Goal
After completing the steps from this article, you will be able to automate your processes, meaning all your orders will be picked up and imported automatically, with no need for review or approval.
Prerequisites
To automate order import from Shopify, you need to meet the following prerequisites:
- Connected Xentral with Shopify and imported your products from Shopify
- Set up your Xentral warehouse
- Create a specific project in Xentral for your shop orders
- Add payment methods that you offer to your clients in Payment methods
- Add your carriers in Shipping methods
- Create products for shipping costs and discounts in Master data > Product. For each of these products select either the Item is postage or Discounted item check boxes
Workflows
The following procedures describe best practices for automating order import from Shopify.
- Testing import from Shopify to Xentral
- Activating the warehouse synchronization
- Going live
Testing import from Shopify to Xentral
- Log into Shopify and create a test order. We recommend against using actual orders from your customers during the test phase.
- Log into Xentral, go to Administration > Shop Interface > Online Shop, and open your online shop.
- In the Settings tab, add your products that represent shipping costs and discounts. Save this change.
- In the interface tab, set the import mode to Manually (With import center). Use the Trial (for testing) mode only to check the connection.
- Select the Orders in intermediate table check box. This option allows you to perform additional checks before the actual import.
- In your shop, add the Shopify project in the Project field and click Save.
- Click the pickup orders button. You can check the orders in the intermediate table before you finally import them.
- Select the order that you want to import.
- Import your order and review it in Sales > Sales Order.
We recommend running test imports for each use case you expect (for example, different payment methods, carriers, discounts, and others). The orange pop-up warning in Xentral indicates that you need to map payment methods and carriers.
If you successfully performed the test import, you can deactivate the intermediate table. Once you deactivate it, you can import all existing orders directly to Sales > Sales Order without additional inspection.
Activating the warehouse synchronization
Note: Currently, Xentral can only send stock numbers to shops with one warehouse. For a multi-warehouse setup, Xentral can only send the information whether the product is sold out or not.
- Log into Xentral, and set up your warehouse in Fulfillment > Warehouse Management.
- Add your stock numbers to the warehouse.
- Go to Master data > Product > Open your product > Online shop options and select the Stock numbers sync button to activate the warehouse synchronization of your products.
Hint: You can activate the warehouse synchronization of multiple products by using the batch processing option (located below the product list). - Go to your online shop and select the Allow warehouse numbers to be transferred checkbox in the Settings tab.
- Check if the Lagerzahlen process starter is running.
Going live
After a successful test, you can fully automate the order import from Shopify to Xentral. Please ensure that all your Xentral users are familiar with your order workflow before automating the process.
To start the automated import process:
- Log into Xentral and go to Administration > Shop Interface > Online Shop and open your online shop.
- Update the import mode from Manually (With import center) to Automatically (via process starter).
- Ensure you activated the Shopimport process starter. This process should run at 15-minute, or longer intervals.