WebSphere Commerce user roles
- Account Representative
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Account Representatives work with individual accounts to build relationships, and manage customer service issues. They may be authorized to change contract pricing, negotiate contracts, profiles, and analyze profitability by account category.
Business model(s)
- B2B direct
- Business intelligence analyst
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The Business intelligence analyst is familiar with data warehousing and data analysis.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Buyer (buy-side)
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The Buyer (buy-side) purchases items from the seller on behalf of some customer account. Usually purchases are made under one or more agreements negotiated with the seller. The buyer interacts with the seller's web site to make purchases.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Buyer (sell-side)
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The Buyer buys merchandise for sale. The buyer handles relations with vendors or suppliers and negotiates to obtain the desired product with favorable terms for such things as delivery and payment options. The Buyer may set prices. Inventory is managed by the buyer in order to determine the quantities to buy and ensure that stock is properly replenished.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Buyer approver
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The Buyer approver approves orders made by the Buyer (buy-side) before the order is submitted for purchase with the Seller.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Category Manager
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The Category Manager manages the financial success of a category of products. The Category Manager also manages the category hierarchy by creating, modifying, and deleting categories. The category hierarchy organizes products or services offered by the store. The Category Manager manages products, expected inventory records, vendor information, inventory, and return reasons.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Demand chain
- Hosting
- Supply chain
- Channel Manager
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The Channel Manager manages the channel store, as well as the maintenance of the relationship between distributors and resellers, including creating and importing distributor and reseller contracts. The Channel Manager is also responsible for acquiring and retaining more resellers and distributors for the marketplace.
Business model(s)
- Demand chain
- Hosting
- Supply chain
- Customer
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If the user is a customer, the user can be either registered or non-registered. A registered customer has a registration type of R to indicate that the user plays the Registered Customer role within WebSphere Commerce. A registered customer has a unique identifier or logon ID, a password, and is required to provide some profile data for registration purposes. Approval may also be required for user registration, and a registered user can be in pending approval, approved, or rejected state. By default, a rejected user needs to be registered again, and a pending approval user is not authorized to log onto the system. Registered customers can be classified according to their profile type; that is, profile type B denotes a business user (or a business direct or indirect customer) and profile type of C denotes a retail user (or a consumer direct customer). It is recommended that business users belong to their appropriate organizational entity in the membership hierarchy instead of the Default Organization. This means that, when a business user registers the organizational entity that the user belongs to should be specified, otherwise WebSphere Commerce will default to using the Default Organization. WebSphere Commerce commands can create a registered user, and update profile information. By default, if you have been assigned the Site Administrator, Buyer Administrator, or Seller Administrator role, you can register an organizational entity and update its profile data.
A non-registered user has the registration type of G to indicate that the user does not play a role within WebSphere Commerce. A non-registered user only has limited privileges within the site, does not possess a unique identifier, logon ID, or password, and does not have to provide profile data. Often, a customer who is not registered is referred to as a guest user. It is also possible that the design of the site requires a guest user to become a registered user before certain tasks can be performed. For example, a guest customer at a store may be able to browse the catalog, but must register before the user can place an order with the store. Moreover, a user may initially perform actions as a guest user, and as a result, certain resources are associated with the user. Subsequently, if the user registers or logs on as a business user, resources that are associated with the user when the user was a guest are by default transferred to the new identity as a business user. If those resources contradict what the user should do in the capacity of a business user, the site needs to be implemented such that any contradiction will be detected later on by other business processes. For example, a user may visit a site as a guest and place certain items into their shopping cart. Subsequently, the user may log on or register as a business user. The items added to the shopping cart while the user was a guest still belong to the user. If those items violate any business policy of his organization or those items are actually personal items that the user pays for personally, it is the responsibility of subsequent business processes to detect the situation and take appropriate actions (for instance, an order approval process may be in place to ensure all the items a business user purchase are for business use).
- Customer Service Representative
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No matter how well an online business is designed to provide a customer with self-service features, there will be some types of customers or some occasions when even the most web-literate customer will require personal contact. Most on-line businesses provide an e-mail, fax or contact number for the customer to obtain direct service. It is the responsibility of the customer service representative to handle all inquiries from the customer.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Customer Service Supervisor
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This role has access to all customer service tasks. The Customer Service Supervisor manages customer inquiries (such as customer registration, orders, returns, and auctions) and has authority to complete tasks that cannot be accessed by a Customer Service Representative, such as approving system-denied returns records, and contacting customers regarding payment exceptions (such as credit card authorization failures).
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Distributor
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A distributor is a supplier of products to resellers.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Logistics Manager
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The Logistics Manager, sometimes called the Shipping Manager, manages and negotiates bulk freight/shipping from carriers to warehouse, and to individual customers.
