Symptoms
In some cases it is required that customer provides specific information while subscribing to services, this information may be used by PBA during services provisioning.
E.g. EPAG registrar requires that customer provides personal identity card (ID Card) number for persons and Registration number and VAT number for companies. Taking this into account PBA must be able to ask customer to provide this information in the Online Store, this information in turn will be sent to EPAG by PBA domain registration plug-in EPNIC.
Provider or reseller also may have need to ask customers to provide specific information when they purchase services in the Online Store.
PBA should be configured in a way that this additional information is requested on the stage of account registration in the Online Store by means of adding specific customer attributes.
Customer attributes may be also used in notifications, read the article 6665 to see how customer attributes may be used in notification templates.
Resolution
Use the procedure below to add customer attributes in PBA.
Log in PBA Provider Control Panel and open the Configuration Director > Sales & Financial Settings > Customer Attributes (PBA-E 5.4 and earlier) or System > Settings > Attributes (PBA-E 5.5 and later) submenu of the Navigation tree. The list of currently available customer attributes (if any) appears on the screen.
Click the button 'Add New Attribute'. The adding new customer attribute dialog window is displayed. Fill out the form:
Enter the unique identifier of the attribute into the field 'ID'.
Type a customer attribute name into the field 'Name'.
Enter a short description of the attribute into the field 'Description'.
Select the attribute's data type from the drop-down list 'Value Type'. When an attribute is attached to a customer account, its value is validated to be of the specified data type. The following types are available:
INT - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter integer value.
STR - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter text up to 80 characters. Input box is displayed as single line.
STRA - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter text over 80 characters. Input box is displayed as text box.
DATE - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter date. Calendar icon is displayed next to input box.
PASSWD - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter password.
NAME_LOGIN - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter login name.
DOMAIN_NAME - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter domain name.
- IPADDR - attribute of this type prompts customer to enter IP address.
Customer attributes can be grouped in one frame on the checkout screen. Type the group name into the field 'Group'. The field displays the frame title. Attributes with same group name are displayed in one frame.
Define whether the attribute is to be mandatory or not by selecting respective option from the group 'Status'.
Select a parameter that the attribute will follow in the adding new customer dialog from the list 'After Field'.
Select the attribute visibility by clicking one of the option buttons from the group 'Applicable to':
- 'Available for Accounts' - the attribute is shown on customer registration form only.
- 'Available for Users' - the attribute is shown on users registration form only.
Select whether the attribute value will be translated in accordance with customer account language. Check the 'Locale Dependent' if yes, clear this box if no. For example, the attribute placeholder is used in notification template and customer language differs from provider's one. In this case, customer gets notification on the language specified in his account and the placeholder will be replaced with respective value retrieved from customer language locale.
The attribute may stay configured, but not used. Select, whether the attribute will be used by checking (if used) or clearing (if not used) the check box 'Active'.
Enter the attribute sorting number into the field 'Sort Number'. Attributes with lower numbers are shown closer to the top of attributes list (if there are several attributes in a list).
- Select whether to display the attribute in the Online Store or only on creating account from control panel by selecting or clearing the box 'Show in Storefront' respectively.
- Click the button 'Save' to finish creating the customer attribute.
Created customer attribute will be shown in the Online Store (if the parameter 'Show in Storefront' is enabled) and customers will be able to fill needed values.
Provider may see customer attributes' values of the specific account in account properties on the tab 'Additional Information'. Custom attributes of an user are displayed on the 'Additional Information' tab of a respective user.