Complex User Setup
How Do I?
Hi, I am an experienced web developer, yet new to ExpressionEngine. I have just started a new job and we are in the middle of a large new web application project. I will have various questions in the near future, I presume. Here the first one:
Our B2B application requires a user setup which goes beyond simple permissions.
Different user types will require different profile fields, i.e. an internal user can have standard fields, but a B2B client will required different custom fields. My initial investigation shows that I can create custom fields, but not actually assign them to individual member groups.
Our B2B clients require ‘sub users’. This means a company will have an account (Company AB, Member Group: Clients) and various user accounts associated to that company account (Company AB Manager, Company AB Consultant, etc., Member Group: Client Users). Again, as far as I can see, the Members module cannot achieve relation between accounts beyond member groups.
So, I am looking at some pointing in the best practice direction for a solution like this: can it be achieved out of the box with EE or are there any add-ons which will provide this functionality. Or will we have to custom develop a solution for this? If so, what would the best approach be?
Thank you for any help.
Adrian
Hi Adrian, it does sound like a complex one.
- You’re correct- with the native custom member fields, they are not member group specific. What I can imagine doing- you have one set of custom member fields- ALL of the fields you need go into it.
If they only access this on the frontend, I would expect it wouldn’t be difficult to use conditionals to show/hide the fields based on member group.
- Our B2B clients require ‘sub users’.
You’re correct again- natively that isn’t a feature and off the bat I’m not aware of an add-on that would do it. User is available for v3 and would make creating customized forms easier. But I’m not sure it could get you to ‘sub users’.
What exactly do you need to do as far as the sub-users go? That would give us a hint at how you might tackle it.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for your reply.
The User - Sub User relationship is that of a Company - Employee. Our customers are mainly companies, so the company would be the ‘main account’. The manager of that account, needs to create employee accounts which are associated with the company. The sub account needs to have the primary settings of the company account (same permissions and views of prices, etc.) with the exception of not being able to edit the main account and create/edit users.
I hope this makes sense.
Adrian