Business model(s)
- B2B direct
- Supply chain
- Marketing Manager
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The Marketing Manager communicates the market strategy and brand messages to the customers. This role monitors, analyzes, and understands customer behavior. In addition, the Marketing Manager creates or modifies customer profiles for targeted selling, and creates and manages campaigns and promotions. The Marketing Manager handles e-mail campaign capability and campaign initiatives including suggestive selling and awareness advertising. Campaign event planning can be handled by a team comprising the Seller, Marketing Manager, and merchandising and product development. Either the Marketing Manager or merchandising and product development, project the sales for a promotional event and analyze its effectiveness.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Demand chain
- Hosting
- Supply chain
- Merchant
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A merchant may set up one or more stores on the ISPs site. The merchant creates the store by using the tools provided by the ISP. The merchant manages all aspects of the store including, catalog administration, user administration, campaign management, and order management.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Operations Manager
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This role manages order processing, ensuring that orders are properly fulfilled, payment is received, and orders are shipped. The Operations Manager can search for customer orders, view details, manage order information, and create and edit returns. For the reseller and hosting models, this role is responsible for customer service, and oversees customer service in the other models.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- Demand chain
- Hosting
- Payment administrator
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The Payment administrator manages payments related to orders. This can be to handle exceptions in the processing of payments or the management of payment accounts with payment
processors.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Pick Packer
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The Pick Packer picks products from fulfillment centers and packs the products for shipping to customers. The Pick Packer also manages pick tickets and packing slips which are used to confirm shipment of products during order fulfillment.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Product Manager
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The Product Manager or merchandising manager traces customer purchases, suggests discounts, and determines the best way to display, price, and sell products in the online store.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Receiver
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The Receiver receives inventory at the fulfillment center, tracks expected inventory records and ad hoc receipts for ordered products, and receives returned products as a result of customer returns. .
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Registered Customer
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If the user is a customer, the user can be either registered or non-registered. A registered customer has a registration type of R to indicate that the user plays the Registered Customer role within WebSphere Commerce. A registered customer has a unique identifier or logon ID, a password, and is required to provide some profile data for registration purposes. Approval may also be required for user registration, and a registered user can be in pending approval, approved, or rejected state. By default, a rejected user needs to be registered again, and a pending approval user is not authorized to log onto the system. Registered customers can be classified according to their profile type; that is, profile type B denotes a business user (or a business direct or indirect customer) and profile type of C denotes a retail user (or a consumer direct customer). It is recommended that business users belong to their appropriate organizational entity in the membership hierarchy instead of the Default Organization. This means that, when a business user registers the organizational entity that the user belongs to should be specified, otherwise WebSphere Commerce will default to using the Default Organization. WebSphere Commerce commands can create a registered user, and update profile information. By default, if you have been assigned the Site Administrator, Buyer Administrator, or Seller Administrator role, you can register an organizational entity and update its profile data.
A non-registered user has the registration type of G to indicate that the user does not play a role within WebSphere Commerce. A non-registered user only has limited privileges within the site, does not possess a unique identifier, logon ID, or password, and does not have to provide profile data. Often, a customer who is not registered is referred to as a guest user. It is also possible that the design of the site requires a guest user to become a registered user before certain tasks can be performed. For example, a guest customer at a store may be able to browse the catalog, but must register before the user can place an order with the store. Moreover, a user may initially perform actions as a guest user, and as a result, certain resources are associated with the user. Subsequently, if the user registers or logs on as a business user, resources that are associated with the user when the user was a guest are by default transferred to the new identity as a business user. If those resources contradict what the user should do in the capacity of a business user, the site needs to be implemented such that any contradiction will be detected later on by other business processes. For example, a user may visit a site as a guest and place certain items into their shopping cart. Subsequently, the user may log on or register as a business user. The items added to the shopping cart while the user was a guest still belong to the user. If those items violate any business policy of his organization or those items are actually personal items that the user pays for personally, it is the responsibility of subsequent business processes to detect the situation and take appropriate actions (for instance, an order approval process may be in place to ensure all the items a business user purchase are for business use).
- Reseller
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A reseller uses the demand chain hub to create shopping carts; and to obtain real-time quotes, for specified quantities of an item, from specified distributors. The reseller uses the quote to determine from which distributors to source. The reseller can transfer these selections to the distributors' Web sites. Resellers can transfer either a well formed order to distributors site or the contents of the shopping cart.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Returns Administrator
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The Returns Administrator manages the disposition of returned products.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Sales Manager
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Sales Managers acquire and retain customers, meet sales forecasts, provide incentives for increased customer business, handle contract management, set pricing terms, and work with the product management team to establish inventory forecasts, and with the Marketing Manager for promotions. They also manage across accounts, assign accounts to, and approve contracts of Account Representatives.
Business model(s)
- B2B direct
- Supply chain
- Seller
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The Seller supervises the overall store objectives and management, in addition to tracking store sales. The Seller is also responsible for store wide functions such as defining shipping charges, and opening and closing the store. The Seller role is equivalent to a merchant in the consumer direct model, a manufacturer in the B2B direct model, and a distributor or other owner in the Reseller Hub. The Seller has access to all WebSphere Commerce Accelerator capabilities.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Demand chain
- Hosting
- Supply chain
- Shipping clerk
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The shipping clerk handles shipment of products. This involves the transfer of product shipments to a carrier during order fulfillment. It also involves shipment confirmation.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- Site Administrator
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The Site Administrator installs, configures, and maintains WebSphere Commerce and the associated software and hardware. The Administrator responds to system warnings, alerts, and errors, and diagnoses and resolves system problems. This role typically controls access and authorization (creating and assigning members to the appropriate role), manages the Web site, monitors performance, and manages load balancing tasks. The Site Administrator may also be responsible for establishing and maintaining several server configurations for different stages of development such as testing, staging, and production. This role also handles critical system backups and resolves performance problems.
Business model(s)
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Demand chain
- Hosting
- Supply chain
- Supplier
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A supplier can start selling goods and services in the supplier hub by creating a supplier hosted store. The supplier creates the store by using the tools provided by the supplier hub. The supplier manages all aspects of the store including catalog administration, user administration, campaign management, and order management.
Note: This role does not have access to the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator application.
- System
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The WebSphere Commerce system.
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