Overview
CheckIn has the ability to integrate with your Shopify website.
*( Please note that Shopify's "Basic" plan does not allow for customer information to flow down to CheckIn via their API which is rather odd and not very giving of them... In order for your Shopify orders in CheckIn to show customer information, you need to upgrade to their "Shopify Plan" !
This is not a CheckIn issue - this is the way their API works and them trying to make more $ )
Currently, the CheckIn-to-Shopify integration supports:
- A One-Time pulldown of all products from Shopify down to CheckIn. The pull down process will check for existing product records in CheckIn and connect that product record to the Shopify product record. If an existing Shopify product is NOT in your CheckIn system, the pull down process will create the product in CheckIn.
- A One-Time pulldown of Collections from Shopify
- Automated ongoing product push syncing. This means that all products added to CheckIn can be set to be pushed to Shopify.
- Automated ongoing Collection syncing.
- Automated Order pull down into CheckIn. (At this time, filling orders should be done via the Shopify website)
- Shopify customer pulldown when an Order is placed on Shopify (Note, edits done to customer records in CheckIn are not synced to Shopify)
NOTE: Once Shopify Integration is activated in CheckIn, all additions and modifications to products or collections for your business should take place in CheckIn. However, fulfilling / processing Orders should happen in Shopify.
To Setup Your Shopify Integration
First, login to Shopify and get your Shopify store name.
Put that here:
Next, go back to Shopify to setup the configuration.
First, you must create a CheckIn Developer App within Shopify to obtain an API Access Token:
- In Shopify, goto to the Settings section and click on Apps and sales channels.
- Next at the top right of this section click on Develop apps
- Now click the Create an app button. Enter the name CheckIn then click Create App
- You should now be in the App Development > CheckIn App
- Click on the Configuration tab
- Click on the Configure button for the Admin API Integration.
- Now Select EVERY access scope available. There will be about 38 to click on. When done click the Save button
- Now go to the API Credentials tab and click on the Install app button you see in the first section called Access tokens.
- Click the Install button on the window that pops up.
- Now in the Admin API access token section at the top click Reveal token once in order to see your token. (You can only reveal this token once. If you do not copy it at the first go, you won’t be able to see the token again. This will result in you having to repeat the stops above.)
- Copy the Token
- Go into CheckIn > Admin > Shopify tab and paste the token into the API Access Token field.
- Enter 2024-01 in the API Version field
- Click on the Log API Calls flag at first. Once you find that the integration is working nicely, you can uncheck this.
- If you want the cost and price updated on Shopify any time you change it in Check, click on the Update Cost/Price flag
- Click on Test Access. You should get a successful dialog box. If you get an error, please contact CheckIn support
- Next, make sure that your CheckIn store location names match the locations specified in Shopify by clicking on the “Click Here to Do That” in CheckIn
Make sure that you have a matching Location in Shopify for each location you have in CheckIn.
Click on the Check Shopify Locations. If all is setup correctly, you will see that Shopify Location IDs are now present in CheckIn
If the Log API Calls? checkbox is selected, click to uncheck it. This feature is used by the CheckIn development team to debug any issues that may arise with Shopify.
If you want CheckIn to push any cost and price changes to Shopify, click the Update Cost/Price checkbox. Because some CheckIn customers may want to have different pricing listed on Shopify, CheckIn does not automatically update the Shopify price when the CheckIn price is changed. You need to select this setting for it to do that.
Pulling Down Products
If you have been using Shopify for some time, your next step will be to click the Pull Down Shopify Products button. If you are new to Shopify, you don't need to do this.
Depending on your product count, this process could take several hours. Current calculations are that it takes about 60 minutes per thousand records. During this time, you will not have the ability to use CheckIn from the computer you have triggered the Product Pull from.
To check the number of products on your Shopify, you can click the Get Product Count button.
To start the pulling down process, simply click the Pull Down Shopify Products button. You will be prompted for the starting product id. On the first go, you will simply enter 0. Please note that this will pull ALL products, regardless of whether it is set to Active, Draft, or Archived.
When pulling down products from Shopify, the integration will do the following:
First, it will check to see if the product has been downloaded from Shopify already. It does that by looking for the Shopify primary key in CheckIn. If it's not found, it's safe to assume that the product hasn't been pulled from Shopify.
Despite that, the product still might exist in CheckIn. So CheckIn does check to see if the product can be found by searching Product_Code, Barcode_UPC and Old Barcode Field. If it finds an exact match, Checkin will link the Shopify product to that product in CheckIn.
NOTE: IF YOU SELL IN FACTIONAL UNITS ON SHOPIFY, BEFORE PULLING DOWN PRODUCTS, make sure you define your Default Base Selling Unit in the corresponding department in CheckIn. Failure to do this will result in product cost, pricing and stock to be incorrect.
(Note, If you use Sew Much Commerce on your Shopify site, this also applies to you and you MUST set the Default Base Selling Unit for each department that will be sold as fractional units!)
