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  1. #1
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    Default Custom user levels possible??

    Hi everyone,

    I'm possibly taking on my 4th Zencart project in as many months but this particular woman needs something a little different than just a standard shopping cart solution. The following is a rough description of what is possibly needed...

    Instead of individuals coming to the site and creating an individual account where they go on to shop with their credit card or paypal, etc I'm thinking that people become members of this supply company and have their user access and member type or 'entity level' set by an administrator and each individual entity level has it's own rules that apply to it.

    For instance say 'Community Care Center' signs up for an account. An administative worker then creates their account for them and associates that individual account with 'entity level 100'. Rules for 'entity level 100' are somehow already set to allow every account under this entity level to have access to more items than say someone under 'entity level 200'. Now 'entity level 200' will have it's own unique quality as well and so on. This is a glib description but I'm still in the dark to all the details. I don't see a need for many levels but you get the point.

    I'm kinda thinking I could use attributes to set the 'rules' somehow if I'm creative? Like if varying user levels are possible, then applying specific attributes to the different user levels?

    Also, instead of a 'complete sale' being made for each purchase, the sales for each account will accumulate and the purchasers will be billed monthly, quarterly, etc. I'm not sure if an invoice will be issued or if the businesses have credit accounts that will be billed yet.

    Each 'entity' would be able to log in and simply check stock levels on the items they are allowed to purchase as well.

    Off the top of my head, Joomla sounds like it would be good for the user access but they want to sell product and evidently quite a bit of product so obviously I'd rather use Zencart if possible.

    I just wanted to get some feedback before I ask her more detailed questions.

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Custom user levels possible??

    A few thoughts...

    The hideCategories mod may possibly work to allow your groups access to different categories.

    You can create "discount groups" in admin and assign customers to them; perhaps this could be modified to include product access as well.

    There is a "customers must be authorized to browse" setting in admin, which might be adaptable to different customer groups being allowed to browse different categories. This would probably require major coding and database work.

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Custom user levels possible??

    Might look at http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=391

    There might be others that you could modify/extend to suit your purpose

    Above possibly what gjh42 referred to
    Zen-Venom Get Bitten

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Custom user levels possible??

    If you are willing to roll your sleeves up and do some coding then this is one of those fun jobs where some small tweaks can have a fairly large impact. In outline here's how I'd do this ...

    1) I'd add a field, "level", to the products table and then edit the collect_info, preview_info and update_product scripts in admin to be able to maintain it.

    2) Then I'd add a field, "level" to the customers table. and edit the customer script in admin to be able to maintain that for each customer.

    3) Finally, I'd find all the database queries for listings (i.e. all products, new products, featured products, specials, index and search results) and listing boxes (new products, featured products, specials and upcoming products) and add an extra filter to suppress products which have a higher level that that allocated to the customer (I would ensure that customers not logged in would be treated as having a level of zero).

    None of this is particularly difficult, though would require some basic PHP, MySQL and understanding of how Zen Cart pages are constructed.

    The periodic charging could be handled simply and independently of the product restrictions by installing the invoice add-in module.
    Kuroi Web Design and Development | Twitter

    (Questions answered in the forum only - so that any forum member can benefit - not by personal message)

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Custom user levels possible??

    Thank you all for responding. All three of you pretty much come to the same conclusion that there will need to be database coding and that stops me in my tracks.

    I wouldn't mind signifigant PHP changes since this job is going to pay well but when I see 'database changes' I picture a gun in my mouth in the future.

    It seems like there are some good add-ons like the one suggested by kobra and gjh42 that get me 'almost there' in a sense but not quite. I'm going to install both on a test site and experiment but the user levels is what I really think I need and that seems to be a little out of reach?

    (BTW... this woman is the hottest 40 something babe I've ever seen. I almost walked into the wall just looking at her.)

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Custom user levels possible??

    Quote Originally Posted by kuroi View Post
    If you are willing to roll your sleeves up and do some coding then this is one of those fun jobs where some small tweaks can have a fairly large impact. In outline here's how I'd do this ...

    1) I'd add a field, "level", to the products table and then edit the collect_info, preview_info and update_product scripts in admin to be able to maintain it.

    2) Then I'd add a field, "level" to the customers table. and edit the customer script in admin to be able to maintain that for each customer.

    3) Finally, I'd find all the database queries for listings (i.e. all products, new products, featured products, specials, index and search results) and listing boxes (new products, featured products, specials and upcoming products) and add an extra filter to suppress products which have a higher level that that allocated to the customer (I would ensure that customers not logged in would be treated as having a level of zero).

    None of this is particularly difficult, though would require some basic PHP, MySQL and understanding of how Zen Cart pages are constructed.

    The periodic charging could be handled simply and independently of the product restrictions by installing the invoice add-in module.

    I'm willing to donate if you want to create this for us! (Please?!)

  7. #7
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Custom user levels possible??

    Did this get anywhere?

    Because I do not want to reinvent the wheel.

    I am looking into adding customer groups. But would like some feed back before I start.
    1) I'd add a field, "level", to the products table and then edit the collect_info, preview_info and update_product scripts in admin to be able to maintain it.
    Here we would use a the (Customer Group list values) drop down to chose the group this product belongs to.
    Do we need product groups to have '>=' '<=' or '==' options.

    2) Then I'd add a field, "level" to the customers table. and edit the customer script in admin to be able to maintain that for each customer.
    Duplicate Group Pricing drop down in customer record to Customer Group.

    2a) Duplicate Group Pricing list to Customer Group list (display text store #)


    3) Finally, I'd find all the database queries for listings (i.e. all products, new products, featured products, specials, index and search results) and listing boxes (new products, featured products, specials and upcoming products) and add an extra filter to suppress products which have a higher level that that allocated to the customer (I would ensure that customers not logged in would be treated as having a level of zero).
    Would the rule be the higher the group # the more the group could access?

    Or do I just link a customer to product IDs and use no customer groups.
    • 446F63746F722057686F •

 

 

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