Steps To Create Custom User in Woocommerce Programmatically

Are you seeking a method to create custom users in WooCommerce? That too, without counting on the WordPress admin dashboard. Then, you’re in the right place.

As the online space is evolving, most websites offer visitors the option to register and become valued members, unlocking various perks such as exclusive discounts and deals. By incorporating this add-on feature into the website, you can also provide these advantages, thereby expanding your customer base significantly.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the process of programmatically creating users for your WordPress website and WooCommerce. Additionally, we’ll provide you with sample scripts that you can readily implement on your site.

What is Custom User in WooCommerce?

In WooCommerce, a ‘Custom User’ typically refers to a user account having specific attributes or characteristics that go beyond the default user role and capabilities provided by WordPress and WooCommerce by default.

When a new user role, the website collects essential profile information and assigns a specific role to that new user. This role serves as a structure for setting distinct permissions for each user category. This category segmentation can include access to restricted content, tailored navigation menus, eligibility for specific offers, and more.

Moreover, a ‘Custom User’ in WooCommerce refers to a user account that has been specifically tailored to meet specific requirements or business needs beyond the standard user functionalities provided out of the box.

This customization might involve modifying user profiles, roles, permissions, or other attributes to enhance the eCommerce experience for both the site owner and the users.

Why Create a Custom User in WooCommerce?

Undoubtedly, WordPress makes starting eCommerce business immensely easy. Still, as it includes multiple scenarios backstage, there are several circumstances where you might encounter the term ‘Custom User’ in the your WooCommerce store:

1. Extended User Profiles: As a WooCommerce store, collecting additional information, such as billing or shipping details from users during the registration form process, is vital. Such duties don’t get included in a default user role.

Creating a ‘Custom User’ in this context involves adding extra fields to the user registration form and storing this custom data in the WooCommerce database.

2. User Roles and Permissions: WooCommerce allows you to create custom user roles with unique capabilities. For example, you might create a ‘Wholesale Customer’ role with specific pricing, shipping, or discount privileges separately from regular customers.

Managing these WooCommerce user roles and their associated permissions can be considered part of dealing with custom user profiles.

3. User Segmentation: Based on customer behavior or attributes, such as purchase history or location – categorizing can be a strategic approach to make online shoppers straightforward yet seamless.

This categorization can be achieved through custom user attributes or metadata and is often used for personalized marketing and targeting.

Now that we have a substantial understanding of the possibilities we can achieve by creating custom user roles in WooCommerce, let’s delve into some sample scripts that enable you to create users using various methods.

Creating a custom user in WooCommerce programmatically typically involves creating a WordPress custom user role and then associating it with WooCommerce customer data. To achieve this, WooCommerce builds on top of WordPress, so you’ll need to work with both WordPress and WooCommerce functions.

Please Note: Before you proceed, creating a comprehensive backup of your entire website is highly advisable, given that we will be making modifications to core files.

Additionally, if you’re not already using one, we strongly recommend creating a child theme or utilizing a child theme plugin to ensure the integrity of your site during this process.

Steps to Create a Custom User in WooCommerce Programmatically

Moving on to the most important and concentration-needed step: creating a custom user in WooCommerce programmatically.

If you’re not well-versed in WordPress or programming terminology, it’s advisable to seek help from dedicated WooCommerce developers to avoid any unintentional disruptions to your existing website setup.

Let’s step ahead on the steps to create a custom user in WooCommerce programmatically:

Step 1: Include WordPress and WooCommerce Files

Make sure you include the necessary WordPress and WooCommerce files at the beginning of your custom code file.

require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-load.php');
require_once(WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/woocommerce/woocommerce.php');

Step 2: Create a New WordPress User

As we have already acknowledged, creating a new WordPress user role will be the first checkmark for proceeding with creating custom WooCommerce user roles.

(a) The wp_create_user() Function

wp_create_user() is a simple function to create a new WordPress user. This function accepts just three arguments – the ‘username’ (required), ‘password’ (required), and ’email’ (optional).

When successful, it returns the newly created user ID. If there’s an error, you get a WordPress error object.

(b)This is its Basic Syntax

wp_create_user( (string) $username, (string) $password, (string) $email = '' );

(c) Example of Using this Function

wp_create_user( 'johndoe', 'passwordgoeshere', 'john.doe@example.com' );

Step 2.1: Create a Single User

Creating a WordPress user programmatically is a straightforward process that can be accomplished easily by adding the mentioned snippet.
The essential values required are the username and password. You can also set the password using the function – ‘wp_create_user()’ like this:

wp_create_user( 'johndoe', 'passwordgoeshere', 'john.doe@example.com' );

For creating a user named ‘johndoe,’ you can simply insert the above-mentioned line of code into the ‘functions.php’ file of the child theme.

To make the code more effective and secure, it’s a good idea to implement certain safeguards. For example, you might want to prevent user creation when they are accessing backend pages or refreshing their screens.

You can accomplish this by using a hook, which is a way to attach your code to specific events or conditions within WordPress. Here’s how the modified code would appear:

In the code snippet below, we’ve used the ‘admin_init’ hook to ensure that the custom user creation code only runs when users are interacting with the front end of your website.

