Registered customer groups

Registered customer groups are a special type of member group that is created for the purpose of associating buyer organizations with one or more stores. (Extended Sites, where a single instance of WebSphere Commerce contains multiple stores, are an essential example of the latter scenario.)

In particular:

• The Seller Administrators of a store effectively have Seller Administrator access to all the buyer organizations within the registered customer group of the store.

• The account representatives and sales managers of a store can create business accounts and contracts for organizations within the registered customer group of the store.

Registered customer groups cannot be created or deleted manually from within the Organization Administration Console. Instead, a registered customer group named RegisteredCustomers is created automatically for each B2B store, and any buyer organization that registers through the store is automatically added to this member group. These organizations, however, can be removed from the group through the member group UI. Buyer organizations created outside of the store (that is, from within the Organization Administration Console) can also be added to the RegisteredCustomers group through the member group UI. The organization that owns the store also owns the RegisteredCustomers group.

For example, if Store A is created under Seller organization A and Buyer organization 1 and Buyer organization 2 are registered with Store A, then a Registered Customer member group (RegisteredCustomers) group will be owned by Seller organization A. A Seller Administrator of Seller organization A can perform most functions as if they were assigned the Seller Administrator role for Buyer organization 1 and Buyer organization 2. The administrator can also access the users belonging to Buyer organization 1 and Buyer organization 2.

In the following diagram, a user assigned to a role that makes use of the Registered Customer member group (Seller Administrator, Customer Service Representative, or Customer Service Supervisor) can access Buyer organization 2 and Buyer organization 3. The administrator can also access the users that belong to those two buyer organizations. Using the Organization Administration Console, a user assigned to the Customer Service Supervisor or Customer Service Representative role can only access the organizations and users in Buyer organization 2 and Buyer organization 3.

Notes:

1. Registered customer groups can comprise organizations only.

2. Registered customer groups can be administered by Site Administrators only.

3. Access authority to manage buyer organization data is accomplished by means of access control policies that grant Seller Administrator rights within the buyer organization of that store to all Seller Administrators in the store's owning organization. These access control policies are created by default when WebSphere Commerce is installed.

• Changing a member group
  Use the Organization Administration Console to change the details of a member group, such as the name, description, and criteria upon which the group was created.

• Listing member groups
  Use the Organization Administration Console to view the list of member groups for the site.