Note
Xentral is compatible with all Shopware 6 versions up to and including Shopware 6.5.
This interface allows you to connect Xentral to Shopware 6 to import sales orders from there into Xentral and manage your products sold in the shop in Xentral.The connection is done via an API interface (shop importer).
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E-commerce retailers who want to use Xentral as a PIM for the central maintenance of product master data.
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E-commerce retailers who want to map complex shop structures, e.g. multiple sales channels for B2C or B2B with different price groups.
Functionalities included
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Import sales orders: Automatically import customer sales orders from Shopware into Xentral, including products and quantities as well as sales order positions, shipping method and payment method.
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Granular sales order import control : Ability to narrow the import by sales order status and optionally by delivery and payment status.
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Update sales order status: Change sales order status upon shipment and transmit tracking number to Shopware.
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Transfer payment status: Synchronization of the payment status of orders from Xentral to shopware.
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Invoice Transfer: Transfer of invoices to imported sales orders to Shopware.
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Product and image export: Export of products including product data and images from Xentral to Shopware, also to targeted sales channels of Shopware 6.
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Export product properties and checkboxes: Transfer of specific product properties and free fields from Xentral to Shopware.
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Export product tree: One-time export of the product tree from Xentral to Shopware (without synchronization of subsequent changes).
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Export product units : Transmission of product units from Xentral to Shopware.
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Synchronize stock: Automatic updating and synchronization of current stock numbers in case of inventory changes.
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Transfer cross-selling links: Transfer of cross-selling links of the products to Shopware.
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Transmit SEO paths: Transferring SEO paths for better search engine discovery.
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Invoice and delivery note generation: Creation of invoices and delivery notes in Xentral with a dedicated number range and automatic printing/sending in the shipping process.
The following features are not supported or are only supported with limitations:
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No import of the product tree from Shopware 6: The product tree cannot be transferred from Shopware 6 to Xentral.
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No synchronization of the product tree of Shopware 6: The product tree can be transferred from Xentral to Shopware 6 once, but subsequent changes are not synchronized.
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No representation of split partial sales orders: Partial sales orders or partial deliveries split into Xentral are not displayed as split sales orders in Shopware 6.
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No automatic refund for cancellations: Xentral can report cancellations as status back to Shopware 6, but no automatic refund is triggered in Shopware.
First of all, you need to create a user for the importer in Shopware under Settings > System > Users & Rights. While it is possible to use an existing user, a user specific to the interface to Xentral is strongly recommended.
Under Administration > Shop Interface > Overview > NEW you create a new shop and select the module Shopware 6.
After selecting Shopware 6, the next step is to enter the necessary data to connect the two systems.
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Username → Username of the user in Shopware created for the interface
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Password → Password of the user in Shopware created for the interface
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Shop API URL → Shop URL + /api, e.g. http://www.meinshop.de/api
One difference is if you are using Shopware 6 cloud, because no usernames are assigned here, where the email address is considered the username.
Important:
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In the field "Password" you enter the actual password of the user, not the API Key. The API Integration Key (API access key) from Shopware 6 can be created if necessary, but the user name and password must always be used for the connection.
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Depending on whether the store URL starts with http:// or https://, the full URL must be entered correctly. The API interface may not be able to redirect completely from https:// to http:// or vice versa.
Once the data has been entered, you can test the connection between the two systems using the Check Connection button.If the connection is successful, you will receive the message "Connection: success" or the ID and name of the Shopware subshops.
To get started as quickly as possible, only a few settings and actions are required. You can find out what is necessary for a quick start with order import, stock number comparison and feedback of tracking numbers here.
In this section you will be explained the possible settings in the shop interface.
When you open the settings of the Shopware 6 interface, you first end up in the tab Details → Interface.
