Understanding Relationship Between Contacts, Organizations, and Portals

Understanding the relationship between the various entities of the AutoPrint Software environment can help you make decisions about how to use the entities to configure the best customer experience to meet the needs of your users.

1. Contacts - The user entity in your storefront.

   1. Every user is a contact. Contacts can exist as leads, customers, and/or admin users.

   2. Every contact is classified as either a lead or a customer.

      1. A contact who has no orders is a lead.

      2. A contact who has at least one order is a customer. Leads are automatically promoted from lead to customer when the lead’s first order is placed.

   3. Any contact can be promoted to be a system administrator or Admin.

      1. A contact who has been promoted to be an Admin can be assigned various levels of system administration access or roles (e.g. Administrator, Sales Rep, etc.).

      2. The AutoPrint environment has pre-defined roles, and Administrator level users can add and define additional roles as well as edit default roles and their permission levels.

2. Organizations - A group entity allowing you to establish relationships between users in your storefront.

   1. Contacts can collaborate and work with other contacts through Organizations

      1. An Organization is created/owned by a contact (there can be only one owner but unlimited members).

      2. An Organization can exist with just an owner. Additional members are not required.

      3. Any contact can create an unlimited number of Organizations.

      4. A contact can use the storefront and submit orders on behalf of the Organization.

         1. Any member of an organization can potentially view order details for the Organization.

3. Portals - A highly specialized entity of any organization providing access to custom product offerings and designs.

   1. Portals provide a way for Organizations to use and control designs, or layouts, for specialized groups, and can also be used to present specialized organization or portal specific catalogs.

      1. Portal entities are owned/created by Organizations

      2. An Organization can create an unlimited number of Portal entities*

*Portal costs are defined by the storefront license and customer agreement.