Sharetribe: send the verification link

This page is the first of two steps. Here you prepare your marketplace and ProofAge, and build the Zap that sends each new user a verification link, with no manual work from you. Grant access after verification then builds the Zaps that act on the result. For the big picture, read the overview first.

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What you need

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Accounts

• Zapier account. Sign up at zapier.com. You need the Professional plan for Zaps with more than two steps. A new account starts on the Free plan: go to Settings → Billing & usage and click Try Pro for 14 days to start the free trial. No card is needed. When the trial ends, Zaps with more than two steps stop running unless you upgrade.
• ProofAge account. Sign up at app.proofage.net. New accounts get free trial verifications (Pricing), and test workspaces are always free.
• An email account connected to Zapier, such as Gmail. This guide uses Gmail.

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Your marketplace setup

Do these in your marketplace’s Test environment. Access control. Decide what new users can’t do until they are verified. In Console, go to Build → General → Access control. This guide ticks all three of these, so that the next page shows both ways of granting access:

• Approve users who want to join: new users can’t do anything until they are approved.
• Restrict posting rights: new users can’t post listings.
• Restrict transaction rights: new users can’t start transactions.

Leave No call to action selected under each, and click Save changes. On your own marketplace, tick only the options you need. Two content pages. Create these two pages: For each page:

1. In Console, go to Build → Content → Pages and click + Create a new page….
2. Enter the Page ID from the table and click Create page.
3. Click Edit content under the new page, then + Add a new section.
4. Enter a Section name. Only you see it.
5. Choose the Hero template.
6. Enter the Section title from the table and select Page title (H1).
7. Enter the Section description.
8. Click Save changes.

Click View page to see the page. Its address is your marketplace address followed by /p/ and the page ID, for example https://your-marketplace.com/p/verification-received. In the Test environment the address ends in .mysharetribe-test.com. Copy the addresses of both pages. You’ll need them below. A test user. Sign up on your Test marketplace as a new user, with an email address whose inbox you can open. You’ll use this user to test the Zap. If you set up approval to join, don’t approve this user yourself: the Zap on the next page will do it.

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Getting your Integration API keys from Console

Zapier connects to your marketplace with Integration API keys. In Sharetribe Console, in your Test environment:

1. Go to Build → Advanced → Applications.
2. Click + Add a new application.
3. Name it (for example “Zapier”), select Integration API and click Add application.
4. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret to a safe place, such as a password manager.

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Setting up ProofAge

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Create a test workspace

1. Sign in to app.proofage.net, go to Workspaces and click Create workspace.
2. Enter a Name, for example “Sharetribe Zapier”.
3. Under What should this workspace check?, choose:
   • Identity (KYC): the user scans an ID document and takes a selfie. Pick this to know who your users are.
   • or one of the Age verification options (Digital ID wallet, ID document with a minimum age, or Facial age estimation) if you only need to know that users are old enough.
   You can’t change this later, so create another workspace if you change your mind.
4. Under Mode, select Test. The form selects Live by default.
5. Click Create Workspace.
6. On the workspace page, open the Integration URLs tab and paste the address of your verification-received page into Redirect URL. It saves when you leave the field. Your Zap will set this address itself. The workspace setting is for links you create by hand in the ProofAge console, which the next page uses to let a user try again.

In a test workspace nothing is charged and no verification is decided automatically: you choose each result yourself in the ProofAge console. That’s how you’ll test every scenario on the next page without a real ID.

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Add ProofAge to your Zapier account

The ProofAge app for Zapier is in beta and available through an invite link:

1. Open this invite link while signed in to Zapier.
2. Click Accept Invite & Build a Zap. Zapier takes you to your Zaps page.

The invite page says that Zapier hasn’t reviewed the app yet. Zapier shows this for every invite-only app. You only do this once. ProofAge now appears when you search for apps in the Zap editor.

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Creating the Zap, step by step

In Zapier, click + Create and choose Zaps. Then click the new Zap’s name (“Untitled Zap”) at the top, choose Rename and name it ProofAge 1 – Send verification link.

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Step 1: User created trigger

1. As the trigger app, choose Sharetribe. As the trigger event, choose User Events.
2. Connect your marketplace: click Sign in and paste the Client ID and Client Secret from above. Make sure you use the keys of your Test environment.
3. In Configure, set the event type to User created.
4. Click Test trigger. Zapier should find your test user and show a record such as “User event A”. If it finds nothing, sign up a new user on your marketplace and test again.

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Step 2: Create the verification in ProofAge

1. Add an action step. Search for ProofAge (Zapier lists it as “ProofAge (2.0.0)” with an Invite Only label) and choose Create Verification as the event.
2. Connect ProofAge:
   1. Click Sign in. A window opens.
   2. Zapier first asks you to confirm. Click Connect.
   3. Sign in to ProofAge if asked.
   4. Choose your test workspace (it’s marked Test) and click Allow.
   The connection appears in Zapier as “Your workspace name (Test)”.
   Only ProofAge administrators and developers can connect a workspace. ProofAge creates a key named “Zapier · …” in the workspace for this connection; deleting that key disconnects Zapier.
3. In Configure, fill in:
   • External Reference: click + next to the field and choose User Id from step 1. This is how ProofAge’s result is matched back to the right user, so don’t type anything else here.
   • Redirect URL: the full address of your verification-received page.
   • Language: leave empty to use the language of the user’s browser, or choose one.
   • Metadata: leave empty.
   
4. Click Test step. In the result you’ll find Verification URL: the link the user opens to verify. You’ll use it in the next step.

The checks themselves (ID and selfie, or age) come from the ProofAge workspace you connected, so there’s nothing else to configure here.

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Step 3: Email the link to the user

1. Add an action step with Gmail (or your email app) and choose Send Email. Connect the mailbox you want users to see and reply to, such as your marketplace’s support address: the email is sent from it.
2. To: choose User Email from step 1.
3. Subject: for example Your Marketplace: please verify your identity.
4. Body: for example, inserting the fields in brackets from steps 1 and 2:

   Hi [1. User Profile First Name], and welcome to Your Marketplace! Before you can start using your account, please verify your identity. It takes about two minutes and you’ll need your ID document and your phone’s camera: [2. Verification URL] The link is valid for 7 days. If you have any questions, just reply to this email. – The Your Marketplace team

   
5. Click Test step and check that the email arrives in the test user’s inbox.
6. Click Publish to turn the Zap on.

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What the user sees

The user opens the link from the email. On a phone, the first screen says what’s ahead (a photo of their ID, then a selfie) and asks them to agree before the camera starts: On a computer, the first screen shows a QR code to continue on the phone, or a link to carry on in the browser: After the last screen, the user lands on your verification-received page. In a test workspace, the finished verification now waits for you to choose its result. That’s where the next page begins.

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Next

Every new user now gets a verification link automatically. Next, build the Zaps that act on the result: Grant access after verification.