Settings:
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Designation → Name freely selectable for the shop (displayed e.g. in the product and in the import menu)
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Active → Set checkmarks for the interface to be active. You can set interfaces that are no longer needed to inactive
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Project → Linking the shop to a project. In the project you can adjust the logistics settings
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Pick-up Mode → With Shopify you can pick up from a specific date
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Import mode → Defines whether the sales orders from the shop should be imported manually (with the push of a button) or automatically
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Demo (for testing) → The sales order status in the shop is not changed. No products or stock quantity are transferred
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Manually (with import center) → The sales orders are not fetched until the Fetch Orders button is clicked
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Automatically (via process starter) → Sales orders are fetched automatically by the shop on a regular basis. The shop importer process starter is required for this
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Only 1 sales order per request → Only 1 sales order per request is transferred from the shop
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Sales Orders in Intermediate Table → When fetching the sales orders, the sales orders are not created directly, but are first saved in an intermediate table for viewing. Here you can decide which sales orders should be created and which should be imported later
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Limit quantity fetch → Ability to limit incoming sales orders at once. If nothing (0) is in it, the default limit of 100 applies
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Logging in logfile → By checking the box you activate the logfile and the information is logged in it
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Shop Version >= 6.4.0 → Check this box if your Shopware shop version is 6.4.0 or higher
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Username → Username of the user in Shopware created for the interface
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Password → Password of the user in Shopware created for the interface
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Shop API URL → Shop URL + /api, e.g. http://www.meinshop.de/api
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Default Manufacturer → To transfer a product to Shopware, a manufacturer must be passed along. If you have not defined a manufacturer in the product, the importer will fall back to the manufacturer set here. By default, the manufacturer will be "No Manufacturer Information" to indicate that there is no information.
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Create manufacturer → If a used manufacturer of Xentral does not already exist when exporting products to Shopware 6, it is created, otherwise the respective manufacturer is mapped to Shopware.
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Default price group name → A price group must be passed to transfer a product. You can set the price group to be used in the shop here.
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Xentral Product Properties → You can decide whether the product properties from Xentral are created as properties in Shopware, created as additional fields or not
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Xentral Product Free fields → You can decide whether the product free fields from Xentral are created as properties in Shopware, created as additional fields or not transferred
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Default Visibility → Name of the sales channel from Shopware. All products that are transferred to Shopware but not assigned to a specific sales channel by property are added to the default sales channel. Again, you must be case-sensitive. Separated by commas, you can also enter multiple sales channels here, so that products are added to all channels entered by default.
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Media Folder for product images → The folder for product images from the Shopware Shop
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Sales order status to fetch → Xentral fetches sales orders that have this status in Shopware. Possible values are open; in_progress; completed or cancelled
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Limit to Delivery Status → Xentral only fetches sales orders that have the status set in Shopware under "Sales order status to be fetched" and also this delivery status. Possible values here are open; shipped_partially; shipped; returned; returned_partially or cancelled
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Limit to payment status → Xentral only fetches sales orders that have the status set under "Sales order status to be fetched" in Shopware and also this payment status. Possible values here are open; paid; authorized; paid_partially; refunded; refunded_partially; reminded or cancelled. Multiple values are also allowed for the field, which must be separated with a ";".
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Narrow to Sales Channel → This allows you to narrow down the importer to a specific Sales Channel. You can get the ID of the Sales Channel by clicking Check Connection
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Get number of sales orders → The number of sales orders fetched from Shopware when clicking on fetch sales orders
Action:
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Check connection → Checks connection between both systems
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Fetch orders → Get sales orders from your store.
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Shop Import Intermediate Table → Jumps to the intermediate table of sales orders from the shop. The intermediate table is filled only in manual import mode and when the 'Sales orders in intermediate table' option is enabled.
In the intermediate table, select between "Import", "Trash" and "Later" in the left column.
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Import: Sales order is imported directly
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Trash: Sales order ends up in the trash and cannot be imported a second time
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Later: Sales order can be imported at a later date
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Transfer product tree → Transfer product tree from Xentral to Shopware 6 Shop
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Import old sales orders → Old sales orders are loaded into the clipboard where you can decide again whether the sales orders should be imported
You can learn more about using each action in the Workflows section.
Information about this tab can be found here.
Information about this tab can be found here.
Information about this tab can be found here.
Free fields of a product can be transferred from Xentral to Shopware 6 if you define the additional fields in the product under "Free fields" yourself. To make this option available, you must first create the free fields in Shopware.
In the first step, a custom field set is required.
In the next step, you create the actual custom fields. You can create a new additional field via the button "New additional field".
The technical name is particularly important here, as it is later required for mapping.
