Changelog

When you install Ablestar Bulk Product Editor you are shown a screen in the Shopify admin where you can grant the app permission to access specific parts of your store. We've added two new permissions that we need in order to support newer APIs: read_publications and write_publications.

These permissions will allow us to continue supporting setting the visibility of products on Shopify POS through the app.

If you are the store owner, the next time you log in to the app you may be prompted to update these permissions. Staff and collaborator accounts will not be redirected because they might not have the permission to accept these access scopes on behalf of your store.

Learn more about the permissions required by Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

You can use Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to modify the related and complimentary products in Shopify's Search & Discovery app. Now, this option is listed in the Integrations section of the app. In order to enable or disable this integration navigate to Settings -> Integrations and click on the toggle next to 'Shopify Search & Discovery'.

Enabling the integration will result in a reload of the app and then you should see the options in the field selector when configuring your edits.

Learn more about bulk editing Shopify Search & Discovery fields.bulk editing Shopify Search & Discovery fields

You can now automatically create URL redirects when bulk editing your Shopify product handles. Used with placeholders, this can be an easy way to update your product URLs to match your titles, all the while maintaining your SEO.

This change is being gradually rolled out to stores over the next few weeks. Please contact us if you would like it enabled sooner.

Learn more about matching Shopify product URLs to titles.

Over the next few week we will be migrating all stores to use Shopify's GraphQL APIs to handle product data. This migration will allow the app to keep building on new Shopify features including the upcoming increases to the variant limits. This switch should be seamless for users and no action is required on your part.

This change involved a major rewrite of the app's code and we are closely monitoring our logs to ensure everything continues to run smoothly. If you do happen to encounter an issue with an edit please let us know and we will take a look right away.

You can now use placeholders in wildcard redirects. This allows you to redirect a URL like /store/[ANY TEXT] to /products/[ANY TEXT]. This can be especially useful for migrations when the structure of your URLs are changing to Shopify's format.

And as was the case before, wildcard redirects with Ablestar Link Manager do not a flicker of the '404 error page' like other apps could.

Learn more about wildcard redirects on Shopify.

After you run an edit you can download a detailed CSV file of the edit by clicking on the Export Log button. This CSV file will now include the time that the individual variant was modified and the time that modification was undone (if available). This will give you more visibility into exactly when a product was modified and make it easier to track down unexepected changes to product data.

Previously you could set fixed prices in Shopify Markets with a spreadsheet edit. Now you can also remove those fixed prices if you need to. To remove them, just leave the cell for the fixed price blank and the app will delete them from Shopify Markets.

Learn more about editing Shopify Markets price lists with a spreadsheet.

With Ablestar Bulk Product Editor you can bulk edit your products from almost any spreadsheet as long as the first column can be used to identify the products or variants you want to change.

We've made some performance improvements so that spreadsheet edits where the first column is the variant's barcode will run faster. This will be especially noticeable on larger stores with over 10,000 variants.

Learn more about editing Shopify products by spreadsheet.

We've added a Cancel Import button to the app so you can cancel and import before it completes. This will stop the current import and return you to the 'Manage Import' screen and can be helpful if the data is transferring incorrectly or if the order import is causing side-effects with other apps.

Learn more about canceling WooCommerce Imports to Shopify.

Ablestar Link Manager now includes a weekly email report to track broken links on your store. The report will tell you the number of website visits to broken links as well as the number of internal broken links discovered in a site scan.

The reports are sent out Monday mornings.

You can turn on the report and configure the recipients in the settings section of the app.

Previously, when you exported metaobject reference metafields (ie, a metafield that points to one or more metaobjects), that metaobject would appear in your spreadsheet in the following form: gid://shopify/Metaobject/1234567890. This is known as the 'GID' format and is an ID that uniquely identifies the metaobject.

Now, instead of seeing the metaobject in the GID format you will see the metaobject's handle in your spreadsheet. This is a lower-case text in the format my-metaobject-handle. The GID is unique across all Shopify stores while the Metaobject handle is just unique all metaobject entries of the same type.

