The final section of the administrative area we’ll look at is user management. This is where you can create user groups, edit user and customer accounts, set up user permissions, send emails to customers and much more.
 

User Settings

 
When you first set up your store, you’ll want to take some time to review the User Settings and decide how you want your store to work. Most of these settings can cause problems for your customers if they are changed on a live store, so it’s best to set them before you make your store live. The settings are broken into different sections according to the type of user function they affect.
 
Login Settings
 

1. Strict Logins – This ensures that only one user logs into an account at one time. If someone else logs in on that account, the previous user will get logged out. This is useful on membership sites to prevent sharing of accounts, but typically would be left off. Please note that this option uses some undocumented ColdFusion functions that may not work on all servers, so be sure to test after enabling it.
2. Max Daily Logins – This sets a maximum number of times a user can log in per day. Also useful to prevent sharing of accounts. By default, user ‘admin’ is excluded from this check.
3. Max Failed Logins – This will lock an account if there are too many failed attempts to login. The account will reset after an hour. This helps prevent hack attempts. The admin can manually reset an account for any legitimate users that get locked out.

 
Address Settings
 

1. Use State List – Displays the list of states and provinces on customer address forms. You can disable this for stores outside the US and Canada.
2. Use State Box – Displays a text box for the user to enter their state (region/county/etc.) Disable if your store sells to customers that do not need to enter a state (US only for instance).
3. Require County – If you enter counties in the tax codes section, this will make a customer in a state with counties entered required to select one from the list. You would enable this only if you have all the counties for a state entered. Counties you don’t collect tax for would have a tax rate of 0% entered.
4. Use Country List – Shows the list of countries. Disable this if you wish to sell only within your home country.
5.  Allow Shipping Address – Displays the shipping address entry form that allows for a different shipping address, otherwise the billing address and shipping address will always be the same.
6. Use Residential Box – Displays a checkbox to set if addresses are residential, useful for more accurate API shipping rates (UPS, FedEx, Intershipper). If turned off, default is for all addresses set as residential.

 
Login Accounts
 

1. Use Email as Username – As it says, this will use the customer’s email as their username, rather than making them create a different username. Some people prefer a shorter username, while some feel emails are easiest to remember. Please note that changing this on a live store will not change accounts that have already been created, so the customer may be confused when asked to enter their email for the username.
2. Use Group Code – This will display a textbox on account registration forms for the user to enter a group code to automatically assign themselves to a user group. The group code is defined on the Group Edit form.
3. Use Birthdate – Displays a birthdate field on the registration form. This might be used if you are selling products or services that require the user to be a certain age.
4. User Credit Cards – This will give the user a form for entering their credit card to keep on file. This is generally only used if you are using memberships and wish to enable the recurring billing features. Currently this feature is only supported on Shift4 using tokens which allows for recharging the credit card, without actually storing sensitive card data details.
5. Subscribe Box – This turns on the box on registration pages that allows the user to subscribe to your mailing list. You can disable this if you do not wish to use a mailing list.
6. Email Confirmations – Sends the user an email confirmation with a link to activate their account. Ensures that the email address for the account is valid.
7. Member Notifications – Sends an email to the administrator when a new login account is created.

1. Affiliate Signups – This setting will turn on the link in the Account area for customers of your site to make themselves affiliates. The percentage you enter will be the percentage they will receive, of the order total. This can be edited in the User area. If affiliate signups are turned off, you can still manually create affiliates in the User administration. 60 day cookie with affiliate id. When a customer follows an affiliate link from another website, a cookie will be recorded in the customer’s browser for 60 days. If the customer returns to the website within that time and purchases, the affiliate will be credited with the purchase.

 
 
Business Accounts

1. Require Accounts – This setting requires all users to create a business account. This might be used for instance, if your store is only intended to be used by wholesalers. 
2. Account Signups – This setting will turn on the link in the Account area for customers to sign up as wholesalers. You can also create business accounts manually in the admin area.
3. Show Accounts – This will display the business account information on the My Account page, with the ability to edit as well. In some cases, particularly if you are managing the accounts manually, you may want this turned off.
4. Show Directory – This will allow users to view the information and edit it for the Store Directory page.
5. Account Notifications – Sends an email to the administrator when a business account is created. Generally used if you have enabled Wholesale Signups in the Main Settings.
6. Use Terms - Adds the terms and conditions in the registration form that the user must agree to. You might wish to use this, for instance, if you are selling subscriptions to content and need to be certain the user understands conditions of use.
7. Terms Text – If Use Terms is activated, enter the text here that you wish to display for the terms and conditions.

 
 
Click Save Changes to update your User Settings.