This prevents unnecessary user creation processes when users are working in the WordPress backend, enhancing the code’s functionality and efficiency.

add_action('admin_init','woo_custom_create_user');
function woo_custom_create_user(){
    
 // Create single user
$user_id = wp_create_user( 'johndoe', 'passwordffgoeshere', 'john.doe@example.com' );

// Check User
if ( ! is_wp_error( $user_id ) ) {
   
// Set user roles.
$user = new WP_User( $user_id );
$user->set_role( 'customer' );
   
 // Add WooCommerce specific user meta.
update_user_meta( $user_id, 'first_name', 'custom_username' );
update_user_meta( $user_id, 'last_name', '123456789' );

// Redirect or perform additional actions
echo 'Custom user created successfully!';
} else {
echo 'Failed to create custom user.';
  }
}

Step 2.2: Create Multiple Users

To make the process more efficient, let’s streamline the approach by creating multiple users instead of duplicating the previous function multiple times.

The following function is designed to generate users from a predefined array, where usernames and passwords are stored:

add_action('admin_init', 'woo_custom_create_users');
function woo_custom_create_users(){

   // Define an array of multiple users
   $users = array(
    array('johndoe', 'passwordffgoeshere'),
    array('tomdoe', 'passwordffgoeshere'),
    array('andrewdoe', 'passwordffgoeshere'),
    array('jeffdoe', 'passwordffgoeshere')
   );

   // Create users
   foreach($users as $user){   
    $user_id = wp_create_user( $user[0], $user[1] );
    // Check User
    if ( ! is_wp_error( $user_id ) ) {
    echo 'Custom user created successfully!';
} else {
echo 'Failed to create custom user.';
}
   }   
}

To conclude this, we use a ‘foreach()’ loop to create the four users stored on the ‘$ users’ array.

Step 3: Add WooCommerce Customer Data

WooCommerce stores additional customer data, such as billing and shipping information in the user’s meta fields. You can use the ‘update_user_meta()’ function to add this information.

// Set customer data
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_first_name', 'John');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_last_name', 'Doe');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_phone', '123-456-7890');

// You can add more billing and shipping data as needed.

Step 4: Set WooCommerce Billing and Shipping Addresses (Optional)

You can add billing and shipping address data to the WooCommerce role using the following functions:

// Billing Address
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_address_1', '123 Main St');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_address_1', '123 Main St');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_city', 'City');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_postcode', '12345');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'billing_country', 'US');

// Shipping Address (if different from billing)
update_user_meta($user_id, 'shipping_address_1', '456 Shipping St');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'shipping_city', 'Shipping City');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'shipping_postcode', '54321');
update_user_meta($user_id, 'shipping_country', 'US');

Step 5: Send a Welcome Email (Optional)

If you want to send a welcome email to the user, there are two ways to ways you can do so:

(a) Using WordPress Built-in Email Function

After creating a new user role successfully, use the built-in email functions mentioned below in your action hook.

// Send a welcome email
wp_new_user_notification($user_id, 'passwordffgoeshere');

(b) Creating a User and Send an Email Using ‘wp_mail’

Now, let’s explore how you can create a new user, generate a random password, and send it to a specific email address using a piece of code.

In the script provided below, we have introduced two new functions to make this process much easier for you:

wp_generate_password() – This function is used to generate a password dynamically.

wp_mail() – It allows you to send the registration email to the intended recipient.

add_action('admin_init', 'woo_custom_create_user_send_mail');
function woo_custom_create_user_send_mail(){
  
  // Generate Password
  $password = wp_generate_password( 12, true );

  // Create user
  $user_id = wp_create_user('joedoe', $password);
  
  // Check User
  if ( ! is_wp_error( $user_id ) ) {      
 
     // Send custom mail
      wp_mail( 'joedoe@mail.com', 'Welcome!', 'Your password is:'. $password );
  }else{
      // Write an error message here...
  }
}

This code snippet serves the purpose of programmatically creating a WordPress custom user role, automatically generating a password, and sending an email to the address ‘joedoe@mail.com.’

The email contains a welcoming message that includes the generated password. Please ensure to customize the user details, recipient email, and message content to suit your specific requirements when implementing it on your website.

Step 6: Accessing Login Page by New Custom User (Optional)

If you want to log the new user role immediately after registration, you can use the ‘wp_signon()’ function.

$credentials = array(
   'user_login' => $username,
   'user_password' => 'passwordffgoeshere',
   'remember' => true,
);
$user = wp_signon($credentials, false);
if (is_wp_error($user)) {
   // Handle login error
}

Step 7: Handle Errors and Redirect

Be sure to handle any errors that may have occurred during the process and redirect the user as needed. In case any critical error gets triggered intentionally – to get it resolved and restore your WordPress website quickly consider reaching out to a WooCommerce development company.

Moreover, this code will create a custom role in WooCommerce programmatically. Make sure to customize it to fit your specific requirements, and consider adding additional error handling and validation as necessary for your project.

FAQs About Creating a Customer User in WooCommerce

Conclusion

From creating to immediately accessing, in this article, we covered a step-by-step guide to ‘How to Create Custom User in WooCommerce?’.

In summary, WordPress offers built-in features for creating, managing, and deleting various user types, which suffice for most websites. This process allows you to extend the functionality of your WooCommerce store and tailor user roles to specific business needs.

Creating custom user roles and profiles in WooCommerce can be a powerful way to enhance your eCommerce site’s functionality and provide a personalized experience for your customers.

Customizing the code to fit your specific requirements is a must factor to remember while creating a custom WooCommerce user. If you need any further assistance or have a WooCommerce related query, feel free to drop it to us – we’ll make sure to get back to you shortly!