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Managing Anonymous Shopping Carts

Customers are treated as anonymous users until they register with your Siebel eSales Web site. Registered users returning to your Web site, and who have not yet logged in, are recognized as anonymous users rather than registered users if:

• They have deleted previously stored cookies.
• They elected for the Web site not to remember their user IDs, in which case they lack the cookie that enables implicit login.

When an anonymous user places an item in the Shopping Cart, an anonymous quote is created and a cookie is placed on the customer's computer. The cookie identifies the quote. If the Internet connection is lost, or if the customer leaves your Web site before checking out, the cookie is used to load the customer's quote when the customer returns.

If the customer does not return to the Web site for a specified number of days, the anonymous quote is deleted.

If the customer logs in later, and before the quote is deleted, the persistent anonymous quote is converted to a persistent quote, and the cookie is cleared. The cookie is replaced by another one that will enable implicit login when the customer returns to your site.

You can set both the frequency with which anonymous quotes are deleted and the age of the quotes to be deleted. The deletions are then performed automatically by a repeating server request. By default, anonymous shopping carts 30 days or older are deleted weekly. For information about setting up repeating server requests, see Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide.

Setting the Age for Anonymous Quotes Deletion

To set the age for anonymous quotes deletion, do the following in Siebel Tools:

• Select the eSales - Delete Old Anonymous Quotes workflow.
• Locate the workflow's Days Old process property and edit its Default String field.
• Make any other changes to the workflow that are necessary for your implementation.

For detailed information on modifying workflows, see the chapter on building workflow processes in Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide.