Yammer Like Authentication Flow using Devise

This is a sample application tat can be used as a starting point for a SaaS business application that uses a flow similar to Yammer in order to let users sign-up and create accounts.

Current state: in development (not all flows are there)

User Stories

• Signup - Allow users to signup with their company email. A new account is created for the company if its not already in the system and its accessible via a subdomain thats identical to its email domain.
• Login - User browses to his company's URL (ex: http://mycompany.local.host:3000) and can login from there

Assumptions:

• User belongs to one account only. There's a complete seperation of data between accounts (companies) in the system
• User can only signup to an account using the company's email as its domain is used to match the account. However, user with an email outside the company can be invited to access the account (tosupport the case of 3rd party vendors accessing the system)
• User can only login from the company subdomain (as an email can belong to several accounts)

Signup

1. User browses to main homepage (ex: http://www.local.host:3000)
2. User types his company email and presses the Sign Up button
3. Email Confirmation

• E-Mail is sent to the user containing an invite link to continue the process.
• if the domain is on Google Apps the user is redirected to a screen allowing him to use his Google identity

4. Account is created (if needed) and a User is created on that company. User is logged in and redirected to the account's subdomain (ex: http://mycompany.local.host:3000)

Login

Running the Sample

1. Edit your hosts file. The sample defaults to local.host as the main domain (http://www.local.host:3000).
2. Verify database.yml settings

Roadmap

See Also

This code is inspired by the following Devise samples which I tried using before writing this code:

• https://github.com/fortuity/rails3-subdomain-devise
• https://github.com/salex/rails3-Devise-BCSD-Can-Invite

However I have decided to write my own sample because IMHO the above are not implemented correctly, hooking into the User creation process in the model's :before_validation (which is kinda hacky) instead of deriving the Devise controllers. Also, as I'm using this code for a real SaaS app, my goal is to have this code thoroughly speced and tested.

For an introduction to Rails 3 and subdomains, see Ryan Bates’s screencast Subdomains in Rails 3 (a transcription is available from ASCIIcasts).

Help & Information

For questions etc. you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ekampf

Any issues? Please create an Issue on GitHub