Anonymous vs. Retail Users in the Inventory Display Configurator
Explaining the Inventory Display Configurator
The Inventory Display Configurator is a powerful tool included in WebAlliance that allows you to change the way your organization’s inventory is displayed for a specific subset of your user base. The site’s administrator creates rules, which are referred to by the Inventory Display Configurator as triggers. These triggers allow you to create a variety of different scenarios that enable you to hide pricing, allow purchasing, change inventory display, and more for certain user groups.
In order to take full advantage of the Inventory Display Configurator, it is important to define some of the triggers used by WebAlliance. Here, we will discuss the “User Is Anonymous” and “User is Retail” triggers and explain appropriate use cases for each.
The "User is Anonymous" Trigger
An Anonymous User is a user that WebAlliance doesn't have a login name for. This would apply to any user who is not logged into the website. Regardless of how they came to your site, they are considered an anonymous user. This would also include cases where a user punches out via the Punchout module.
The details of punchouts are beyond the scope of this document, but it is important to recognize that punchout users are not logged in and are therefore considered Anonymous. You can find more information on the Punch Module and what it does here.
The "User is Retail" Trigger
A Retail User is a user that may or may not be logged in. A user who is not logged in (anonymous) will be considered retail, but a user who is logged in may be considered retail if they are assigned the RetailUser access level. This can be changed via the account's detail page.
Note: Retail options require the Anonymous Shopping Module.
A user will be considered a Retail User if the customer code they are assigned to is the same as the Default Customer Code (Settings -> Users -> Defaults -> Default Customer Code). When WebAlliance detects a user who is attached to the default code, that user is considered a retail user unless their access level is changed.
It is worth noting that Anonymous users are considered under the “User Is Retail” group, but “User Is Retail” does not always include anonymous users. It is important to understand that these two triggers, while similar, represent significantly different information. User Is Retail is not the same as User Is Anonymous. Any user (including anonymous users) using the default customer code will satisfy the User Is Retail criteria.
Below, we will discuss some of the common use cases for the Inventory Display Configurator in conjunction with the two triggers mentioned above.
We want to hide pricing from users who are not logged in.
We can create an Inventory Display Configurator rule with a trigger of “User Is Anonymous”. Uncheck the “Show Price” box in the Inventory Panel. If a user views your website, but is not logged in, they will not see any pricing.
Note: In all of WebAlliance that if an item is unpriced, it cannot be purchased. So when you’re hiding pricing, you are preventing users from purchasing items from your website.
We want to hide pricing for users unless they log in under a known user account (e.g. not the default account code).
We can create an Inventory Display Configurator rule with a trigger of “User Is Retail”. And uncheck the “Show Price” box. This will tell WebAlliance to not show pricing to anyone who matches the User Is Retail criteria. In this case, even if a user is logged in, but is still considered retail (either because they are associated with the default customer code, or because they are have an access level of “RetailUser”) the pricing for the item will not be shown.
It is typically not recommended to use BOTH the User Is Retail and User Is Anonymous rules as they overlap and can potentially cause some confusion. This can also lead to decreased performance in your website and cause significantly increased load times.