# Configure associate access

Learn who can act on behalf of a buyer organization and what they are allowed to do, using Customers, Associates, Associate Roles, permissions, and inheritance.

**Learning objectives**

After completing this module, you should be able to:

- Distinguish between the Customer and Associate resources and explain the provisioning sequence.
- Design Associate Roles with appropriate permissions, including separation of duties between requesters and approvers.
- Configure inheritance settings and predict their effect across a Business Unit hierarchy.
- Select the correct API endpoint pattern for a B2B operation and explain the Permission Gate enforced on `as-associate` calls.
- Recommend an associate provisioning pattern for a buyer based on scale, compliance, and implementation effort.
- Apply the Architect's decision framework to model org management and access control.

**Agenda**

1. [Customers and Associates](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/customers-and-associates.md)
2. [Associate Roles and permissions](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/associate-roles-and-permissions.md)
3. [Inheritance modes](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/inheritance-modes.md)
4. [API endpoint patterns for B2B](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/api-endpoint-patterns-for-b2b.md)
5. [Associate provisioning patterns](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/associate-provisioning-patterns.md)
6. [Decision framework: org modeling](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/decision-framework-org-modeling.md)
7. [Learning check](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/learning-check.md)

**Prerequisites**

- [Model buyer organizations](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/model-buyer-organizations/overview.md) module from this learning path.

**Audience**

- Functional Architects and Solution Designers responsible for evaluating platform capabilities and recommending B2B modeling strategies.

## Related pages

- [Area overview page with navigation](/learning-model-b2b-commerce.md)
- [Next page: Customers and Associates](/learning-model-b2b-commerce/configure-associate-access/customers-and-associates.md)