Ablestar Changelog

'Product Type (Custom)' field renamed to 'Type'

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:54:24 +0000

We renamed the “Product Type (Custom)” field to just “Type” so it matches what you see in the Shopify admin. The old name was a holdover from when Shopify had two different product type fields, but that’s no longer the case. If you use this field in your edits or exports, everything works the same — it’s just labeled differently now.

Fix problems faster with 26 new error codes

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:22:15 +0000

When an edit or import runs into a problem, getting a clear explanation of what went wrong — and how to fix it — makes all the difference. We’ve added 26 new documented error codes so more of the issues you might hit while editing products now come with a plain-language description and concrete steps to resolve them.

The new codes cover a wide range of situations across products, variants, metafields, inventory, and the Shopify API, including:

More reliable product search for large catalogs

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 08:09:18 +0000

Product search is now more reliable for stores with very large catalogs. Previously, merchants with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of products could occasionally see searches time out, especially when applying filters across the entire catalog.

Searches now hold up consistently at that scale, so you can find the products you’re looking for without retries. No action is needed on your end — it just works better.

Improved handling of multi-row product edits in spreadsheets

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 13:38:49 +0000

We fixed an issue where spreadsheet edits could fail with a TOO_MANY_PARALLEL_REQUESTS_FOR_THIS_PRODUCT error from Shopify. This happened when your spreadsheet contained multiple rows targeting different variants of the same product — for example, updating prices for several SKUs that all belong to one product.

We’ve improved how these edits are grouped to avoid triggering Shopify’s product lock, making multi-variant spreadsheet edits more reliable.

Search filter for columns when configuring exports

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

You can now search and filter the list of available columns when setting up a product export. A new search input appears below the “Additional columns” heading in the export field selector, making it easy to find specific fields without scrolling through every section.

Quickly find any field. Start typing in the search input and all field checkboxes are filtered instantly across every section — Product attributes, Variant attributes, Inventory quantities, Google Shopping fields, Category metafields, Product metafields, Variant metafields, Shopify Markets, Shopify Markets Catalog, and ShipperHQ. Sections with no matching fields are hidden entirely, so you only see what’s relevant.

'Category Full Name' column in exports

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:01:50 +0000

Product exports now include a “Category Full Name” column that shows the complete category path for each product, such as “Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Shirts & Tops > T-Shirts”.

Previously, exports only included the “Category Name” column, which shows just the last part of the category (e.g., “T-Shirts”). While that is useful for quick reference, it can be ambiguous when different categories share the same leaf name. The new “Category Full Name” column gives you the full hierarchy so you can see exactly where each product sits in Shopify’s product taxonomy.

Handle uniqueness check for product imports

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 14:17:28 +0000

When creating products via a spreadsheet import, the import would fail if the product handle was already in use by another product in your store. This could be frustrating when importing products with handles that happen to overlap with existing ones.

We already had logic to handle this situation for bulk edits — automatically appending a random suffix to make the handle unique — but it was missing from the import path. Now, when creating products via import, the app automatically retries with a unique handle if a conflict is detected, matching the existing behavior for edits.

Search for products using everyday language

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:20:38 +0000

We’re rolling out a new AI search assistant that lets you find products using natural language instead of manually configuring filters. Just describe what you’re looking for in plain English and the assistant will automatically build the right search filters for you.

For example, you can type queries like:

“products with no description”
“variants priced over $50 that are out of stock”
“products tagged ‘sale’ created in the last 30 days”

The AI assistant interprets your query and converts it into the appropriate combination of search filters, saving you the time of setting them up individually.

Alternate download link for exports

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 16:33:23 +0000

When you click Download on a product export, an info banner now appears at the top of the page confirming that your download should begin automatically. If your browser’s pop-up blocker prevents the download from starting, the banner includes a direct fallback link you can click to download the file manually.

This banner appears on the Export Detail page, the Export History list page, and when downloading from the export logs table. You can dismiss the banner at any time using the close button.

New search filter: "Weight in grams"

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:34:10 +0000

There’s a new Weight in grams search filter that lets you filter products and variants by their weight, with all values normalized to grams for accurate comparisons.

This is different from the existing Weight filter, which uses the raw value in whatever unit the variant happens to be stored in. For example, a product weighing 500g that’s stored as 0.5 kg would not match a Weight filter for “greater than 400” — because the stored value is 0.5, not 500. The new Weight in grams filter converts all weights to grams automatically, so that same product correctly matches “greater than 400”.

