done by checking the yes or no element on a user. Another way would be to create a new element of roles that has a set of yes/no’s so the roles could be edited as well. These roles could then be a list of roles on the user.