“Unified Order Entry” (UOE, aka The Super-Password, aka The Glorified Virtual Terminal) is a method by which a store admin can enter and complete orders on behalf of customers, using the same FoxyCart checkout flow as the customers themselves would use. It provides a way to unify your order channels through FoxyCart, allowing you to maintain any 3rd party integrations you may have set up through FoxyCart while giving you a single place where all orders are recorded.

For example, if you have FoxyCart integrated into your mailing list, CRM, and CMS, you wouldn't want to run a phone order through a standalone virtual terminal and then have to manually add the new customer into all your other systems. Rather, it'd make far more sense to run the order through FoxyCart and leverage your existing integrations. This could be very useful for:

• Fax orders
• Phone orders, call centers
• Orders taken at an event
• Phone support requests to modify customer information
• Manually modifying customer subscriptions

Please be aware that using UOE may impact your PCI DSS compliance requirements, especially if you are handling credit card information. Read up on what it might involve to handle credit card information, and how it might affect your business insurance or PCI compliance requirements. We at FoxyCart cannot provide PCI DSS consulting, but can recommend firms that can.

Using UOE is as simple as enabling it in your “advanced” page in your FoxyCart admin. Enable UOE, set a strong password, and save your settings. (Seriously, make this a very strong password. No Jesus1st or asdfasdf123.) Once this is set, any store admin with the password is able to login as any existing customer using your UOE password.

Enter the existing customer email address on your checkout, and enter the UOE password when prompted. You will now be authenticated as the customer, and you can continue through checkout as normally.

Enter the new customer email address on your checkout, then enter the UOE password. You will continue through checkout as normal, BUT the customer record will get a new, randomly generated password instead of the UOE password. The new user is created as normally, and if the customer requests a password reset they can get it no problem.