Account Management
Account Management provides the ability for shoppers to be associated with organizational accounts and to buy on behalf of those accounts. A top-level account can be created for the buyer organization along with multiple sub-accounts depending on stores, regions, departments, or divisions within the top level account.
Organizational Accounts
Customer records are separated into different types:
SINGLE_SESSION_USER: Represents a shopper who browsed the site. The shopper might have added a product to the cart or made a purchase but did not register or login.REGISTERED_USER: Represents a shopper who has created an account in the store.ACCOUNT: Represents an organization that shoppers can transact on behalf-of, if they are associated to the organization.
All customer types have:
Shared ID value
note
This ID can be used as a common identifier between back-end services.
Status that can be set to
ActiveorDisabledCustom profile attribute values
List of customer segments
List of addresses
List of purchases
Accounts also have the following:
- List of child accounts.
- List of associated buyers.
Accounts can support a nested hierarchy with sub-accounts. After a top-level account is created, you can add child accounts to it. These child accounts, can contain their own child accounts, to any wanted tree depth. Existing accounts cannot be added as child accounts, meaning that account trees are always separate and never have common children.
You can add users to accounts as associate buyers. These users can transact on behalf of the account. Associations are not inherited from parents in the tree. A buyer can only transact on accounts that they are directly associated to. Each association has an assigned role that determines what the buyer is permitted to do on behalf of the account.
You can define customer profile attributes for all customer types. Profile attributes are defined separately for users and accounts, as they can each have a completely different set of attributes. By default, all attribute values are visible and editable by shoppers in Cortex, but they can be changed to hidden or read-only by setting up policies on the store.
Manage accounts through Commerce Manager
Seller administrators use Commerce Manager to manage accounts, child accounts, and associations. They have full access to all accounts in the system and can search for accounts using search terms such as:
- Shared ID
- Business name
- Phone number
- Zip or postal code
They can also create new top-level accounts and child accounts, and manage associated buyers.
For more information, see the Customers User Guide.
Manage accounts through Import/Export
You can create and update accounts through Import/Export using the customer data type.
Manage accounts through Cortex
Buyers can access accounts by reading the accounts link on the default profile. Any accounts that the buyer is associated to will appear here. Buyers can access account attributes, child accounts, and purchases. In an upcoming version of the platform, buyers with appropriate permissions will be able to make changes to the account.
For more information, see the accounts resource.
Associates
Registered users can be associated with accounts and assigned a role. Roles determine what permissions the buyer has to act on behalf of the account. Currently, the only supported role is Buyer, but additional roles will be added in version 8.2.0 of the product.
Manage associations through Commerce Manager
Seller administrators can add or remove buyers to or from any account. To associate a buyer to an account, the buyer must already be registered in the system as a REGISTERED_USER.
For more information, see the Customers User Guide.
Manage associations through Import/Export
Associations can be created and updated through Import/Export using the user account associations data type.
Manage associations through Cortex
Currently, buyer admins cannot add associations to accounts. This functionality will be added in a future version of Elastic Path Commerce.
Transact on Behalf of Account
By default, shoppers interacting with Cortex are not considered associated to any account. In this mode, shoppers can browse, add-to-cart, and purchase for themselves.
If the x-ep-account-shared-id header is specified in each Cortex request, then Elastic Path considers them to be transacting on behalf of that account.
The x-ep-account-shared-id value is only accepted if:
- The value matches the
Shared IDvalue of a known account. - The buyer is associated to that account.
- The account is not in the
Disabledstate.
The buyer will have a different set of shopping carts for each account to transact on behalf-of. If there are account-specific price list assignments or promotions configured, then the buyer sees those prices.
Account Purchases
Any purchases made while transacting on behalf of an account will appear in the account purchase history, not the shopper’s purchase history.
Viewing account purchases through Commerce Manager
Seller administrators have full access to all account purchases. They can search for purchases using several fields, including the following search terms:
- Order number
- Customer shared ID
- Customer email
- Account shared ID
- Account name
Seller administrators can also view purchases associated to an account by opening the account editor, and click the Purchases tab.
For more information, see the Customers User Guide.
View account purchases through Cortex
Buyers can access account purchases by reading the purchases link on an account. This resource returns any purchases placed on behalf of the account or any child account in the subtree.
The purchase resource also a new link called buyer that contains details of the buyer who placed the order.
For more information, see the purchases resource documentation.