Building blocks

Learn the taxonomy of the OrderCloud hierarchy that enables developers to model business operations accurately.

OrderCloud provides support for modeling B2B, B2C, or B2X organizations. Within each organization there is a common hierarchy that controls the relationship between users and data.

The following diagram shows the organizational hierarchy as represented by OrderCloud:

Marketplace

At the highest level is the Marketplace. Data is not shared between multiple Marketplaces. A Marketplace owns and manages the users, catalogs, and orders within it. The administrators who maintain the buyers' functions (for example, customer service representatives or catalog/product managers) are Marketplace Owners and belong directly to the Marketplace.

Companies

Marketplaces can also be considered a company, along with Buyers and Suppliers. Companies represent the unique entities within OrderCloud that transact and manage relationships with one another. Each type of company has its own purpose.

Marketplace

The Marketplace is the root entity of any OrderCloud solution. Its main purpose is to maintain the buyers' functions. Typical functions include managing products and prices, creating and setting approval rules, and defining available shipping and billing addresses for buyer users.

Buyer

Each Marketplace can contain multiple buyers. Buyers purchase products from the Marketplace. Buyers can be configured in various ways. For example, OrderCloud supports buyer networks, such as a franchise or Marketplace use case where many buyer companies have access to the same buying experience. Alternatively, you can create an independent login for each buyer company to provide a unique buyer experience for each company.

Supplier

Similar to buyers, marketplaces can contain more than one supplier. Suppliers exist on the same hierarchical plane as buyers; however, their purpose is generally geared towards order fulfillment. Unlike Marketplace Owners and buyers, suppliers are not required to create a functional OrderCloud solution.

User groups

Within each type of company mentioned above, user groups are available to simplify the management of a large user base. Marketplace Owners can create personalized experiences for users within each type of company by using user group level relationships. Each user can be assigned to multiple groups within their company and they inherit all of the relationships between those groups and the data associated with them. See the following section for more information on how this system of assignments works.

Users can be assigned to multiple user groups.