Private Vendor Notes for Paying Directory Members

The Challenge

Law Firm Marketing Directory wanted paying members to keep private notes on vendors while browsing the directory. They already used the Saved Members plugin and wanted something similar for personal reference notes on each listing. Notes had to stay private to each user, work on vendor profiles and in search results, and be limited to specific membership levels (Law Firms and admin). The site admin also needed the same tool to flag vendors for future follow-up.

The Solution

We built a private vendor notes system that sits next to the existing Save button and gives members one place to manage everything:

1. Notes Button on Profiles and Search

   We added a Notes button below the Save button on member profile headers and in search result cards. Clicking it opens a modal where users can add, edit, and delete free-form notes about that vendor. Each button shows a count badge so users can see at a glance how many notes they have saved for that listing.

2. Private Notes Database and API

   We created a custom users_profile_notes table and a users-notes-engine widget that handles list, save, update, and delete actions over AJAX. Notes are tied to the author and target vendor, validated for length, and never visible to other users or the vendor being noted.

3. Membership Access Control

   We restricted the feature to the Law Firms and admin membership levels only. The notes widget, modal, and dashboard all check subscription ID before rendering or processing requests, so free or lower-tier members never see the option.

4. My Notes Dashboard

   We added a My Notes page in the member account sidebar at /account/my-notes. It groups all notes by vendor, shows vendor and note counts, supports search by name or note text, and includes pagination. Each vendor row links back to that member's public profile so users can jump straight to the listing.

5. Modal and Dashboard UX

   The profile modal and dashboard share the same create-read-update-delete flow with inline editing, timestamps, edited labels, and confirm-before-delete. The dashboard uses expandable vendor cards so members can review or update notes without going back to each profile one by one.

Technical Implementation Notes

Built with PHP, MySQL, and jQuery inside Brilliant Directories. Custom table users_profile_notes, widgets users-notes and users-notes-engine, dashboard widget user-notes-dashboard, and theme changes to the member profile header, search loop, and account sidebar.