Using WebShop's gated login

Purpose and scope

WebShop’s gated login feature allows you to restrict access WebShop’s functionality. It means that your customers must have an account with you and log into that account to use the functionality on your eCommerce site. While the gated login feature is mandatory for our B2B portal (also known as the Customer Portal), it is optional for use on WebShop.

Our B2B portal is a secure customer self-service website that allows your customers to order, check stock and manage their account with you. WebShop is an integrated B2B or B2C web portal that provides real time access to product, price and stock levels. Both WebShop and the B2B portal has access to the Management Interface to allow customers customize their websites. While WebShop has a public facing product catalogue and website, the B2B portal has neither. Customers of the B2B portal must have an account and login to access MyAccount, content management system (CMS) and ordering functionality.

The gated login feature has been extended so that it is possible to add pages via the CMS in Management Interface and make them visible to the public, without a need for an account. This extension means that you can now add search engine optimizations' (SEO ) to each page, allowing them to be found when searched for via a search engine. Using toggles in Management Interface, you can share pages on a page by page level.

This feature guide explains how to:

• Switch on the gated login feature

• Create public pages on gated websites

Benefits

Key benefits of using the gated login for your eCommerce site are:

• Establishing and building up a close relationship with your customers; you know who all your customers are and what they order regularly

• Maintaining a competitive edge by not sharing your product pricing and stock levels publicly

Using the extension to the gated login feature allows you to create and share pages with the public with them requiring to have an account with you. This may improve your SEO score and highlight your business more.

Introducing terms and concepts used in this article

Switch on the gated login feature

The gated login feature is automatically switched on for B2B portal.

You can select to switch the gated login feature on during your WebShop build. Whether to have it on or off is dependent on your business processes.

Our consultants can talk you through the options and the pros and cons of having the gated login feature switched on.

Create public pages on gated websites

Step 1: Log into Management Interface

Log in

Log into Management Interface using your username and password. This opens the dashboard of your Management Interface.

Step 2: Open pages

Open

Click Pages. This opens the Content Management System.

Step 3: Make your pages public

Set

1. Select the Status tab.

2. The “Visible for guest users“ option allows you set the page public or private.

   1. To set the page public, click Yes.

   2. To set the page private, click No.

3. Set or verify that the page status is set to Published. This makes the page public, and it can be returned in a search results from a search engine. A simplified page layout is created and displayed.

Key points

1. The option to make a page visible is ONLY available if the gated login feature is switched on.

2. Each page has its own option to be public or private. This means that should there be links in a public page, each link is treated as per its own settings. This means that:

   • if a public page links to another public page, then the page is displayed.

   • if a public page links to a private page, then the login screen is displayed, and the person must login to see that page’s contents.

3. Any SEO metadata that you set for the public page are also displayed as part of search results.