Required entity ID for Order_CreateUpdate

Question

Is there any reason why Order_CreateUpdate API called MUST have an entity ID to update? Why can't we update "yet to checkout customers" with entity ID's of -1 and only update customers that are logged in or already checked out and paid for? Or is there any other way to update an uncompleted order via the API?
This API call should only be tied to the order ID and nothing else.

Answer 1

They are until they purchase, and as you noted if you got a cookie then it re-uses it.
I would actually like BC to generate it as soon as they hit the site. You get the entity ID as soon as you finish a web form, you can dump the module tag on a confirmation page and you can see it generated on the front end.
My point was that your a person (entity) on BC so everyone is an entity and an order at least needs to be associated with a general nobody which is -1 currently or an active entity ID. You can pass that on a site to API service to then do stuff in the background. Jason T at Simpleflame does this for example with several cool implementations they have done in the passed.
So...
- Someone on the site = -1
- Some form of interaction - Entity ID - not in the CRM - There are cases of this but I do not have a full list of cases - would be nice
- Done something on the site like fill in a form - Entity ID - Now in the CRM so that is the customer ID.
On my testing I have have been on the cart with entity id not -1 but not in the CRM but I can not work out what use case this is.
I am not saying things are ideal or anything, Just noting what I know of it, and as mentioned, we would like this to be an assigned value as soon as you hit a BC site and then accessible via liquid along with some session info for better digital marketing stuff.
And as the last note - All the API is being done and sorted into REST etc, so the SOAP stuff wont be updated again now but we will have access to new stuff at some point not to far away - BC has not given a full ETA.