Access rights for Commerce Connect

10 min

Note

You need administrative access rights in Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) to manage users and access rights. This topic refers to a default implementation of Optimizely Commerce Connect. Your website may be configured differently and have customized user and user group management.

You can manage access rights for user roles such as administrators, marketers, and merchandisers working in Commerce Connect. When you create a user, you assign appropriate access to work with CMS, catalog content, Commerce Manager, or all parts.

For easier and safer maintenance, you should base access rights on groups rather than individual users. Then, provide access rights to users by adding them to appropriate groups. See Users and user groups.

Note

Be aware that both contacts (visitors registering on your public site or manually created in Commerce Manager) and system users created from the CMS admin page are visible in the same listing on CMS admin page and Commerce Manager. By default, contacts belong to the Everyone and Registered groups.

Group access rights

In addition to the default groups described in Access rights for CMS users without Opti-ID, Commerce Connect has its own groups that you use to assign access rights for Commerce Connect functions.

You must manually create the CommerceAdmins, CommerceSettingsAdmins, and CatalogManagers groups before adding users to them. To do this, go to CMS > Admin > Access Rights > Administer Groups.

Built-in user group access

The following groups are built-in user groups that are created when Optimizely CMS is installed and control access to Commerce Connect.

Administrators – Access to all parts of the system, including Administration in Commerce Connect Manager. Usually restricted to developers for implementation and maintenance.

CmsAdmins – Access to all editing and administration views in Optimizely CMS and Optimizely Commerce Connect. All parts of Commerce Manager except Administration. Usually restricted to very few users.

CmsEditors – Can edit Commerce Connect content. Required for all users (if not members of CmsAdmins or Administrators). Catalog editors need additional editing access rights in the catalog page tree (see Control access to catalogs and categories).

Everyone – Derived from Windows, provides “anonymous” visitors with read access to content. All unregistered visitors to a public website are anonymous, meaning that the system cannot identify them.

User interface access

The following groups control access to user interface areas in Commerce Connect:

CommerceAdmins – Access to all parts of Commerce Manager except Administration and CMS admin page.

CatalogManagers – Access to the Catalog user interface.

MarketingManagers – Access to the Marketing user interface.

CommerceSettingsAdmins – Access to Commerce Connect Settings tab, which lets you edit dictionary property values for Commerce Connect content.

Virtual roles in modern Commerce Connect implementations

In ASP.NET Core-based implementations, Optimizely Commerce Connect uses virtual roles to control access. These roles are defined in the appsettings.json file and used in addition to traditional CMS groups, like WebAdmins and WebEditors.

Common Commerce Connect virtual roles include:

BusinessFoundations – Access to the Business Foundations interface.

CatalogIndexing – Access to the Catalog Indexing page.

CatalogManagers – Access to the Catalogs user interface.

CommerceAdmins – Access to all parts of Commerce Connect except the Administration and CMS admin page.

Countries – Access to the Countries page.

CustomerManagers – Access to the Customer interface.

CustomerServiceRepresentatives – Access to the Order management page.

Dashboard – Access to the Dashboard page.

Dictionaries – Access to the Dictionaries page.

MarketingManagers – Access to the Marketing user interface.

Markets – Access to the Market page.

PaymentMethods – Access to the Payments page.

ReportManagers – Access to the Report page.

ShippingMethods – Access to the Shipping interface.

Taxes – Access to the Taxes interface.

Warehouses – Access to the Warehouse page.

To restrict CMS editing for a virtual role (such as MarketingManagers), go to Admin > Set Access Rights and assign only Read permissions where appropriate.

Order management access

The following groups control access to order management functions in Commerce Connect:

Order Supervisor – Access to all order management procedures.

Order Managers – Access to the following:

Creating returns and exchanges.

Viewing and editing orders.

Sending notifications.

Processing payments and split shipments.

Receiving Manager – Access to viewing shipments and receiving returns.

Shipping Manager – Access to viewing, packing, and completing shipments.

Use Permissions for Functions to determine refined access rights to Commerce Manager functions for any standard group, custom group, or individual user. See Customize group access to functions.

Catalogs and categories access

Members of user groups have default access rights to catalog content, as described in Groups and access rights. You can override these settings and grant predefined groups and users access to individual catalogs and categories. You can also create custom groups and then assign to their members the ability to perform various tasks on products in any category or catalog.

For example, a SiteEditors group has change permission for the entire catalog structure, while members of the CommerceAdmins group only have change permission for the Fashion catalog, and AutomotiveEditors group members only have change permission for the Automotive catalog.

Note

You cannot set access rights for individual products. Products inherit permissions from their direct parents (but not "linked" parents).

Access rights set in the Catalog do not carry over to Commerce Manager (CM). So, users with CM access can still edit entries there despite the catalog settings. You can restrict access to CM through Customizing group access to functions. However, most users who edit catalogs cannot access CM.

To control access to catalogs or categories, follow these steps.

Note

Prerequisite: To work with the catalog and categories, users must belong to the CmsEditors and CatalogManagers user groups.

Set up user groups that will have edit access to specific catalogs. See Users and user groups.

In the Catalog, go to the catalog or category for which you want to grant access to groups or users.

Go to All properties view.

Image: Assign groups to catalogs/categories

Next to Visible to, click Manage. The Set Access Rights screen appears.

Image: Manage visibility

Uncheck Inherit settings from parent item.

Click Add Users/Groups if you do not see a group or user for which you want to assign access rights.

Assign groups and users to appropriate actions for the catalog or category.

The image below illustrates an editor’s ability to edit the Mens Shoe category but no other categories under the parent.

Image: blocked content

Function access

You can customize which groups and users can perform Commerce Connect functions beyond the levels listed in Groups and access rights. For example, you can grant the Receiving Manager group the ability to lets you refund credits, even though that group cannot access that function by default. Or, you can remove from the Order Managers group the ability to add, edit, or delete payments for orders.

Note

Permissions for Functions are only applied in Commerce Manager, not in the Catalog user interface.

Go to CMS admin page > Settings > Permissions for Functions.

Select a function.

Add or remove users or groups as desired.

Example: Create a user with access rights

In this example, you create a user who enriches product information and landing pages in Optimizely CMS, catalog content in Commerce Connect, and all parts of Commerce Manager.

Go to CMS Admin > Settings > Administer Users.

Click Create User.

Enter the username, email, and password information.

Select Active.

Select Add group to add the user to the desired groups, such as Order Managers and Shipping Managers.

Click Create User.