Marketplace view access: self-service instructions for key users and admins

Shop view access helps to control which Marketplace content is visible to different users. Since not all users need access to every catalog, punchout, or free-text form, shop view access allows you to precisely control which content each organization or user group sees when shopping.

This guidance is intended for customer key users and administrators who manage Marketplace configuration and align it with organizational structures and user groups to ensure appropriate content access.

The article applies only if you use the Integrated Shopping Experience.

 

Benefits of Shop view access

• Better user experience: end users see only the catalog items, webshops, and forms relevant to them, instead of everything available to the whole organization.
• Improved compliance: you can steer users to preferred suppliers and contracted content by exposing the correct shopping content to the right user group.
• Central governance with local flexibility: you can create different setups per business unit or country. This is useful, for example, when a single country should have the same shopping content but includes multiple organizations in your organization setup.
• Controlled rollout: you can publish new content, for example, a webshop, to a limited user group first, then expand access once it is approved.
• Reduced complexity: there is an explicit mapping between views and user groups, and free-text form views are no longer created automatically. You can publish free-text forms to the same views you use for items or punchouts.

Use cases

• Country-specific content is easy to find: all catalogs relevant to a country are available to all users in the organizations in that country. Example: office supplies from a Finnish supplier are available to organizations in Finland but not to organizations in Germany.
• Role-based punchout access: most punchouts are available to all users, but a specific punchout is available only to a targeted buyer group, for example, IT buyers. You can offer the same punchout in two ways: one view with a limited assortment for all users, and another view with a wider assortment for a specific user group.
• Limit advanced ordering options: most free-text forms are visible to all users, but selected forms, such as blanket orders, are available only to an "Advanced buyers" user group. Example: the general free-text request form is available to all users; the blanket order form appears only for the organization's advanced buyers group.
• Shared content among organizations: two or more organizations do not need to be related in the hierarchy to require the same content. As long as the need is the same, one view can serve all of them, regardless of where each organization sits in the organization structure. Example: every country office might need to order the same logoed uniforms from the same supplier, even though those offices have no organizational relationship to each other. Similarly, a lab equipment supplier used by an R&D unit in one country may also be used by an R&D unit in a completely different country.
• Regional consolidation: if every organization under a region needs the same content, map a view to the region-level organization with inheritance enabled so that every organization underneath automatically gets access to the view. Example: one "EMEA" view, mapped once at the regional level, reaches Finland, Germany, and the UK without three separate mapping rows.
• Piloting new content: new content can be mapped to a pilot view with pilot group users to gather feedback and fix issues before exposing it to end users. Example: a new punchout is mapped only to the Procurement Admin team and then rolled out company-wide.
• Adding a new organization: a new organization or sub-organization added to the existing structure may not need new views created and mapped to it. Existing views can be mapped to the new organization, and the same content can be shared with users of the new organization. Example: a newly opened office organization in the northern region of the United States may inherit one or more existing views from other organizations in the same region.
  
  

What are views, and what do you use them for?

Views define what content is visible to end users in Marketplace. You configure which catalogs, punchouts, and free-text form agreements belong in each view. With Shop view access, you then give an organization's users, either everyone or a specific user group, access to the view so they can see and use that content when shopping.

 

Two types of views are available:

• Agreement view manages which agreements (and therefore which items and suppliers), an organization or group of users can see and order in Marketplace. This is the view type Shop view access uses.
• Sourcing view manages access to Quick Source. It is not relevant to Shop view access, because it is used only by Product Manager users.
  
  

Marketplace includes a reserved view named GLOBAL. Content published to this view is automatically available to all organizations and does not require any view mappings. To use it, create the view with the name GLOBAL and publish company-wide content that should be visible to every user across the organization.

 

Roles and permissions you need:

To manage views, publish free-text forms, and configure Shop view access, you need the following roles and permissions:

• Product Manager role: create and manage Marketplace views in Marketplace Product Manager.
• Manage free-text forms: publish free-text forms to Marketplace.
• Manage views shown in shop: link organizations and user groups to Marketplace views in Marketplace settings > Views shown in shop. It also gives read-only access to Basic data in Marketplace settings.
• Manage external webshops: manage the connection to Shop in Marketplace settings in the Basic data tab (edit, activate/deactivate) and also maintain view mappings in Views shown in shop.
  
