Product Restrictions Concepts

 

Product Restrictions is a versatile tool for SuperAdmin or an Admin use that allows you to limit the items that particular customers can see or restrict items to particular customers.

User Groups

  • Restriction rules are applied to groups of users.  A User Group may be comprised of one or more Customer Codes or website usernames.  User Groups are assigned to a Product Restriction to form rules about the items that users may or may not purchase.
  • User Groups are configured in the website's Admin panel at Users>User Groups. 
  • SuperAdmins and Admins with the Users Area role can create User Groups.

Item Groups

  • Item Groups contain items that you associate with each other by tagging them in one of the ERP user defined fields.  In some cases, categories can also be used as Item Groups.
  • Item Groups can be included in multiple restriction rules.

User Group Members

  • All Product Restrictions must have an associated User Group.  A User Group may be associated with zero, one or many Product Restrictions.  The rules of the Product Restriction will be applied only to web users represented by the User Groups.
  • The User Group/Product Restriction association is used to determine whether a rule should be applied to a given web user.
  • There is a group called “All Users” which is set by the system and cannot be changed or removed.  This group represents all users of the website.

Restriction Rule Application

  • Restriction rules are decided based on the item and user.  The system checks to see if the item belongs to an Item Group that is associated with a restriction.  The system also checks to see if the user or user’s Customer ID is associated with any of the User Groups.
  • Based on the examination of the user and Product Restrictions, a rule is applied for any search query, category browse, etc.
  • Rules are evaluated and summed up to calculate the applied restrictions for each user. Each user's "Applied Product Restrictions Groups" list can be found on the "User Permissions" tab of their User Details page.
  • The default rule ("this user can see all items") carries the least weight and serves as the "catch-all" rule if no other rule applies.

If you have an Exclude group that represents an item, and you also have an Allow group that represents the same item, then WebAlliance will allow access to this item. This can save a lot of management hassle as it potentially allows all excluded items to be placed in one group instead of maintaining multiple Exclude groups.