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I am very new to Magento and still learning all the functionality this e-commerce platform offers.

I have a new project that uses Magento. This project will not be public facing but will hold customer and product data. The system will be used by a customer service team, which will take orders on behalf of the customers on the telephone.

Is it possible if a member of the customer services team can search and make orders on behalf of the customers through the frontend and not by logging into Magento backend? I know the functionality exists in the admin side, but I don't want the customer services team to use the admin side of Magento, I would like to use the frontend if possible.

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  • I created a paid extension called AutoLogin in Magento Connect. That extension or at least the idea might be helpful for you. Check my site listed in my profile for more info, but basically the extension uses some native functions from Magento to set an user as logged from the Customer admin grid. – mbalparda Jun 17 '14 at 12:15
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You can find in this answer a fully functional module that allows an admin to login in the frontend using a customer account.
If you plan to use this, then all you need to do is give the customer service team access only to the customers section in the backend.
They can search for a specific customer and just click a button labeled Login as this customer and they will be logged in the frontend "impersonating" the real customer. Then they can place orders and do what a customer can do.
But if you plan to keep your application "a secret" you may need to disable the e-mail communication so the real customers don't get e-mails with the orders you place for them.

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  • Thanks for your quick response. The client doesn't want to use the admin side magento. Is possible to have all the necessary functionality on the frontend? – user9252 Jun 17 '14 at 12:47
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    I guess you can use a slightly adapted version of the code I posted and make it work only on frontend. For example alter the login page and show a dropdown will all the customers, or a search customer my e-mail and autologin as that customer. But it's not that safe from my point of view. – Marius♦ Jun 17 '14 at 12:49
  • When an customer service team clicks on the 'Login as user' does the user get redirected to the site or open in a new window. – user9252 Jun 17 '14 at 13:01
  • @user9252. The way I implemented it opens an other page, but you can change it to redirect the user to the site. You need to replace window.open with setLocation. – Marius♦ Jun 17 '14 at 13:11
  • I have implemented your suggestion, however we need to implement the following: opens in the same window, and goes to category listing instead of the customer area on the front end. I still learning php and magento so direction would be grafeful. – user9252 Jun 26 '14 at 16:06

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