Automate login from emailed link

[rmhatchett]

Hi
My client would like to send out an email newsletter with links to a exclusive section of the shop, offering discounted prices on particular products. I understand that we can use 'customer groups' to implement the discounted prices but that would need the newsletter recipients to login to the site. We are committed to allowing orders from unregistered customers and want the newsletter recipients to access this exclusive area and prices as easily as possible (i.e. without entering username and password). Is there a way of providing them with a url which will automatically log them in? Could we use a generic customer account (as some of them may not be previous customers)?
We are using Actinic Business v10.0.3 and would upgrade to v11 if that would help!
Any ideas/suggestions gratefully received.

[Duncan Rounding]

I also have a requirement to create a URL that will contain the username and password which will then log the user in to a defulat account. The only method I can think of is to create a bounce page that does it populated with the account username and passwords values.

Is there a method to create a URL to do the login?

[rmhatchett]

The solution we ended up implementing was to email a url containing a coupon code but pointing to a page on the website which gave details of the offers, with links to the products, and which was not accessible via the normal website navigation. As the coupon code is retained by the browser session, this means the user can browse anywhere on the site and the exclusive discount is still applied if he makes a purchase.

[Duncan Rounding]

Thanks for the feedback Ruth.
In this case I need to allow new customers a method of purchasing (without having their account uploaded) directly from a button/URL (v10).

[Lance]

Did you manage to find a way to do this Duncan? I need to do the same thing.

[Duncan Rounding]

No I didn't I'm afraid.

[Lance]

Pity. Thanks for your reply.