You can create customer accounts, using the tools in the Control Center's Accounts section. New visitors can also create their own accounts through your website when placing their first order. You can add as little or as much customer information as you like. At a minimum, a user account must have an email address.

On this page:

• How customers create their own accounts on your website
• How to create a user account in the Control Center
• How to locate and edit an existing user account in the Control Center

How customers create their own accounts on your website

• Customers are free to use your website without logging in or by creating an account.
• The site asks users to log in or create an account only when they are submitting an order or click the Sign In menu option.
• Only the email and email confirmation fields are required.
• Users will be given a randomly generated password if they leave the password field blank.
• Customers receive a confirmation email with their login and password.

How to create a user account in the Control Center:

1. In the Control Center, click Accounts.
2. Click Customers on the sidebar to reveal the Customers menu.
3. Click Add a New Contact.
4. Complete the Editing Contact: New Contact form.
   • Only an Email Address is required.
   • If no password is supplied, the system will automatically generate one.
   • The "Notify Customer" option will send a "Welcome" email to the customer with their login credentials.
5. Click "Save and Continue".
6. You are now presented with several new tabs. Complete as applicable:
   1. Name
      • Use the Company dropdown menu to assign the user to a company in your system.
      • Assigning a company makes the "Branch" dropdown menu available to assign the user to a company's branch as well.
      • Company and branch assignments are tools to help you organize your contacts. Some settings can be applied explicitly to a company, or to a branch.
   2. Email
      • Use the Email Format setting to send plain-text emails to your customers if they are having trouble viewing the system's HTML-formatted emails.
   3. Address
      • Use the blue Add an Address button to open the address form.
      • The address label appears in the customer's shopping cart as a bold heading, making it easier for them to find the address they want to use.
      • Setting Billing or Shipping to yes makes the address available to the customer to use in the shopping cart's Billing and Shipping addresses.
      • The "This is a residential address" setting is used by the Ecommerce Suite's shipping price calculator.
      • Click Save Address when finished (or "Cancel" to exit without saving the changes).
   4. Phone
   • The system will automatically format as (000) 000-0000.
   • Other formats, like 000.000.000, are replaced with (000) 000-0000.
   5. Photo
      • To add a photo: Click the "No Image" box to open the image tools, or click on the image if there is already one there.
      • Customer Photos are used in the notifications you receive from the website.
   6. Tax ID
      • This is available for you to assign to your customer in case you need to refer to it. It is for your reference only and not currently utilized anywhere in the system.
   7. Password
      • For added security, the Password itself is not visible.
      • Passwords can be changed even though the current password is hidden.
      • Use the "Email Password Reset Link" button to send the password to the email associated with the account.
   8. Approvers
      • Orders placed by users with an approver assigned will not be placed until approved.
      • Any customer in the system can be assigned as an approver.
      • More than one approver can be assigned, but approval from any one of them will move the order through.
   9. Admin - Admin users are able to perform several administrative functions on the site, such as:
      • Create, edit and delete company branches.
      • Create, edit and delete billing and shipping addresses for their employees.
      • Create, edit and delete user accounts for their own company.
      • View the status of orders in their company's Workflow.
      • Create reports of their company's order history.

How to locate and edit an existing user account in the Control Center

1. In the Control Center, click Accounts.
2. Click Customers on the sidebar to reveal the Customers menu.
3. Click the Customer List link on the sidebar.
4. Locate the customer in the list in the main section and click the blue Edit button to the right of their name.
   • The list is grouped alphabetically by Company, then by branches within the company.
   • Use the people search tool in the sidebar to locate the company/branch/individual that you'd like to udpate.
     • Type any keywords into the first box to filter the company, branch and contact lists to display only accounts that match your input.
     • Then choose the Company, Branch or Contact you'd like to update from the filtered lists.
     • The search filter is thorough: "Smith" will return "Smith", smith, Smithsonian, blacksmith.
5. You are now presented with several new tabs. Complete as applicable:
   1. Name
      • Use the Company dropdown menu to assign the user to a company in your system.
      • Assigning a company makes the "Branch" dropdown menu available to assign the user to a company's branch as well.
      • Company and branch assignments are tools to help you organize your contacts. Some settings can be applied explicitly to a company, or to a branch.
   2. Email
      • Use the Email Format setting to send plain-text emails to your customers if they are having trouble viewing the system's HTML-formatted emails.
   3. Address
      • Use the blue Add an Address button to open the address form.
      • The address label appears in the customer's shopping cart as a bold heading, making it easier for them to find the address they want to use.
      • Setting Billing or Shipping to yes makes the address available to the customer to use in the shopping cart's Billing and Shipping addresses.
      • The "This is a residential address" setting is used by the Ecommerce Suite's shipping price calculator.
      • Click Save Address when finished (or "Cancel" to exit without saving the changes).
   4. Phone
   • The system will automatically format as (000) 000-0000.
   • Other formats, like 000.000.000, are replaced with (000) 000-0000.
   5. Photo
      • To add or change the photo: Click the "No Image" box to open the image tools, or click on the image if there is already one there.
      • Customer Photos are used in the notifications you receive from the website.
   6. Tax ID
      • This is available for you to assign to your customer in case you need to refer to it. It is for your reference only and not currently utilized anywhere in the system.
   7. Password
      • For added security, the Password itself is not visible.
      • Passwords can be changed even though the current password is hidden.
      • Use the "Email Password" button to send the password to the email associated with the account.
   8. Approvers
      • Orders placed by users with an approver assigned will not be placed until approved.
      • Any customer in the system can be assigned as an approver.
      • More than one approver can be assigned, but approval from any contact designated as an approver will move the order through to production.
   9. Admin - Admin users are able to perform several administrative functions on the site, like:
      • Create, edit and delete company branches.
      • Create, edit and delete billing and shipping addresses for their employees.
      • Create, edit and delete user accounts for their own company.
      • View the status of orders in their company's Workflow.
      • Create reports of their company's order history.
6. When finished editing, click the green Save button in the lower right corner of the edit window

The next step

Time to learn about your website's most important feature! Our next article introduces you to your website's order forms.