  

Recommendations before you start

It is recommended that you create views in Marketplace Product Manager and map them to agreements. Only published views appear in the picker in Views shown in shop. If a view does not exist yet in Marketplace, you cannot map it in Shop view access.

For a small organization, the effort required to create views and mappings in Shop view access may be lower because fewer views and mappings may be needed.

For a larger organization, decide your target structure first: which organizations or user groups should see which catalogs, punchouts, and free-text forms. Before creating a single view, work through the following questions:

What is genuinely different, and what is the same everywhere: content that is identical across the company belongs in one shared view, not a copy per organization.

Where your hierarchy already gives you consolidation for free: if every organization under a region should see the same content, map the view once at the region level and turn on the setting that applies it downward. Every organization below it is then covered.

Which differences are about role, not location: access limited to IT buyers or advanced buyers usually applies everywhere, not just in one country. Map those views at a high level, often the top of your organization structure, with the downward setting turned on, rather than repeating them per country.

Where a view needs to reach unrelated organizations: sometimes two organizations that are not in the same branch of the hierarchy need identical content. Map that one view directly to both, using two separate rows. Do not build the view twice.

Naming convention for views: a simple pattern keeps a growing list of views easy to read. Examples: EMEA All users; Nordics IT buyers; Germany All users. The goal is to use the smallest number of views that still gives you the access control you need. Every additional view is one more thing to maintain, and an unplanned rollout tends to produce one view per organization by default, which is exactly the outcome this feature helps you avoid.

How do users get access to the right content

View mapping connects your organization structure (organizations and/or user groups) to views. When a user is included in a mapped organization or a user group, they automatically get access to the mapped view and the content published in it when they access the Shop.

Views can be created and maintained in Product Manager in Marketplace.

Creating and mapping a view

Step 1: Create the view in Marketplace Product Manager

1. Create or update a view for your target audience: an organization, a region, or a role.
2. Add content to it, such as agreements, categories, checkout forms, bundles, or lists.
3. Publish the view.
   

Step 2: Map the view in Shop view access

1. Go to Data Management > Marketplace settings. Open Marketplace settings, select the relevant settings row, and then open the Views shown in shop tab.
2. In Views shown in shop, select Add row to create a new mapping.
3. In Organization, select the organization you want to create access for.
4. In User group, keep the default All users of an organization if the view should be available to every user in the selected organization. Or select a specific user group if you need to limit access to the view's shopping content.
5. In View, select the Marketplace view you want users to access.
6. In Apply to lower organizations (inheritance), select Yes or No depending on whether the mapping should apply to lower-level organizations. The default is No.
7. Select Save after you have completed all required mapping changes.
   

Note: A user group only appears as a selectable option in a mapping if it meets two conditions:

• It is defined for the organization you are mapping, or for a higher-level organization above it.
• It has the permissions Use Basware Purchase (or one of its restricted or simplified variants) and Use Basware Marketplace.
  

Step 3: Validate

Log in as a test user in each affected organization and confirm they see exactly the content you intended, no more and no less. This step matters most for larger rollouts, where one missed mapping row can leave a whole organization without content it needs.

Publish free-text forms to views

You can publish free-text forms to Marketplace either all at once or one by one:

1. Go to Data management > Free-text forms.
2. To publish forms one by one, open a form and unpublish it, if needed.
3. Select the relevant view from the Marketplace views list. You can publish one free-text form to multiple Marketplace views.
4. Save and publish the form again.
5. Repeat until the free-text forms you need are available in Marketplace.
   
   

If you are exporting all forms to Marketplace at once, make sure every form already has its views selected first.

 

Example: a company with offices in several regions

To make the ideas in this article concrete, consider a fictional consumer goods company called Verdana Consumer Brands. Verdana makes household cleaning products and personal care items sold in supermarkets across three regions. Verdana has ten organizations in total. Germany contains two sub-organizations: the Hamburg sales office and the Cologne manufacturing plant. Both the Cologne plant and the Singapore office use a specialist fragrance ingredient supplier that no other Verdana location needs.

