Automated Account approval

Is there a way to automate the account approval process securely so that I dont have to approve every account? I've gotten some complaints from customers because they have to wait on me to be authorised to make a purchase. I want to do it securely so that someone cant just come in create a bogus account and then download all my products for free. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
David

How would you automate an account authorization and yet still use the Customer Authorization ... :unsure:

This is designed for Customer Authorization via the Admin and not to allow immediate creation of the account and immediate checkout ...

If you want it so that the account can be created and the customer can immediately checkout, then perhaps you don't want to use the Customer Authorization at all ...

What is your definition of "Automate the account securely"?

My definition of creat account securely is where the customer is an actual person not a "bot" or "spider". I think I've determined a way to add "CAPTCHA" to the account creation process but I'm still a little fuzzy as to how to get it working. I've downloaded a module I found here on the zencart site. I think it will do what I had been basically asking. I just wanted a way so that customers could create their account, be validated that they are actually a person and not some computer trying to hack into the store, and make their purchases without me having to interfere and authorize each step of the process manually.

David

That would be the most expedient method to use ...

Let us know how that works out for you ... :smile:

Hi there,

I'm just starting out with ZenCart (version 1.3.8a), total n00b I'm afraid, and I would also like automatic approval functionality. The reason is because I'm looking to use the cart as an instant quote generating tool. The process I'm hoping to generate is this:

*The customer chooses the services they need and adds them to the shopping cart. No prices are displayed.
*When the customer is satisfied that their information is complete, they go to check-out
*They are then asked to provide a name, phone number, email (at least)
*At this point, they receive a summary of their "shopping cart" with prices, both on-screen and via email. That same email also comes to the administrator (that's me) for further action.

Can anyone tell me how I might tweak my customer approval and other customer settings so as to achieve this result?

Thanks in advance!

Helen Thomson

The standard encart operation will do that, other than 'no prices are displayed'. Removing all references to price can be done. I did it a few years ago, but no longer have the files I edited. As I recall, the emails were the hard part.

Anyway, other than that, just activate only the Check/Money Order payment module and change the name and text to reflect your 'Send for Quote'.

You may have to set all your products to Virtual to bypass the shipping checkout page.

Hi Ajeh, I see you are experienced with Zen. Well, I vould like to ask you to help me with that. I need every customer to be NON authorized as default status in creating new account(now, everyone is authorized). But I need in Config-Customers-Auth. status = 0 (not 1-2-3), just 0.
Would you be so kind to think about? I can do some changes to code(but I am beginner). Thank you very much for any ideas.

Please see your other thread:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=810845#post810845

Removing all references to price can be done. I did it a few years ago, but no longer have the files I edited. As I recall, the emails were the hard part.

Any tips? At this point, I don't even know where to go to look at where the prices ARE, in order to edit them out. Might there be some way I can edit the template, perhaps, so that they're there, but the same colour as the background, that kind of cheat?? (Hm, this is going nicely off topic!!)

Anyway, other than that, just activate only the Check/Money Order payment module and change the name and text to reflect your 'Send for Quote'.

Thanks, that's a good tip, would have been asking about that next. Again, however, while in principle I'm not scared of editing code, I do need some help with knowing where and how to hack.

You may have to set all your products to Virtual to bypass the shipping checkout page.

That seems a good assumption, yes. THanks for your help (and any other help you or others can give!)

As I recall, I just noted the pages where the pricing info appeared, found the files which created them and started flailing away. Fiddling with other people's code is the extent of my programming ability, but searching the relevant files for 'price' and (I think) 'cost' got me where I wanted to go.

Thanks, stevesh, I'll give it a burl. Watch this space!!