Supply Lens

Import products from Shopify

Lesson 14 of 18 7 min read

Load your Shopify catalogue into a back-office system with a Product Updates Configuration, a Mapping and a manual receive.

If Shopify is where your products were first set up, you can use it to fill your back-office system's item master instead of keying products in again. In this lesson you'll import products from Shopify into a back-office system (often called a BOS or an IMS, an inventory management system) and learn the settings that control the import.

What you need

  • A Shopify Integration.
  • An Integration for the back-office system you're importing into.
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Step 1: add a Product Updates Configuration

  1. Go to Settings → Integration setup → Integrations and expand the Shopify Integration you want to import from.
  2. Click Configurations.
  3. Click + ADD to open Add configuration.
  4. Choose Product Updates as the document type and tick Receive enabled.
  5. Click Create default JSON.
  6. Set setupDate and lastImportDate to dates in the past.
  7. Save the Configuration.

setupDate must be earlier than lastImportDate

To avoid problems with the import, make sure setupDate is earlier than lastImportDate. This is the one time you set these dates yourself.

Step 2: add a Product Updates Mapping

  1. Go to Settings → Integration setup → Mappings and click + ADD.
  2. Choose Product Updates as the document type.
  3. Choose the Shopify Integration in From integration.
  4. Choose the back-office Integration in To integration.
  5. Save the Mapping.

Step 3: run receive

  1. Go to Settings → Integration setup → Integrations and expand the Shopify Integration.
  2. Click Run receive to fetch the product update Document.

Step 4: check the result

The product update Document flows from Shopify into Supply Lens and on to your back-office system. Browse your products there to check they've arrived as you expect.

Settings that shape the import

productStatusesWhich Shopify product statuses to import: active, draft or archived. Default: active only.
maxProductsPerDocumentThe most products in one product update Document. If there are more, several Documents are created.
defaultTaxRateA fixed tax rate applied to all products when working out taxable amounts. The fallback when no other rate can be found.
getTaxRateFromCollectionTitleWhen true, reads a tax rate from the Shopify collection title, so a collection called "Tax 20" gives a rate of 20.
getTaxRateFromTagsWhen true, reads a tax rate from the product’s tags in the same way.
taxRateRegularExpressionThe pattern used to find the rate in a title or tag. If not set, it matches values like "Tax 20" and takes 20.

When to choose which. Keep productStatuses on active to import only what you sell. Add draft if new products are set up in Shopify as drafts and the back office needs them before launch. Add archived only if you also need discontinued lines, for example to process returns. For tax, if your products are all one rate, defaultTaxRate is enough. If you sell mixed rates, organise products into collections or tags named like Tax 20 and Tax 5, and turn on the matching setting.

Hilltop Coffee's new back office

Hilltop has just started using Unleashed and has 80 products in Shopify, all active. Priya adds the Product Updates Configuration with Receive enabled, sets setupDate to 1 January 2020 and lastImportDate to 2 January 2020, and leaves productStatuses on active. Hilltop already tags products Tax 20 or Tax 0, so she turns on getTaxRateFromTags. She adds the Mapping to Unleashed, clicks Run receive, and checks the products in Unleashed.

Recap

  • Add a Product Updates Configuration with Receive enabled and dates in the past, with setupDate earlier than lastImportDate.
  • Add a Product Updates Mapping from Shopify to your back-office Integration.
  • Click Run receive, then check the products in the back-office system.
  • productStatuses controls which products come in; tax rate settings let you read rates from collections or tags.

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