Buyer Permissions

Buyer Permissions allows Procurement to create granular rules controlling which products buyers (shop users) can view, purchase, or purchase with Procurement's approval.

Go to Settings then collapse the Store section and select Buyer Permissions. From here, rules can be searched for, managed and created.

To create a new rule:

1. Click + New Rule
2. Give the rule a name and description for internal reference
3. Specify an error message to display to restricted shop users

4. Select the restriction type:
   • View - Prevents users from seeing the product
   • Purchase - Prevents users from buying the product
   • Require Approval - Requires users to submit a purchase request for approval

5. Select which users to apply the rule to by choosing a preset:

   • Search for a preset and click it to select it
   • Click Manage presets to create or edit existing presets
   • Presets can also be managed from the Presets page under Settings
   • For more information on presets, take a look at the presets guide

6. If the Require Approval restriction type is selected:

   • Search for and select Procurement users/groups that can act as Approvers and approve/reject carts containing the products restricted by the rule
   • Users/groups can be removed with the trash icon

7. Add conditions determining which products the rule applies to:

   • Click Add Condition
   • Select condition type: Products, Categories, Suppliers, Countries, Codes, Keywords
   • Based on type, search for and select or enter items to include or exclude
   • Select All for conditionality to apply the condition to all matching products
   • As an example of when to use All, the code type CAS can be selected along with the conditionality of All to include all products with a CAS code in the rule
   • Use the trash icon to remove any already selected items
   • Click Save Condition after finalising the items for each condition
   • Add multiple conditions as needed to fine-tune rule scope, see details on the logic of multiple conditions
   • Click the pen icon to edit a condition, or the trash icon to remove a condition

8. Review and click Save in the top-right to create the rule

   

Once created, rules can be enabled, disabled, edited, or deleted from the Buyer Permissions page.

To manage existing rules on the Buyer Permissions page:

• Click the toggle in a row menu dropdown to disable or enable a rule
• Click Edit in a row menu dropdown or click on the table row itself to modify a rule
• Click Delete in a row menu dropdown to permanently delete a rule
• Click + New Rule to create additional rules

Rule conditions allow restricting products by:

• Products: Search by product name, SKU, or MPN to include or exclude specific products
• Categories: Select categories to include or exclude all products assigned to them
• Suppliers: Search for and select suppliers to include/exclude their products
• Countries: Select countries to include or exclude products from shipping to
• Codes: Select a code type (CAS, EAN, GTIN, etc) and input codes to match against
• Keywords: Input keywords to match against product data like titles, descriptions, etc.
• AI Rules (purchase type only): Input custom text rules for AI to warn users when adding an item to their basket.

When building a Keywords condition, keywords can be manually created in the Add Keywords section by entering the keyword and clicking Add.

When adding keywords, an action type must be selected. These are defined as follows:

• Contains - if the product name or description contains this keyword, even within a bigger word, then the condition will be triggered. For example, if the keyword is iso and either the product name or description contains the word isotype, then the condition would be triggered as isotype contains the word iso.
• Exact match - if the product name or description contains this keyword by itself (not part of a bigger word), then the condition will be triggered. For example, if the keyword is iso then the word isotype wouldn't trigger the condition. The keyword would need to be isotype for the word isotype to trigger the condition.
• Starts with - if a word in the product name of description starts with this keyword, then the condition will be triggered. For example, the keyword hydro and the word hydrochloric.
• Ends with - if a word in the product name of description starts with this keyword, then the condition will be triggered. For example, the keyword chloric and the word hydrochloric.

Keywords can also be imported in bulk by using a CSV file. The CSV template can be downloaded by clicking Download Template. This consists of two columns, Keyword and Actions, where each action should be one of the following:

• contains - Contains
• contains_exact - Exact match
• starts_with - Starts with
• ends_with - Ends with

The keywords file can then be imported by clicking the Import button.

Keywords that have been manually added, or imported with a file, or a combination of both, can be viewed in the Selected keywords area. This list of keywords can be exported at any time by clicking Export.

:::warning Keyword based restrictions only apply to the English version of the product name. :::

Remember that the Save Condition button must be clicked before saving the overall rule. The condition can then be viewed in the Conditions section prior to saving the rule.

The AI condition can only be selected when the selected buyer permission rule type is Purchase. When building an AI condition, a rule can be added by manually entering it in the Add AI rule field and clicking Add. Additional rules can then be added by following the same process. Rules can be removed by clicking the bin icon. Once all rules have been added, click save condition to add the condition prior to saving the overall buyer permission.

When a user triggers an AI condition of a buyer permission, they will recieve a warning message when adding it to their basket, but can still proceed with the order (if for example, the AI is mistaken in that particular case).

:::warning Handle AI rules with caution. For example, a rule such as Users can't purchase chemicals may also warn users for certain products made of chemicals, unless an additional rule of Users can purchase products made of chemicals is added as well. :::

Multiple conditions can be added to a single rule to narrowly target specific products.

For the View restriction type, multiple conditions utilise OR logic, whereby any product meeting one or more of the conditions will be affected.

For the Purchase and Require Approval restriction types, multiple conditions utilise AND logic, whereby any product meeting all of the conditions will be affected.