In addition to being easier to read, this will allow you to copy metaobject references from one store to another as the handles can be the same on both stores (but not the GIDs).

When running a spreadsheet edit, the app will accept metaobject references in either the GID or handle format.

Learn more about bulk editing metaobject references in Shopify.

Ablestar Bulk Product Editor can download files from an FTP server on a recurring basis. Many Shopify stores use this feature to keep their prices, inventory or other data up-to-date.

We've improved the way that wildcards are handled so that the app will always download the most recent version of the matching file. For example, ftp://user:[email protected]/STOCK_UPDATE_*.csv will use the most recent file available each time it is run.

Learn more about syncing your Shopify data from an FTP server.

When you setup a Google Shopping feed in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor you can limit it to products that match certain filters. If the feed exports daily, it's possible that one day no products will match the filters and so there would be no products to include in the Google Shopping feed.

Previously, if this was the case, the URL for the Google Shopping feed would continue to show the last version of the feed that had products in it. Now, if there's no products that match the filters, the Google Shopping feed will be updated with a blank Google Shopping feed file (that includes the required headers). This will prevent products that no longer exist from being listed in Google Shopping.

Learn more about creating a Google Shopping feed for Shopify.

We've updated the layout of the Code snippets page to show a wider code editor. Now, when you're using the Code snippet editor on a smaller screen, such as a laptop, the code editor will span the full width of the screen with the preview information shown below. This should make it easier to read the lines of code without having to continously scroll back and forth.

Learn more about editing products with code snippets.

When you run an edit that only updates inventory levels the Bulk Product Editor is able to take advantage of a different Shopify API and will update inventory levels in batches of 100. This is significantly faster than updating them one-by-one.

Previously, if you undid an inventory level edit, the app would go through the inventory levels one-by-one to revert them. Now, undoing an inventory level edit will also process the inventory levels in batches of 100, leading to faster inventory level edit undos.

If you have difficulties with undoing an inventory level edit you can also click on Export Log to download a CSV file of the previous inventory levels and then create a new spreadsheet edit using that.

When editing prices with a spreadsheet the app will no longer accept prices with a space in between the numbers. If you upload a spreadsheet with a number like "1 234" and try to edit the price, compare-at price or cost fields, the app will show an error instead of trying to process the number:

This will ensure that the prices are updated as intended and will prevent upstream data issues from affecting your pricing.

You can now edit, export, and import ShipperHQ fields with Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. This allows you to quickly and safely manage ShipperHQ fields like such as Origins, Shipping Groups, and Dimensions. To see the ShipperHQ field you will need to enable the integration under Settings -> Integrations. After doing so, the app will show the ShipperHQ fields whenever you edit, export or import data.

Learn more about bulk editing ShipperHQ fields in Shopify.

When you create Shopify products from a spreadsheet you can have the columns named whatever you want, you don't need to rename them to match a specific convention. Then, when you upload the spreadsheet you can choose which columns matches to which field.

To make this process easier we have an auto-detect button which will attempt to match the column names with the Shopify fields for you. We've made several updates to this auto-detect function to save you more time, especially with detecting image, metafield and Google Shopping fields.

Learn more about how to import products to Shopify with a spreadsheet.

We're very pleased to announce that now the Ablestar Link Manager is now 'Built for Shopify'. According to Shopify, the "Built for Shopify status is the highest level of recognition and achievement that an app can reach" and requires the app to meet specific design and performance standards. With this milestone you can be sure that the app has very low impact on your store's speed and will function well within the Shopify admin.

Learn more about Ablestar Link Manager on the Shopify App Store.

We've added several more frequency options for when you generate repeating product exports. Now when you create a repeating export you can have it run:

• Every 4 hours
• Every 12 hours
• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly

This should help stores that need to keep their data or product export feeds more up-to-date. Learn more about creating repeating product exports in Shopify.