Fix: Customer details are incorrect after opening customer search in order creation

[staskus]

WOOMOB-1045

Description

Customer details are incorrect after opening the customer search in order creation.

This issue led me down a confusing path of figuring out how customers work in the WooCommerce iOS app. There are two main types: WCAnalyticsCustomer from the wc-analytics/customer endpoint, and Customer from the /customers/{user_id} endpoint.

WCAnalyticsCustomer represents customers created when placing an order, while Customer represents registered site users (wp-admin -> users). These can be linked through WCAnalyticsCustomer.user_id (which points to Customer.id), and Customer.id (which matches WCAnalyticsCustomer.customerID). The user_id is 0 if the analytics customer is not a registered WordPress user.

It gets more complicated on iOS. Even when calling the wc-analytics/customer endpoint, the app persists data in both Storage.WCAnalyticsCustomer and Storage.Customer. The name Storage.Customer suggests it represents a Customer from /customers/, but in practice it is a shared aggregate object combining data from both WCAnalyticsCustomer and Customer.

The problem is that Storage.Customer only has a single identifier, customerID. Sometimes this field stores the customerID value, and other times it stores the userID value. The app uses these values interchangeably, which creates inconsistencies. For example, retrieveCustomer asks for a customerID parameter by name, but actually requires the WordPress userID to succeed. This kind of mismatch appears throughout the Customer implementation in the app. Also, given that both of these types are updated from one another, some data losses in the conversion process are possible.

This made it difficult to identify the real cause of the bug. In the end, it came from the fact that we create Storage.Customer from WCAnalyticsCustomer during order creation with incomplete mapping, and later use Storage.Customer within Menu -> Customers -> Details:

1. Order Creation → Add Customer Details
2. wc-analytics/customers call is made
3. Storage.Customer entities are deleted
4. Storage.Customer is re-inserted and mapped with wc-analytics/customers data, but shipping information is not set
5. The Menu -> Customers list shows WCAnalyticsCustomer data, but when tapping on a customer, the details come from Storage.Customer (which had been deleted and remapped without shipping information after opening the order).

I’m applying a simpler fix first, but I also plan to introduce a larger refactor to bring more clarity to the codebase. Hopefully, this will also uncover other hidden issues in the process:

• Customer and WCAnalyticsCustomer: Disambiguate userID and customerID #16056

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Do you want me to also make it slightly more structured for a GitHub issue/PR description (with headings like Background, Problem, Root Cause, Fix)? That would make it easier for reviewers to parse.

Steps to reproduce

1. Log in to a test store.
2. Open Menu > Customers and confirm that customers' locations are correct. Billing & shipping addresses are correct if available, otherwise, only Location is displayed.
3. Open Orders > + to add new order.
4. Select Add customer details > select any customer > dismiss the form.
5. Confirm customer shipping/billing data is shown.
6. Switch back to Menu > Customers.
7. Confirm location information is still displayed.

Testing information

iPad Air 18.5 simulator, tested with WordPress and guest users

Screenshots

Simulator.Screen.Recording.-.iPad.Pro.11-inch.M4.-.2025-08-28.at.23.02.29.mov

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• I have considered if this change warrants user-facing release notes and have added them to RELEASE-NOTES.txt if necessary.

[wpmobilebot]

📲 You can test the changes from this Pull Request in WooCommerce iOS Prototype by scanning the QR code below to install the corresponding build.

	App Name	WooCommerce iOS Prototype
	Build Number	pr16055-1cae605
	Version	23.1
	Bundle ID	com.automattic.alpha.woocommerce
	Commit	1cae605
	Installation URL	2759lc8rjtfco

Automatticians: You can use our internal self-serve MC tool to give yourself access to those builds if needed.

[staskus]

@iamgabrielma @toupper I've seen both your names in history. You may remember more context. As I mentioned in the description, I got a bit lost in the customer implementation. The fix is working and make sense but maybe there are another points where things need to be improved.

I also attempted a broader refactoring here #16056 but it needs more testing.

[iamgabrielma]

Thanks for the fix!

@iamgabrielma @toupper I've seen both your names in history. You may remember more context. As I mentioned in the description, I got a bit lost in the customer implementation. The fix is working and make sense but maybe there are another points where things need to be improved.

From my recollection, the need of using the /wc-analytics/customers endpoint (it is still an undocumented route it seems...) came up when searching customers to assign them to orders, the existing endpoint at the time was /v3/customers which had several limitations, ie: Only returned registered customers (despite customers being able to checkout without registration), and these were only searchable by registered customer_email, but not by name or surname. I'm not quite sure if this has changed since then, Corey posted some details here.

The discrepancy with customerID and userID comes from the same place, as userID is zero in core when the customer is non-registered, if you have 10 non-registered customers, then you have 10 users with the same userID 0, which wouldn't work in the client to differentiate them, hence the addition of customerID for the app, this tracks non-registered customers as well.

As you mention I cannot see any issue with adding billing/shipping address as a quick fix, it does make sense, specially when we already map some of those fields for name/email.

[staskus]

Thanks for the context @iamgabrielma! Merging this fix...