Search and filter usability improvements

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 11:12:00 +0000

We’ve made several improvements to the product search and filtering experience to make it faster and easier to find the products you’re looking for.

New “Clear all” button. When you have active filters, a “Clear all” button now appears in the filter bar so you can reset everything in one click.

More discoverable filter matching. The option to switch between “Match all filters” and “Match any filter” was previously a small icon that was easy to overlook. It’s now a labeled dropdown button that clearly shows which mode is active and lets you switch with a single click.

Variant image field now available in exports

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:30:00 +0000

You can now include the Variant Image field when exporting products. This makes it easy to get a complete picture of your product data, including the specific image assigned to each variant.

To include variant images in your export, select the “Variant Image” field when configuring your export. The exported file will contain the image URL for each variant that has an image assigned.

This is especially useful if you need to review which variants have images, migrate product data between stores, or prepare a spreadsheet for re-importing with updated variant image assignments.

Improved edit log downloads for large edits

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Downloading edit logs for large edits is now faster and more reliable. Previously, requesting an edit log for an edit with a large number of products could cause the download to time out or fail silently. Now, for larger edits, the edit log is generated in the background and the download begins automatically once it’s ready.

While the log is being prepared, you’ll see a banner on the edit detail page letting you know that generation is in progress. Once the file is ready, the download starts automatically. A direct download link is also provided in case your browser’s pop-up blocker prevents the automatic download.

Clear broken link visits from Settings

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 11:26:38 +0000

We’ve added a new option on the Settings page to clear all broken link visits. This is useful after you’ve fixed broken links or added redirects and want to reset your analytics so they only reflect current issues.

Clearing broken link visits is permanent and cannot be undone.

New search filter: "contains whole word"

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:08:28 +0000

When filtering products by text fields like title, vendor, or product type, there’s a new comparison option: contains whole word.

Unlike the regular “contains” filter which matches any substring, “contains whole word” only matches when the search term appears as a complete word — meaning the characters immediately before and after it are not letters.

For example, searching for “old” with “contains whole word”:

Matches: “Old Navy”, “2-old-stock”, “old”, “My old product”
Does not match: “gold”, “golden”, “olden”, “bold”

This is useful when you want to find products with a specific word in the title without picking up unrelated products that happen to contain those letters as part of a longer word.

Metafield key case now matches the definition

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:08:05 +0000

When setting metafields, the app now preserves the original case of the namespace and key from the metafield definition. Previously, keys were always sent to Shopify in lowercase — for example, a metafield defined as custom.Fabric_Type would be set as custom.fabric_type.

Now when setting a metafield, the app will first match the case from the metafield definition, and then fall back to the case from any existing metafield values.

Note that Shopify does not change the case of a metafield key once it has been created. If you have existing metafields that were created with the wrong case, they will need to be exported, deleted, and recreated with the correct case.

Option to keep image on product when removing variant images

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:14:57 +0000

When removing a variant image using the in-app editor, you can now choose whether to also remove the image from the product itself.

Previously, removing a variant image would automatically remove that image from the product’s media gallery as well if it was not referrenced by another variant. Now, a new checkbox labeled “Also remove image from product” gives you control over this behavior. By default, the checkbox is enabled to match the previous behavior, but you can uncheck it to keep the image available on the product while only removing the variant association.

Updated UI for Email Reports and WooCommerce Importer

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 11:38:19 +0000

We’ve updated both the Email Reports and WooCommerce Importer apps to use Shopify’s latest UI library, Shopify Web Components.

These apps were previously using a React-based Polaris component library. They’ve now been updated to use Shopify’s official Web Components, bringing them in line with Shopify’s current frontend standards and providing a more consistent experience inside the admin.

There should be no functional changes as part of this update however if you notice any UI issues or anything that doesn’t look quite right, please let us know and we’ll get it fixed.

Shopify data sync improvements

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 09:22:12 +0000

We’ve updated the Settings -> Shopify data page to give you more insight into your data freshness. We added a new Sync type column so you can see which data updates Automatically (like Products) and which updates Periodically. We’ve also added a help banner to clarify how the app maintains your data.

Additionally, we’ve increased the frequency that we refresh data like collections and product categories.

Field name update: 'Inventory Level' is now 'Inventory Quantity'

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 09:18:05 +0000

We’ve renamed the “Inventory Level” field to “Inventory Quantity” to better align with Shopify’s official terminology. This change is purely cosmetic, everything works exactly the same as before, but it ensures a more consistent experience between our app and your Shopify admin and should make the field easier to find.