Afterwards, you can create a free field in Xentral using the Free Fields tab to export it to Shopware.
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Free field Xentral → Selecting the free field using the dropdown Menu
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Designation in Shop → Name of the text field in the shop (Technical name)
By clicking Save you create a new free field.
In the product master files under parameters and free fields you can then fill the free field with a value.
The free field appears in the shop after an product export as follows:
Information about this tab can be found here.
Information about this tab can be found here.
In order for a price group to be transferred from Xentral to Shopware, the group must have the correct mapping to a price rule in Shopware. You must take the name of the price rule 1:1 from Shopware. Xentral cannot create price rules by exporting a product, you must create them in Shopware. Then you can create a price on this price group in the master data of a product and it will arrive in Shopware as a price (belonging to a price rule) when exported.
Note
Currently, only EUR prices can be transferred.
A correct mapping of price groups from Xentral to price rules in Shopware 6 could look like this:
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In the Groups of Xentral module, you create two price groups.
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In the shop interface, the price groups in the Basic Mapping tab are mapped to Shopware price rules. You have to exactly adopt the description of the price rule in Shopware.
For comparison, the pricing rules in Shopware look like this:
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Under Administration > Online Shops / Marketplaces > Shopware 6 > Settings you need to check the box "Transfer scale prices".
Learn more about using Smarty in this article: Smarty at Shopimporter.
Information about this tab can be found here.
It is possible to import products from the shop to Xentral.
When transferring the products to Xentral, different data are imported.
This data is available for main and variant products:
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Product name
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Product number, if this is set
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Standard UK price
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Pseudo price
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Active/ Inactive
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Remaining quantity/ sales
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Value added tax
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Manufacturer number
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EAN
Note
No external numbers are needed for the product if the product numbers / SKUs are identical to the product numbers in Shopware.
This data is only available for main products:
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Description
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Weight
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Manufacturer
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Properties
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Free field if mapping is set
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Images
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Variants
Certain information is transferred with each import, i.e. regardless of the settings and whether the product already exists.
The following functions are always transferred:
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EAN
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Pseudo prices
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Active/ Inactive
The remaining data is imported only for newly created products or if the importer settings specify that existing products should be overwritten.
The product import from Shopware 6 can only be seen as a basis for an product base, so you would need to enrich the product import accordingly via the import/ export center.
A general guide on how to import center from an online store to Xentral can be found here.
The following process starter is required to import the articles: Article import/getarticles. It may still need to be activated in the process starter module.
Note
Depending on the amount of products you want to import, this process can take a few hours or even days, so since the process runs in the background, you can continue to work in your instance during the process.
Learn how to export products from Xentral to Shopware 6 here.
Note
In order for translations into other languages to be transferred to Shopware, e.g. for product descriptions and product descriptions, you must have already created the language into which you want to translate in Shopware. This can be done in Shopware in the Settings → Languages menu.
In Shopware 6, you can divide products into different sales channels to channel and categorize sales, and to transfer products from Xentral directly to a specific Shopware 6 sales channel, you can use the product properties.
In the product, you can create a property under "Properties" that must be called shopware6_sales_channel. In the value, you must specify the exact name of the sales channel to which the article should be added after exporting to Shopware. Note also the case-sensitive letters.
All products that are transferred to Shopware but are not assigned to a specific Sales Channel by property are added to the default Sales Channel.
You can define this in the interface itself in the "Standard Visibility" field – the name of the sales channel must also correspond exactly to the one in Shopware. Also note the case sensitivity. Separated by a comma, you can also enter multiple sales channels here, so that products are added to all entered channels by default.
In the Cross-selling app from Xentral, you can link products to similar products or accessory products, either in the app itself or in the Cross-selling tab in the master data of a products.
These links are also exported to Shopware 6 when the product is exported, so that the correct similar products and accessory products are suggested to the end customer when purchasing. In Shopware 6, you can create and name crossselling groups, i.e. different types of crossselling, for this purpose. When exporting products from Xentral to Shopware, all assignments are always deleted and completely reset in the transferred items.
This assignment can be found in Shopware in the product under "Cross Selling" (Xentral assignment is a placeholder for the name of the crossselling group here).