 

Verdana's organization structure

 

Verdana Consumer Brands (top level)

• Europe (region): Netherlands (head office), Germany, UK
  • Germany has two sub-organizations: Hamburg (sales office) and Cologne (manufacturing plant)
• North America (region): USA, Canada
• Asia (region): Singapore, Japan
  
  

How Shop View Access changes Verdana's approach

Verdana currently has multiple views for different countries, departments, and user groups. When new offices, suppliers, or catalogs are added, the number of views grows quickly, requiring increased maintenance. Each free-text form generates its own auto-generated view and cannot be restricted to specific user groups.

With Shop View Access, Verdana can manage access based on business needs and user audiences instead of building country-specific views. Views are built by content scope and audience, then reused across multiple organizations and regions through mapping. This reduces the total number of views and simplifies maintenance.

Shop View Access also transforms how free-text forms work. Forms can now be published to specific views. These views are mapped to particular user groups and organizations. Users see only forms relevant to their role, providing a cleaner experience while reducing administrative work.

To achieve this, Verdana's Procurement Admin (or an implementation consultant) follows three steps: create the views in Marketplace Product Manager, map them in Shop view access, and associate the free-text forms with the correct views before publishing them.

 

Step 1: Create the views in Marketplace Product Manager

The admin defines each view by its scope (which country or countries it applies to) and its audience (which user group). The naming convention combines both, making each view easy to recognize in later steps.

 

Tip: For company-wide content, Verdana could use the reserved GLOBAL view instead of creating a separate view named Verdana, All users. The GLOBAL view is automatically available to all organizations and requires no mapping.

 

Step 2: Map the views to organizations and user groups in Shop view access

The admin now goes to Data Management > Marketplace settings > Views shown in shop and adds one row per mapping.

 

 

Eight mapping rows cover all ten organizations.

Reading the mapping table

• Rows 1 and 2: company-wide content. Mapped once at the top with inheritance turned on. Every organization gets the standard catalog. Every IT buyer, in every country, gets the IT hardware punchout.
• Rows 3 to 6: regional content. Mapped once at each region with inheritance turned on. The Europe row reaches the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, and both German sub-organizations (Hamburg and Cologne) automatically.
• Rows 7 and 8: shared specialist content. Cologne and Singapore are not related in the hierarchy, but share the same need. The same view is mapped to both, using two rows. Inheritance is turned off because neither location has anything below it that needs this view.
• Row 7 is deliberately mapped to the Cologne plant, not to Germany. If it were mapped to Germany with inheritance turned on, the Hamburg office would also see the fragrance supplier, which is not what Verdana wants.
  
  

Step 3: Associate free-text forms with the views in Data Management

Free-text forms are published to views separately in Data Management > Free-text forms. For each form, the admin selects which view or views it should appear in before publishing it to Marketplace.

 

Notice that a form can be published to just one view (as most are here) or to more than one when the same form is needed by different audiences. If any of these forms were already published under the old setup, the admin unpublishes them first, selects the correct view or views, and then publishes them again.

 

Step 4: Test the setup

The admin validates the result by logging in as test users in every operational organization and checking what each one sees. The IT buyer column is identical across rows, which is the intended outcome. Mapping IT buyers once at the top of the hierarchy means every IT buyer, everywhere, gets the same content.

 

 

Why this design works for Verdana

It scales without multiplying. Adding an eleventh office next year, for example in France, means adding one organization under Europe. It inherits the Europe view and both Verdana views automatically. No new view is needed.

Location and role are handled separately. IT buyers and advanced buyers are mapped at a high level, not repeated per country. A German IT buyer in Hamburg and a Canadian IT buyer both get the same view from the same single row.

Sub-organizations inherit cleanly. Hamburg and Cologne do not need mapping rows of their own for standard content. Both inherit the Verdana and Europe views through Germany.

Exceptions stay small. Only Cologne and Singapore needed something unusual. One extra view, two extra mapping rows, one extra free-text form association. The other organizations were untouched.

Everyday users see less, not more. A standard buyer in Japan sees only the Verdana catalog and the Asia catalog. Nothing from Europe, nothing IT-specific, nothing from the blanket order form. A cleaner shopping experience with less irrelevant content to search through.