Updated UI with Shopify Web Components

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:13:47 +0000

We’ve updated the Link Manager app to use Shopify’s latest UI library, Shopify Web Components.

Previously, the app UI was built using a React-based Polaris component library. We’ve now switched to Shopify’s official Web Components to better align with Shopify’s current frontend direction and ensure a more consistent experience within the admin.

There should be no changes to functionality, but if you notice any UI issues or unexpected behavior, please let us know and we’ll address it right away.

Bulk edit variant images with the in-app editor

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:52:34 +0000

You can now set or remove variant images in bulk using the in-app editor. This is useful when you need to assign specific images to individual variants across many products - for example, assigning a “Red” variant to its corresponding red product image.

To use this feature:

Search for the products you want to update
Select “Variant Image” from the field dropdown in the Actions menu
Choose either “Set variant image” or “Remove variant image”
For setting an image, enter the image URL you want to assign
Preview the changes before running the edit

Add product options in bulk

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 12:00:04 +0000

You can now add a new option to multiple products at once using the in-app editor. This is useful when you need to introduce a new option like “Size” or “Material” across many products without editing each one individually.

To use this feature, search for the products you want to update, select “Add Product Options” from the Actions menu, and enter the option name and initial value. The preview will show you exactly which products will be updated before you run the edit.

File reference exports now use filenames instead of Shopify GIDs

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 18:24:54 +0000

Exports of file references and file reference metafields now return a comma-separated list of filenames rather than Shopify GIDs (for example, gid://shopify/MediaImage/...). This makes exported data much easier to read and is especially helpful when transferring data between stores, since filenames remain consistent even though GIDs differ between stores.

For imports, we continue to support all existing formats: Shopify GIDs, file URLs, or filenames.

Weekly reports now ignore 404s resolved by wildcard redirects

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:03:14 +0000

Weekly reports from Link Manager now exclude visitor error events when a broken link is successfully handled by a wildcard redirect. This keeps 404 reporting focused on real, unresolved errors. You can still view 404 pages that were handled by wildcard redirects directly within the app if you need that detail.

Clearer Variant Date Fields in Exports

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:28:12 +0000

We’ve renamed the variant date fields in exports to make it clearer whether a date applies to the product or to an individual variant.

Date Updated → Variant Date Updated
Date Created → Variant Date Created

Previously, both product and variant fields were labeled “Date Created,” which could cause confusion.

Datetime metafield edits now use your shop's timezone

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 11:11:41 +0000

When setting date time metafields, the app now uses your shop’s timezone instead of defaulting to UTC. This means if you set a datetime metafield to be 10:00 AM, it will use 10:00 AM in your store’s timezone, not UTC.

The date picker now displays which timezone you’re working in, and previously configured datetime edits will continue to work as before. This change makes it easier to set datetime meteafields at the right local time without having to manually calculate timezone offsets.

New price rounding options

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:22:30 +0000

We’ve added four new price-rounding options to make each type of operation explicit:

Round to nearest multiple
Round to nearest multiple (round up)
Replace last digit(s)
Replace last digit(s) (round up)

Previously, the ‘Round whole number’ option (still available for backwards compatibility) tried to cover two different behaviors. For example, when someone says “round to 9,” they usually mean set the last digit to 9, but when they say “round to 5,” they typically expect a multiple of 5.

Code freeze around Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2025

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 12:49:52 +0000

We’ll be implementing a code freeze from November 20 to December 5, 2025. During this time, we’ll only deploy critical fixes to our Shopify apps.

This pause helps ensure stability and reliability during the peak holiday shopping period when many stores experience their highest traffic and order volumes of the year. It also gives our team more focus to monitor performance and support merchants through Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Metafield namespaces and keys are case-insensitive

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:26:25 +0000

Namespaces and keys from metafields are now case-insensitive, in keeping with how Shopify manages metafields. Previously there was some inconsistency in how different parts of the app handled the case. This means that now a search on the metafield Custom.subtitle is the same as a search on the custom.subtitle metafield. Saved search, product rules and automated exports should be unaffected and function as before.

New preview display for price edits

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 10:07:54 +0000

We’ve changed the way that price changes are displayed to reduce confusion:

Previously we would display the old value of the price with a strikethrough but this could cause confusion because this is how the compare-at price is display on the storefront. The arrows should indicate the change in price value instead.

Learn more about running sales on Shopify with bulk edits.

