2.2.1. Login via Coolblue Closed Community Management API
3.1.1. Offboarding via Coolblue Closed Community Management API
4. Retrieving remaining business credit
4.1 Retrieving remaining business credit
5. Setting up a Single Sign On connection
5.1 Credentials to establish Single Sign On connection
7.2. Select the correct payment method
7.3.1 Transaction communication
Coolblue SSO integration
Customizable Closed Community solutions for our business partners to create tailored customer journeys.
Over time Coolblue will expand Closed Community capabilities and customizations to introduce new and expand existing features. We make all reasonable efforts to maintain backwards compatibility. In an unlikely event when a breaking change is required, we ensure to inform our partners at least two weeks in advance.
The capabilities described in this document are building blocks that allow our partners to integrate various parts of the Closed Community customer journey with Coolblue.
Feedback is always welcome: please share your questions, comments and concerns with your Coolblue Specialized Sales consultant.
This document uses the following terminology:
In order to configure a Closed Community for a new employer, their company has to be manually registered in Coolblue systems. The registration process involves several parts:
After this initial registration, Coolblue sends the following information to the employer provider:
In order for the employee to access the Coolblue website, they need to be logged in.
This integration requires the business customer to register the employee via their identity provider at Coolblue before they are redirected to the Coolblue website.
The login process is done in two steps:
Via the DELETE endpoint, an employer can call Coolblue Closed Community Management API to remove an employee from the company immediately. Besides removal, the remaining business credit of an employee gets revoked, which prevents the employee from spending this budget.
Note: calling the delete endpoint unlinks the employee from the Closed Community only. The Coolblue account for the given user remains. This makes sure that, in the case of returns, the employee can still access their account to contact Coolblue’s customer service without the interference of the employer.
The offboarding process is done in a single step:
Via the GET endpoint, an employer can call Coolblue API to retrieve the remaining budget of an employee.
Retrieving the remaining business credit requires only one step:
The Single Sign On connection makes sure the user gets redirected to the identity provider of the employer. Currently, we only provide a Single Sign On connection for OpenID. Other software is not supported.
To set up a Single Sign On connection, the employer needs to provide three values, for both acceptance and production:
Please note: Coolblue can only redirect users to the company’s identity provider when the employee is onboarded via the Closed Community Manager API. The SSO connection provided by Coolblue disables all other log-in methods.
In order to see the assortment available at Coolblue, employees have to visit the Coolblue website. Coolblue does not provide separate websites for Closed Community integrations. Instead, the main website is customized for employees linked to a Closed Community.
The business customer is responsible for redirecting employees to the Coolblue website using the URL provided by Coolblue via their identity provider.
Please note that the Coolblue website differs per country:
Note: It is not possible for employees to order products from the assortment of the website in another country.
A closed community portal is a closed environment on the Coolblue website that has a custom landing page, limited assortment and extra features available only for Closed Community employees.
The landing page of the closed community has to be configured as part of onboarding the employer based on the limited assortment of the Closed Community. It contains links to different product categories available in the assortment. This page is only visible to customers that are part of the Closed Community, and is thus not visible to regular customers of Coolblue.
Note: It is not possible to show employees only specific product types (e.g. only phones or laptops) based on what they may be ordering on behalf of their employer. Coolblue creates a single closed community per employer, and its assortment includes all product types eligible for the Closed Community. It is the responsibility of the business customer provider to validate that the type of the selected product is correct. To facilitate the validation, Coolblue provides an API for retrieving product information that includes the product types.
The ordering process via a Closed Community is performed as any regular order and has a different method of paying for their products
After the employee is successfully onboarded in the Closed Community, the user can enter the company specific storefront. Ordering a product does not differ from the regular consumer flow within Coolblue. Placing products in the shopping cart allows users to order their products.
In the Coolblue checkout, the user sees multiple payment options. Amongst them is the ‘Business credit’ option. The employee should select this option to use their credit given by the employer.
Note: when a user tries to order products which are excluded by the employer, the business credit will not be deducted.
There are several types of transactional communication sent to Coolblue customers:
For Closed Community orders the communication is split: the employee receives the communication about the order and delivery, whereas the employer receives the invoicing information. Some types of emails can be disabled completely depending on the needs of the integration.