wish list — setting up accounts

[Laylah]

We use Actinic-Business -- all orders and credit cards are processed on a separate system. We use accounts for our trade customers who receive a discount.

Can we please have a simple 'new customer' set-up without all the mandatory fields . . . perhaps something simple like customer name, password, login name etc. . . . with all the other information optional — for us, it is pointless and time consuming.

[cdicken]

In v7 you could set up up a simple trade discount by creating an 'Order Value' discount that is triggered by a coupon. This coupon is effectively the customer's username.

[Laylah]

Hi Chris

we have 600 trade customers and a quite complex discount structure relating to product groups.

[V7 solved all our problems on the discount structure . . . so thanks for that]

A coupon-based system would not work.

I would have thought that turning off mandatory fields was relatively easy.

[cdicken]

v7 does improve the process of setting up accounts - in that you just have to fill in the 'Main Account' and 'Address' details and then when you click 'New Buyer' in the 'Buyers' tab, the first buyer automatically uses the details you have already entered.

I appreciate this can be made more streamlined though, so I'll pass this on to the team.

[Laylah]

Hi Chris

Your suggestion puts the buyers e-mail as the login . . . which is not a system we use . . . entering Login and Password is not a problem.

Summary of suggestion

To start you have to complete the mandatory fields on the 'account' screen . . . these are

Name (account)

main contact
name
e-mail
telephone

on 'addresses' tab -- 3 more mandatory fields --
address line 1,
post code, and
country


My request is thus to remove the mandatory status for 'main contact' name, e-mail, telephone and for 'address' address line 1, post code, and country.

This would leave Account name. Login and Password as Mandatory

[Darren B]

My 2 penith, i only ship to the UK and as such this is not a requirement on check out, however if i create a customer account it always says i have to select the country. The problem being when i create the customer account from order it leaves the country field blank, i agree with turning off these mandatory fields

Cheers
Darren

[David@MPL]

Do we know if this issue is going to be dealt with in the future? At the very least, not having Postcode as a mandatory field would be a great help (Rep. of Ireland don't use postcodes).

[ianb]

I agree with the Post Code issue as I also have clients from Northern Ireland.

Because of my pricing structure all my clients have to request an account and then login (they are effectively all 'trade' customers). Without some form of automated system this is very time consuming and requires someone to be 'tending the shop' continuously. It is apparent from watching the customer buying habits that if a customer gets registered immediately they very often buy during the same session. Any delay and they seem to loose interest.

[cdicken]

You can make post code non-mandatory by de-selecting 'Required' next to the entry for Post Code in 'Design | Text | Web Site (cont) | Invoice Address' and 'Design | Text | Web Site (cont) | Delivery Address'.

Ian, with regards to your quiestion about online registration, there is no easy way for us to allow secure online registrations with the current system of having the database on the PC and then just Perl and config files on the server. We are re-looking at this area though, and seeing what the possibilities are about moving to different models of technology for some Actinic online stores. In teh meantime, I'll add your request to the wish list.

[David@MPL]

Thanks Chris

[djferros]

Login.. if you want

I didn't really see the need for customers to login/register to buy things on our website so disabled this feature. However, would it be possible to set the system up so that can login if they want but could also purchase regardless.
________
Canada

[Nadeem]

Hi there

If you disable login, then no this cannot happen. However, if you go to "View | Business Settings | Ordering" and for "Customer Login and Ordering", make sure the following are selected/ticked:

Allow Orders from Unregistered Customer
Allow Orders from Registered Customer
Enable Repeat order from unregistered customer
Enable Repeat order from registered customer

Then the above will happen. If a client gets a login page, then can bypass it, by clicking on the link underneath.

Kind Regards

[ianb]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the note. I have looked at the structure and as you say, with the database on the PC it is difficult. I have looked at producing a form on my website that outputs a CSV/tabbed file, then setting up scheduling to pull that down and import it into the Access Database and then scheduling to run the upload routine..... and then I fell asleep.

If you crack it please let me know it would be a massive boon.