Added support for 'unlisted' product status

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 08:30:29 +0000

Yesterday Shopify announced a new ‘unlisted’ product status. Unlisted products have a page on your storefront, but it can be accessed only with the product’s direct URL. In many ways this is meant to superceed the seo.hidden metafield and setting a product to ‘unlisted’ will hide it from collection pages and search results.

You can now use the unlisted status in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor for filtering and editing products.

Improved support for file reference metafields in spreadsheet edits

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 09:20:39 +0000

We’ve made several improvements to how the app handles file reference metafields in spreadsheet edits. Now, when you set a file reference metafield, you can enter any of the following:

File name (example.jpg)
URL (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0111/2222/2222/files/example.jpg?v=1759860081)
GID for the file (gid://shopify/MediaImage/123)

If you use a file name or a cdn.shopify.com URL from your own store, the app will connect the file reference to that existing file. Otherwise, the app will upload the provided URL to your files section and link the product to that new file.

Searching for specific items in list metafields

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 08:42:35 +0000

We’ve updated the way product search works for metafields that are a list of text (list.single_line_text_metafields) to make it easier to find similar values.

Now, you can use the ’equals’ comparison to match specific values in the list. For example, here we would find all products with ‘United States’, but not ‘United States Minor Outlying Islands’:

Previously, you could use the ‘contains’ comparison to filter lists but this would lead to both fields being matched.

Bulk edit Shopify Market prices without spreadsheets

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 09:06:11 +0000

You can now use an in-app edit to change Shopify Market prices. With this feature you can set fixed prices and compare-at price for different catalogs and use your own rounding rules.

Previously it was only possible to edit these using the spreadsheet edit feature of the app. Now that you can also do this with an in-app edit it should be easier to quickly apply rounding rules to your different markets.

New rounding option for price edits

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 07:05:20 +0000

We added a new rounding option labeled “Keep decimals, rounding down”. This will preserve two decimals in the final value, but always by rounding down. For example if the calculated value is 76.275, the usual output would be 76.28 but using this option you will get 76.27 instead. This gives more flexibility to those who need exact control over how the rounding works.

Learn more about rounding prices in Shopify.

Access a product's edit history directly from the search page

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:13:09 +0000

We’ve added two links to the product search result page to allow you to quickly view the product’s edit or price history:

This should make it faster to see all the changes for a particular product while using the app. As a reminder, you can also see the edit history directlyin the Shopify admin by clicking on More actions -> Edit history from a product’s detail page.

Improved error messages for edits

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 10:34:29 +0000

We’ve improved the way that edit errors are handled and displayed in the app. Now, they will show up as a bullet list with error codes that link to documentation, if available.

This should make it easier to identify and fix errors, especially related to setting metafields with different types of validations.

View a list of possible error codes in our knowledge base.

View edit history directly from the Shopify admin

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 09:23:47 +0000

In addition to adding an admin block for viewing price history, we’ve also added one to display the edit history for a product.

This allows you to see when the product was last modified without leaving your product detail pages in the Shopify admin.

Learn more about in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

View price history directly from the Shopify admin

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 09:21:01 +0000

You can now view a product’s price history directly from the Shopify admin. Just add ‘Price history’ block to your product or variant detail page and it will show up for all users.

The price history keeps track of all price changes made whether it’s through the app or outside. This helps audit changes and track down problems.

Learn more about viewing price history with Ablestar.

Updated top navigation bar for Ablestar Bulk Product Editor

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 09:25:35 +0000

We’ve updated the top navigation in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to make it match up with the new style in the Shopify Admin. The new navigation bar takes up less space than the old version, giving you more space to work and manage your products.

If you run into any issues using the new navigation bar please let us know.

Manage market prices directly from the Shopify admin product pages

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 10:02:58 +0000

You can add our new app‑embed block in Shopify Admin to display a dedicated card on each product or variant detail page. The card lets you set market‑specific prices and compare‑at prices right where you already manage the product, eliminating extra navigation and speeding up price adjustments.

The embed is great for quick spot‑checks: it surfaces both the active and compare‑at prices for every market (information the standard Shopify Markets view doesn’t show) and still offers a one‑click link to open the product in Markets Admin when you need more details.

Improved resource usage during bulk edits

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 09:56:30 +0000

Ablestar Bulk Product Editor now handles massive edits - those touching a million or more products - with dramatically lower memory consumption. The new engine allocates resources on demand and releases them sooner, keeping even the biggest jobs steady and predictable.

