Automate user account creation and document access
Ecommerce integration allows for full automation between your web sales process (payment system) and the issuing of licenses and document access.
It can also be used within an organization to enable administrators to easily add user access without having to use the Safeguard administration system (i.e. a full administrator of the system).
Instead of having to manually enter user details into the administration system (user name, email address, protected files they are entitled to view, etc.), the ecommerce module allows these details to be sent automatically from your ecommerce system to the Locklizard administration system, so no manual input is required. Users therefore do not experience any unnecessary delay in receiving their license codes, and can view your protected files as soon as they have paid. This is suitable for organizations processing more than 20 sales a day.

You or your web developer integrate with the Locklizard ecommerce module from your ecommerce system of choice, or you can separately purchase ecommerce plug-ins for common shopping cart systems (e.g. Magento, XCart, opencart, Woocommerce, WordPress) from Proexe who also provide integration services, and concrete5 plugins from Mesuva.
Shopping Cart System Demo
What can you use the Ecommerce API for?
There are several reasons why you would wish to automate administration system processes:
- Connection to one or more sales web sites
This is probably the commonest use for any publisher, in order to automate online order fulfilment – granting access to secured PDF documents. Commands are available to add a customer and grant them access to documents, or to connect them to subscription services using the Locklizard publications concept. Publishers may also grant existing customers access to additional documents that they acquire (or are allocated) through the web site or as a result of external administrative processes. Licenses may be emailed to customers or fulfilled directly over the web link established with the customer during ordering.
- Managing dynamically created documents
A number of major publishers allow their customers to design the document they wish to see dynamically. It is created out of many database content sources, and is often a unique production. The DMS is used to marshal document text as part of the assembly function before using the Command Line option to protect it as a new secured document. When it has the new Document ID it can be passed forwards to eCommerce to automatically link the new protected document to the customer.
- Automating adding new documents to existing customers
There can be times when for marketing reasons a publisher can wish to distribute a ‘sample’ of an upcoming title, allowing existing customers a ‘sneak-peek’ perhaps for a number of reads or days. The eCommerce integration API allows a publisher to batch allocate access rights to a document(s) protected for this purpose, and, if needed, cancel access after a fixed period of time.
- Devolving user/customer administration
In larger administration environments it is not good practice to allow too many people to be systems administrators, because that role is very powerful and difficult to supervise. But by creating applications that interact with the eCommerce API, you can create tiers of lower level administrators who may be programmed to be able to add users, modify some of their attributes, but perhaps not be able to delete users, publications or documents. Such powers would simply not be exposed to them by the application, and the actual commands being issued would be effectively hidden. Rules built into the commands issued to the eCommerce API could be used to limit the role of these administrators, control access to the applications, and create activity logging entirely according to internal control requirements.
- Automatically logging users in to the Web Viewer
Users can be logged in automatically (SSO) to the Web Viewer. By clicking on a one-time link, users are logged directly into the Web Viewer (without them having to enter any login credentials), and optionally a document can be automatically opened. This simplifies the user experience and enables you to offer a seamless interface with other systems that users are already logged in to.