The cross-selling groups that Xentral creates in Shopware 6 are static. Accessory links are always called "Accessories" and similar products are always called "Similar". If cross-selling groups are already randomly named exactly as such in Shopware, you must rename them so that there are no conflicts when exporting products.
Important
In order for the cross-selling links to be transferred correctly, the associated products must already exist in Shopware 6 and have a valid product number. If you want to export brand new products that do not yet exist in the shop to Shopware with cross-selling links, it is recommended to transfer these products completely to Shopware and then create the cross-selling links of the products in Xentral.
You can find out how to synchronize the stock numbers here.
If you have a lot of different products in your store (>10,000), syncing stock numbers can take some time. This can cause outdated stock numbers to appear in your store. You can increase the speed of syncing by just transferring stock numbers and prices to the store.
Follow these steps to optimize the synchronization of stock numbers:
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Navigate to
Settings > Sell > Shops/Markets and open your Shopware 6 interface.
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Open the Details tab and then the Preferences tab.
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Check Allow stock numbers to be transferred. This will enable stock numbers to be synchronized. Furthermore, this will transfer prices to the shop if product transfers are disabled.
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Make sure that the following options are disabled:
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Allow product transfer
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Transmit images
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Transfer properties
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Transfer categories
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Transfer variants
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Transfer cross-selling
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Transfer scale prices
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Click Save.
Once you have set up your interface in this way, the shopware6_bulkjob process launcher will be activated. Each time the stock numbers or prices change, an entry will be created on a list. This list will then be transferred to your Shopware 6 shop every 15 minutes through the process launcher. If necessary, you can edit the transfer interval in the Process Launcher app.
Note
In addition, the stock numbers process starter must be active for the correct transfer of the stock numbers.
The collected asynchronous sending of the data makes it easier for Shopware 6 to process the data and relieves your Xentral instance.
Importing sales orders from online stores is described in this article.
By default, Xentral imports sales orders with the status "open" from Shopware 6. If necessary, a different status can also be picked up. You can specify whether only sales orders with a specific delivery or payment status should be imported. Lastly, you can also specify to which status the sales orders in Shopware 6 should be switched after they have been picked up by Xentral and after they have been finished processing in Xentral. Cancellations can also be reported back and set to a specific status in Shopware 6.
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Sales order status to fetch → Xentral fetches sales orders that have this status in Shopware. Possible values are open; in_progress; completed or cancelled
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Limit to Delivery Status → Xentral only fetches sales orders that have the status set in Shopware under "Sales order Status to be fetched" and also this delivery status. Possible values are open; shipped_partially; shipped; returned; returned_partially or cancelled
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Limit to payment status → Xentral only fetches sales orders that have the status set in Shopware under "Sales order Status to be fetched" and also this payment status. Possible values are open; paid; authorized; paid_partially; refunded; refunded_partially; reminded or cancelled
Warning
Note that the "fetch" and "in progress" statuses should never be identical, otherwise the system will import the same job over and over again.
Xentral picks up all sales orders in the sales order status "open" and then sets the sales order status "in progress" - after the goods have been shipped, the sales order status is changed to "completely delivered", the total payment status being set from "open" to "completely paid".
The only exception is for cancellations, i.e. if the sales order is cancelled before it is handed over to the warehouse, for example, where the sales order status is changed to "cancelled".
Note
Currently, the payment status is only reported back to the shop when the invoice for it has been created and not yet when the payment status has received a green number light.
With the completion of a sales order in Xentral, e.g. by the parcel stamp printing in the dispatch center, the sales order status in the shop is set to "completed". This also triggers the invoice of the sales order created by Xentral to be transferred as a PDF to the shop. The invoice can be found in the sales order in Shopware 6 under "Documents".
Note
The invoice can only be transferred to the shop if it already exists at the time the sales order is completed. If you have configured a logistics process so that an invoice document has not yet been created by Xentral when the sales order is completed, the invoice cannot be uploaded to Shopware. If necessary, you can still export an invoice to Shopware after the order has been completed if the "Report Shop Status" action (action menu) is executed in the corresponding order.
Shopware cannot transfer a cash on delivery fee to Xentral separately.On the part of Shopware, the cash on delivery fee must be added to the shipping fee via the rule images.
