Shopify integration

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Bookmarks: Implementation overview | Connecting to Shopify API | Product statuses | Demo video | FAQS

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Data Flow Diagram

Implementation overview

1. Establish the connection to your Shopify website
2. If the products haven't already been imported during data import, click the "Import new products from Shopify" button to import every product from your website, including product descriptions, variations, and product photos.
3. After the products are imported, prepare and upload the inventory quantities
4. Enable the syncing of products on the settings page under Integrations, Shopify
5. Note, you can control and select what product details to send, these include:
   • Selling prices
   • Inventory quantity levels
   • Inventory policy
   • Title/description    
     Body HTML/detailed description    
     Images    
     Statuses: active, draft, archived, published    
     Types    
     Tags

 

Connecting to Shopify API

To establish the connection, follow the steps below:

1. Firstly, contact us and let us know the URL of your website, and we will pre-install the connection details
2. Then, you can authorise the connection by:
   • Clicking on your name initials (top right-hand side of the page)
   • Choose Integrations then Shopify
   • Go to Settings (on the left)
   • Click Connect
   • Follow the on-screen prompts and authorise the connection

Note: our Shopify API is not available in the free trial, contact us if you have any questions.

 

After the connection is setup

Once the connection is established, you can toggle on/off different options.

These include:

• Download new paid orders
• Import new products; when used for the first time, it will import all items; thereafter, it will import any new products created since the time of the previous import.
• Select the product details to sync. If you choose to manage all product details on Shopify, leave the corresponding settings toggled off. If you choose to manage all product details on Qblue Inventory, enable the corresponding options.

 

Before turning on the product updates from Qblue to Shopify

1. Ensure the products have their current costs. To update this in bulk:
   • Go to Products menu > Export data,
   • Choose Products from the Data type
   • Click Download
   • Open it in Excel or Google Sheets
   • Update the product costs in column J
   • Once updated, re-upload the file by going to "Import data"
2. After the costs are uploaded, perform a stocktake to import the product quantities in bulk; or manually enter them in by using the "Inventory adjustment" program (under Products > Inventory control).

 

Product statuses

1. status set on the List product (parent product that has one or more variations)
2. status set on the variation level

 

Demo video

Watch a quick demonstration of the Shopify integration:

It includes:

• Connection to your Shopify website
• Varies integration options
• Importing products from your Shopify website
• Updating products from Qblue Inventory

 

 

 

FAQS

Q: How to check the status of the Shopify integration sync?

A: To check the sync status, navigate to Integrations, then Shopify. The sync history is also viewable on the same page. There are two ways to sync:

1. Manual - control the timing of the data synchronisation between Qblue and Shopify manually. This also applies to downloading new orders.
2. Automatic - let the system to automatically sync the data on a predetermined frequency, that is every 30 minutes.

To enable the automatic sync, navigate to Integrations, Shopify, then Settings.

 

Q: How do I disconnect from Shopify?

A: To disconnect from Shopify, you can do either of the following:

• Go to Integrations, Shopify then Settings, click on the button "Disconnect"
• Or you can disconnect the Qblue Inventory app from within your Shopify website admin in Apps then Installed apps

 

Q: What doesn’t your integration do?

A: The integration does send or import product collections including both smart and custom.

 

Q: How do I add products to the Shopify feed?

A: To see a list of products that have been added or imported (directly) from Shopify:

• Go to Products menu then "Channel feeds";
• On the left-hand side of the page, choose Shopify channel
• All the products will be shown in the list
• The online column provides an indication of if the product is last shown on the website
• To add other products, click on the "Add products" button

 

Q: When and how does data sync occur? Is it manual, automatic, on login, in real-time. Are there any settings related to synchronizing?

A: The connection is initially configured by default to manually sync. Toggle the Auto sync switch after the connection is made to enable routine syncing.

 

 

Q: How do I see the sync logs?

A: To view the synchronisation logs:

• Go to Integrations, then Shopify
• The sync messages with their details are shown in the Sync history window.
• You can enter a string to search, for example search for a product code or description

 

Q: How are the product attributes mapped?

A: See below:

• Status: if a product is set to Draft / Archived, it will be set as Draft and NOT published on the website

• Product type: maps to Product Type on Shopify

• Brands: maps to Vendor

• Tags: maps to Tags on Shopify

• Categories: these are not synced because Shopify uses smart collections and each collection hasn't got the same hierarchy; these are used for internal reporting purposes

• When the "Send flag on continue selling when out of stock" setting is OFF, then it means the product's "continue selling when out of stock" setting will not be synced across to Shopify.  This is useful when you want to manually control this flag on Shopify.
• When it is ON, it means the product's "continue selling when out of stock" flag will be synced to Shopify, telling Shopify not to sell out of stock.
• The "continue selling when out of stock" flag on Qblue means it stops sales orders from dispatching when there is not enough stock (to meet the dispatching qty) on the system.