Because each large edit now occupies a smaller footprint, overall system load drops too. That means your own edits are far less likely to be slowed down by another store’s heavy task, giving everyone faster edits and greater reliability.

Product import logs now follow edit retention policy

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 09:47:44 +0000

Effective today, product import logs are automatically purged once they outlive your plan’s edit‑retention window, bringing imports into line with the existing policy for bulk edits and ensuring a consistent, predictable data‑lifecycle across the Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

We still preserve lightweight metadata for imports beyond that window; if you ever need details from an older import, just contact support and we’ll retrieve whatever is still available.

Bulk edit search engine visibility (seo.hidden)

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 09:57:58 +0000

You can now bulk edit the search engine visibility for products in Ablestar. Using the seo.hidden metafield you can quickly hide a set of products from search engines:

We’ve also added this field to the search filters so you can easily see if products are already being excluded from search engines.

Learn more about hidding products from search engines

Autodetecting 'SKU starts with' for spreadsheet edits

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 09:21:41 +0000

In spreadsheet edits the first column is used to identify the product that will be updated. When you upload a file, the app attempts to automatically detect this column for you. For example, if the data appears to be barcodes, it will set the ‘Search by’ field to ‘Barcodes’ for you.

We’ve improved the automatic detection to support situations where the first column is the start of a SKU. Now, if the first column contains the start of a SKU, but doesn’t match entire SKUs, the ‘Search by’ field will automatically be set to ‘SKU starts with’:

Add or Subtract Inventory Quantities with Spreadsheet Edits

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:07:53 +0000

It’s now easier to control inventory when you run a spreadsheet edit in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. When you set up a spreadsheet you’ll see two groups of inventory fields:

Set quantity - replaces the product’s inventory with the value in your spreadsheet.
Add quantity – adds (or subtracts) the spreadsheet value from the current inventory.

Need only one of those options? You can hide ‘Add quantity’ group under Settings → Integrations & Features.

Editing unit prices in bulk

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 09:33:15 +0000

We’ve added support for bulk editing unit prices. Now you can bulk edit this field with either an in-app edit or via spreadsheet. Unit pricing is a feature that currently only appears in European stores but it should be available to all stores this summer.

When editing unit prices with a spreadsheet you will need to include a JSON-formatted value that looks like this:

{"quantityUnit": "G", "quantityValue": 200.0, "referenceUnit": "KG", "referenceValue": 1}

Reorder Product Options in Bulk

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 09:27:17 +0000

You can now change the order of your product options with a bulk edit. For example, if your products have two options, Size and Color, you can now switch them so that Color is the first option. This can be helpful if you want to change the order in which customers see the options on your storefront.

To bulk edit the option order, we recommend doing a search for the value of the first option’s name. In the example above, we would do a search for ‘Option 1 Name = Size’ and then reorder the options for the matching products. This ensures that we’re only switching the order of the options for the products that have that option first.

Product Image and Media IDs Available for Export

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 09:07:22 +0000

You can now export media IDs for your products by selecting the Image IDs field when configuring your export:

The media IDs are formatted like gid://shopify/MediaImage/34407958315233 and can be used in file reference metafields. The media IDs include images, videos and 3d models.

Learn more about exporting products from Shopify

More supported fields for product imports

Tue, 27 May 2025 15:09:38 +0000

We’ve updated the product import section of the app to add support for the following fields:

Image Alt Texts
SEO Meta Title
SEO Meta Description
Standard Product Category

Learn more about creating products in Shopify.

Export updated and created dates for products and variants

Mon, 19 May 2025 14:19:36 +0000

We’ve added the following fields to the product export page:

Product Date Updated
Variant Date Created
Variant Date Updated

We already had the product’s ‘Date Updated’ field available but these additional fields should make it easier to identify exactly when variants were changed. When using the ‘updated date’ please keep in mind that inventory updates will also change this field. This means that if a product gets sold and the inventory decreases, the updated field will be changed.

Save and reuse product import configurations

Thu, 15 May 2025 09:49:35 +0000

You can now save and reuse product import configurations in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. The app would already remember previous mappings but explictly defining different presets should make it easier to import products from multiple suppliers.

You can save a new preset either on the page where you map the fields or on the page where you view the status of an import. Import configurations can also be renamed or deleted in the settings section of the app.

Faster product publication edits

Thu, 15 May 2025 09:46:33 +0000

We’ve made performance improvements that should significantly speed up edit where you’re editing the published state across multiple sales channels or markets. Previously the app would publish (or unpublish) to each channel one-at-a-time but now it will do it all at once.