In Xentral, the cash on delivery fee is then calculated out of the transport costs again on the basis of the stored cash on delivery product (Shopware 6 Interface > Settings) and shown in the sales order as shipping costs and cash on delivery fee split.
From Xentral, products and their properties can be transferred to Shopware 6. In the tab Properties in the master data of a product (Master Data > Product > Select Product > Properties), you can create new properties as well as translations of the properties.
It is possible to transfer multiple values to a property, and if there are multiple values to a property, they must be maintained as follows.
You can create a new property via "new property". To transfer properties, it is sufficient to create a new property for products and then export it to Shopware.
Note
The delivery time is deleted in Shopware 6 if it is left empty in Xentral.
The refill time can also be maintained via the properties on the product, the variable for which is "shopware6_restock_time".
In addition to the recovery time, minimum decrease, maximum decrease and staggering can also be transferred with the following variables:
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Minimum purchase: shopware6_min_purchase
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Maximum purchase: shopware6_max_purchase
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Staggering: shopware6_purchase_steps
The variable is linked to the product properties in Xentral and is only overwritten if the user explicitly creates the property in the product master data.
In Shopware, products have several units, such as the unit of measure, the unit of sale, the packaging unit, etc. These units can be created as properties in Xentral to fill them when exporting products to Shopware. The properties must be named as follows to be assigned to the units from Shopware:
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shopware6_unit → Unit of measurement
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shopware6_purchase_unit → Sales unit
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shopware6_reference_unit → Basic unit
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shopware6_pack_unit → Packaging unit
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shopware6_pack_unit_plural → Packaging unit plural
The entered value fills the unit in the Shopware. Alternatively, a free field mapping is possible in the tab Free fields in the shop interface.
Product units in Xentral are transferred by default to the "Unit of Measure" field of Shopware. This can be overridden with properties or a free field mapping. Then the value of the property corresponding to the Xentral unit goes into the field you set.
For the "unit of measurement" there is a special feature to note: In order for it to be found correctly, the corresponding unit must be created and exist as such in Xentral. For the example "Liter", this looks like this: The abbreviation of the unit must be in the "unit" field, not the written name. This is important so that the unit is assigned to the unit in Shopware when the item is exported and not recreated.
In Shopware 6, you can create SEO paths in products, which represent SEO-optimized URLs so that the product is better found in online search engines. A product can have its own SEO path per sales channel. You can also create these SEO paths in Xentral in the product so that they are transferred to Shopware when the product is exported.
For this purpose, a property named "shopware6_seo_url" is created in the Xentral in the product. The value stored in this property is transferred to Shopware as an SEO path. If a Sales Channel-specific SEO path is to be transferred, the name of the Sales Channel must be added in the name of the property after a hyphen, e.g. "shopware6_seo_url|Name of the Sales Channel". If multiple Sales Channel-specific SEO paths are created as properties, all are also transferred to Shopware.
If you create both a generally valid SEO path and Sales Channel-specific SEO paths, the specific SEO paths are exported in the sales channels addressed, and the generally valid one is exported to all other sales channels.
Alternatively, you can create a free field with the name "shopware6_seo_url" and map it to the corresponding field in Shopware 6. You can do this in the Shop Interface in the Free Fields tab.
It may happen that PayPal's payments are no longer matched, i.e. they have a different transaction number (tracking ID) in Shopware than in PayPal. This is because there are two types of such numbers in PayPal, from which the new number is used in Shopware 6. This number cannot be resolved via the old API.
You can solve the problem by entering the new credentials of the PayPal Plus API in the PayPal connection, and the corresponding instructions for the PayPalPlus API can be found here.
The meta description can be a maximum of 255 characters in Shopware 6. If your maintained meta description in Xentral is longer than these 255 characters, only the first 255 characters are transferred. The rest is simply cut away.
Shipping costs are automatically imported to Xentral. In Shopware, you can set shipping costs to postage-free above a certain purchase amount. After Xentral, the sales orders with postage costs are imported as normal with a postage product and its price. Postage-free sales orders are imported with the postage product, but this is listed at 0.00 EUR, so the sales order is postage-free for the customer.