Setting up CheckIn to Sync with Your Shopify
The most powerful feature with CheckIn's Shopify integration is the syncing of Products, Collections, Customers and Orders.
To activate the syncing, CheckIn uses a server-side script that runs every 15 minutes. This process will automatically trigger CheckIn to find products in CheckIn that have changed or are new and push those changes to Shopify. It will also push up any Collections created in CheckIn. Lastly, it will pull down Orders and the customers on the orders into CheckIn.
There are a couple of things you must do prior to turning on the activation.
IMPORTANT - If you are integrating a Shopify store that has been active, you need to specify the Last Order Pulled in the Shopify Settings. To get the last order id that was pulled, you need to login to Shopify, go to orders and click on the most recent order.
When you do this, the url at the top of your browser will reveal the order id. Please see image below:
Copy this number and paste it into the Last Order Pulled field in CheckIn. See image below:
Activating the Shopify Syncing for CheckIn.
Go to your CheckIn server computer and log in to the Claris FileMaker Server Admin Console and perform the following steps:
- After logging in, click on Configuration and then on Script and Verify Schedules.
- Next, click on Create Schedule
- For Schedule Type, leave it at FileMaker Script
- For Schedule Name, enter Shopify Sync
- For Database, select CheckIn. For Account, click on Account Name and Password. Enter in your CheckIn Account name and Password.
- For FileMaker Script, select the serverside_Shopify_sync
- For Scriptparameter, enter the Store ID of the location/store you want to Sync. NOTE: If you have multiple stores, you will need to setup a schedule for each store
- For Repeat, select Daily. Leave Start Date as is. Under Time, select Between and specify the time range you want CheckIn to be syncing with Shopify. Lastly, for Repeat Every, enter in 15 minutes.
- Click Save
Checkin is now set to automatically sync with Shopify.
Flagging Products to be synced to Shopify
When you create a product in CheckIn, it is not automatically flagged to be on Shopify. You must tell CheckIn that you want the product on Shopify.
To set up a product to be on Shopify, do the following.
Go to the Product in CheckIn. You should see a Shopify button on the top right. Click on it.
To flag the product to be on Shopify, click the Put on Shopify check box.
Upon doing this, you will see that several fields are automatically filled in.
Adjust the information to fit what you want to see on Shopify. IMPORTANT, if you want the product to be available to order from customers on Shopify, make sure you change the Status to Active
Unfortunately, you cannot specify Collections until the product has been added to Shopify.
Creating Collections
Collections are a way to group products on Shopify. Collections should be managed in CheckIn.
To create a Collection, go to the Product Dashboard, click More and then click Define Collections. A list of Collections will appear.
Click on a Collection to modify it.
Click on New Collection to create a new collection.
Make sure the Publish on Shopify checkbox is selected.
NOTE: A collection cannot be selected for a Product until after the Product is created on Shopify.
Adding Multiple Products to a Collection
There is a super powerful way to add multiple products to a Shopify Collection. To do this, simply perform a search to find the products you want to add to a collection.
For Instance, find all Products that are in the Fabric Department and are on Shopify:
After performing the Find, you will have a list of Found Records.
Click on Options > Assign Foundset to Existing Shopify Collection
You will then be presented with a window where you can select the Collection.
When you select the Collection and click the Add to Foundset, CheckIn will go through each product record in the foundset and add the collection. These products will then be flagged to update on Shopify.
Please allow up to 15 minutes for you to see the changes on Shopify.
Processing Orders in Shopify
Orders placed on Shopify will be pulled down into CheckIn, however, you will not be able to process the order from within CheckIn.
You will need to use Shopify's interface to process your orders.
The the Checkin Syncing integration will update the downloaded orders in CheckIn as you process them in Shopify.
Things to Know
Gift Cards/Certificates are NOT synced. If you have a gift certificate/gift card that was sold in CheckIn, it can NOT be used on your Shopify web site at this time. Inversely, if a gift certificate/card is purchased in Shopify, it cannot be used in CheckIn.
To remove a product from Shopify, simply change the status in CheckIn to Draft or Archived
Do NOT add products or collections via the Shopify interface if you are using the CheckIn-to-Shopify integration
Taxes are calculated in Shopify, however, a product is flagged as taxable or not in CheckIn
Shipping is calculated in Shopify, therefore, it is important to specify product weight in CheckIn
You can jump right to products or orders in Shopify via buttons that appear in CheckIn once the product is added and once the ordered is pulled down.
Changes that happen in CheckIn to products should automatically flag your product to be updated on Shopify. Remember that it may take up to 15 minutes before the change gets pushed to Shopify.
When receiving an Order in Shopify, if the products on that Order are not in CheckIn, the Order will not be pulled down into CheckIn.
If you want to see Shopify and/or PayPal payments in your End of Day report, please add those as payment buttons. Example:
