Move from staging to production with the app

Summary

Move from staging to production

This section provides guidance on how to transition from the staging PIM to the production PIM with the Akeneo App for Shopify. Depending on your setup, there are different approaches to ensure smooth product synchronization and avoid product duplication in your Shopify store.

Incorrect connection between your staging and production environments may lead to product duplicates in your Shopify store. If duplicates occur in production, you will need to delete them from the Shopify store manually.

 

Separate databases for staging and production: please note that you access an app that can be connected to your staging and production PIMs. The app has its database with distinct product links for each PIM environment it's connected to. Therefore, product links created and stored in the app connected to your staging PIM will not be available in the database of the app connected to your production PIM.

 

Different scenarios for transitioning to production

On your production PIM, if you plan to connect the app to a new or different Shopify store, follow these steps:

  1. Set up your new Shopify store: Connect the app to your new Shopify store and ensure it is properly configured (step-by-step tutorial here).
  2. Start synchronizing products: Once the store is connected, you can begin synchronizing products from your Akeneo PIM. Since the store is empty, there will be no issue with duplication.

You can see how synchronization works on this page.

We recommend using a separate Shopify store for your production as it simplifies the transition, as there are no existing products to link. You can freely synchronize products without worrying about duplication.

 

 

If you used a Shopify store for the app connected to your staging PIM during the staging phase and want to connect the same Shopify store to the app connected to your production PIM, follow these steps to ensure proper product synchronization without duplication:

  1. Delete the store from the app connected to your staging PIM: In the app connected to your staging PIM, click ‘delete’ to remove the Shopify store. This is a crucial step to prevent errors when connecting the store to the app connected to your production PIM.
  2. Connect the store to the app connected to your production PIM: In the app linked to your production PIM, click ‘connect a new store’ and follow these steps to connect your Shopify store.
  3. Enable the pre-existing catalog feature: In the app, enable the pre-existing catalog feature (step-by-step tutorial here). This feature links the products that already exist in Shopify (created during the staging phase) to their corresponding PIM products in the production PIM.
  4. Synchronize products: When you perform the synchronization in production, the app will use this feature to match the Shopify products with their PIM counterparts, preventing duplicates.

You can see how synchronization works when the pre-existing catalog feature is enabled on this page.

Please make sure to remove the Shopify store from the app connected to your staging PIM before reconnecting it to the app linked to your production PIM.
If this step is skipped, you may encounter a 500 error when trying to configure the Shopify store in the production PIM app.
To resolve this error, simply remove the Shopify store from the app and reinstall it.
 

 

What to do if duplicates appear after synchronization without the pre-existing catalog feature?

If you've already launched a synchronization without activating the pre-existing catalog feature, and this resulted in duplicate products, you have two options to fix it:

  1. Delete all products and restart synchronization: Manually delete all products from your Shopify store and restart synchronization from the app connected to your production PIM. This will recreate the products without duplicates.
  2. Delete duplicates created by the app connected to your staging PIM: If you prefer not to delete everything, you can manually remove the duplicate products created during the staging phase.

Please note that you don't need to activate the pre-existing catalog feature for these two options.

 

 

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