Customer Approval

New customer accounts wait for approval by your team before they can sign in. You decide which accounts need approval, approve or reject them in the admin, and the module emails your team and your customers. This guide covers installation, every setting and day-to-day use.

• Admin demo: https://demo.softawarecommerce.com/try-admin/customer-approval
• Changelog: Release notes · Questions: FAQ

On the public demo storefront approval is switched off, so visitors can register and try the other modules. The admin demo shows the Approval Queue, the customer page buttons and the settings.

1. Requirements

2. Installation

Install with Composer from repo.softawarecommerce.com. Your access keys and the full set-up are described at https://softawarecommerce.com/shop/composer-access/.

composer config repositories.softaware composer https://repo.softawarecommerce.com
composer config --auth http-basic.repo.softawarecommerce.com PUBLIC_KEY PRIVATE_KEY
composer require softaware/module-customer-approval
bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento setup:di:compile            # production mode only
bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy # production mode only
bin/magento indexer:reindex customer_grid
bin/magento cache:flush

The reindex adds the "Approval Status" column to the customer grid. All customers that exist at installation are marked as approved. On Hyvä, run your usual Tailwind build after installing so the registration notice is styled (the module registers itself for Hyvä's Tailwind source scanning).

To update later: composer update softaware/module-customer-approval, then the same bin/magento commands.

3. Quick start

1. Go to Stores > Configuration > Softaware > Customer Approval (also under Softaware > Customer Approval > Settings) and choose the website in the scope switcher.
2. Approval Rules > Enabled = Yes. By default every new account then needs approval.
3. Enter your team's address under Email to Shop Team > Recipients, so someone hears about new accounts.
4. Save. Register a test account on the storefront: you are not signed in and see the approval message.
5. Open Softaware > Customer Approval > Approval Queue, approve the account, and sign in with it.

4. Settings

Approval rules and the shop team email are set per website; storefront messages and customer emails per store view. Every field shows its default in the comment and has "Use system value".

Approval Rules

Storefront Messages

Email to Shop Team

Emails to Customers

To change the wording of an email, create a template from the module's template under Marketing > Communications > Email Templates and select it in the setting.

5. What your customers see

Before registering. With "Show Notice on Registration Form" on, a notice above the registration form explains that new accounts are reviewed. Luma and Hyvä each have their own template.

Luma	Hyvä

After registering. If the account needs approval, the customer is not signed in. "Thank you for registering" is replaced by your "Message After Registration", and the customer is sent to the login page or your CMS page. This also applies to accounts created at checkout or through a social login.

Signing in. A pending or rejected customer who tries to sign in sees the message for their status and stays signed out. The same customer is also refused on:

• the checkout sign-in popup;
• REST (POST /V1/integration/customer/token) and GraphQL (generateCustomerToken) customer tokens;
• the RSS feed login;
• password-less sign-ins: social login, the email confirmation link, the automatic sign-in after registration, Login as Customer on the storefront and through GraphQL (generateCustomerTokenAsAdmin), and store switching.

Through the REST and GraphQL token endpoints Magento replaces every sign-in error with its generic message.

After approval. The customer gets the "Account Approved" email and can sign in as usual. If you reject the account, the customer gets the "Account Not Approved" email, with the reason if you enabled that.

6. Approving and rejecting

Approval Queue

Softaware > Customer Approval > Approval Queue lists the pending and rejected accounts with ID, name, email, approval status (Pending, Rejected), rejection reason, group, company, country, website (under Columns) and registration date. Search by keyword (name, email address and the other indexed customer fields) or filter the columns. Rejected accounts stay listed, so you can still approve them later.

• Mass actions: Approve and Reject.
• Row actions: View Customer, Approve and Reject. To add a rejection reason, use the Reject button on the customer page.

The menu item shows the number of waiting accounts, for example "Approval Queue (2)", and a message in the admin notice bar says how many accounts are waiting.

Customer page

On Customers > All Customers > edit customer a notice shows the approval status, and the toolbar has Approve and Reject buttons. Reject asks for an optional reason, which is stored with the account and shown in the queue.

Customer grid

Customers > All Customers has an "Approval Status" column with a filter, and the mass actions Approve Account and Reject Account under Actions.

Rejecting or resetting a customer

Rejecting a customer, or setting them back to pending, signs them out of the storefront, ends "Remember Me" sessions and revokes their API tokens. Customers cannot change their own status: the approval attributes are not in any form, and a status sent with a customer save is ignored.

Permissions (ACL)

Under System > Permissions > User Roles > Role Resources > Softaware > Customer Approval:

The customer grid mass actions are visible to every admin who can see the customer grid, but they only work with the "Approve and Reject Customers" permission.

7. Command line

bin/magento softaware:customer-approval:status                          # list pending accounts
bin/magento softaware:customer-approval:status --status=rejected        # list rejected (or approved) accounts
bin/magento softaware:customer-approval:status jane@example.com --set=approved [--no-email]
bin/magento softaware:customer-approval:status 42 --set=rejected --reason="Trade customers only"
bin/magento softaware:customer-approval:status 42 --set=pending

A customer is given by ID or email address; use --website=<id> when the same email exists on several websites. --no-email changes the status without emailing the customer.

8. REST API and events

With an admin token and the "Approve and Reject Customers" permission:

GET  /V1/softaware/customer-approval/:customerId            -> "pending" | "approved" | "rejected"
POST /V1/softaware/customer-approval/:customerId/approve     {"notify": true}
POST /V1/softaware/customer-approval/:customerId/reject      {"reason": "...", "notify": true}
POST /V1/softaware/customer-approval/:customerId/pending

The event softaware_customer_approval_status_changed (with customer, previous_status, status and reason) is dispatched on every change, for example to send the status to a CRM.

9. Troubleshooting

10. Uninstall

bin/magento module:disable Softaware_CustomerApproval
composer remove softaware/module-customer-approval
bin/magento setup:upgrade

Once the module is removed, nobody is held for approval: pending and rejected customers can sign in again. The customer attributes softaware_approval_status and softaware_approval_reason stay in the database until you remove them.