Learn more about publishing to sales channels.

Include and Exclude Products from Shopify Markets in Bulk

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 10:24:17 +0000

You can now use the app to bulk include or exclude products from specific Shopify Markets. This can be done by bulk editing the market catalog fields and changing the publishing status for products:

One thing to note is that you cannot undo these modifications; however you can always run another edit to change the values.

New Option to Ensure Product Handles are Unique

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 13:18:41 +0000

Because of changes to the Shopify API you are no longer able to set a product’s handle to a value if another product already has that handle. Previously, the Shopify API would add -1 to the handle to ensure it was unique but now they reject the new handle completely. This means that running edits like “Set the product’s handle to be the product’s title” will fail if you have two products with the same title.

Country of Origin Filter for Products

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:46:19 +0000

You can now search for products in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor by their country of origin. The input requires the two-letter country code for the country (ie, US or CA).

Learn more about searching for products to bulk edit.

Metaobject References in Exports Now Include Namespace

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 08:57:08 +0000

Ablestar Bulk Product Editor now includes a metaobject’s namespace/type in the export in the format metaobject_namespace.metaobject-handle. Previously, just the value metaobject-handle would be exported. This change improves compatibility with other apps that cannot automatically determine the metaobject’s type from the metafield definition.

When you edit metaobject reference metafields with a spreadsheet you can now optionally include the namespace. Setting a metaobject reference can be done any of the following ways:

Quickly Re-Run Previous Edits

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 08:32:47 +0000

We’ve added a Re-run button to the Edit Detail page. You can now start a new edit with the same configuration as a previous one, making it much simpler to repeat actions in the app.

If you need to modify any search filters or change settings, you can still clone the edit just like before.

Edits from automations will no longer overlap

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 09:15:01 +0000

We’ve updated the way edits are triggered for recurring and inventory sync automations. Now, before starting a new edit, the app will check whether an existing edit is already running for that automation.

This change primarily affects long-running recurring edits and inventory sync jobs that are scheduled to run in quick succession. By preventing overlapping edits, data will stay consistent and the app can process additional background tasks more efficiently.

Bulk edit published state across all sales channels

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 09:50:49 +0000

You can now set the published/unpublished status for your products across all sales channels in bulk. Previously the app supported publishing to the Online Store and Point of Sale (POS) sales channels but now that’s been expanded to support any sales channel on your store.

As part of this change we’re removing the old ‘Visible on Online Store’ and ‘Visible on Point of Sale (POS)’ fields. Previous edits configured with these fields will still work however for future edits please select the corresponding field under the ‘Sales Channel’ section of the field selector.

Update in Shopify API version may require new permissions

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 09:11:39 +0000

We’ve updated the version of the Shopify API that Ablestar Bulk Product Editor uses to support new features like the upcoming changes to Shopify Markets. As part of these changes your may need to update the Shopify permissions that you give to the app. If this is the case, you will see an ‘Update permissions’ button on the home page and please take a minute to update the permissions. It may be necessary to reimport data in the settings section after updating the permissions.

Filter for products by profit margin

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 08:25:02 +0000

You can now use Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to bulk edit products based on their profit margin. All you need to do is use the ‘Profit Margin’ filter to select the variants that you need:

If the cost of a variant is blank it will not have a profit margin but you can also select those variants by searching for products where the profit margin ‘is empty/blank’.

Learn more about searching for products to bulk edit.

Bulk edit from Shopify admin + pagination updates

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 14:37:32 +0000

We’ve added a ‘Bulk edit’ action to the Shopify admin products page to allow you to quick bulk edit a series of products:

This is in addition to our other integrations with the Shopify admin that allow you view a product’s price history and edit history.

You may also notice some minor changes to how products are listed in the app. We’ve increased the page size to 50 products and updated the ordering of the products so it matches the default view in the Shopify admin.

Support for new Shopify Markets

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 11:38:32 +0000

We’ve updated Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to support upcoming changes to Shopify Markets. Soon, Shopify will be releasing a new version of Shopify Markets which expands support for custom price lists to shoppers from particular B2B or POS locations.

When those changes are rolled out you’ll continue to be able to bulk edit prices for the new markets in the same way you do today. The only change you should notice is that now instead of just updating a ‘Shopify Market’, now you’ll be updating a ‘Shopify Market Catalog’. Existing catalogs should have the same name as the catalog’s market. We’ve made this change because going forwards a single Shopify market can have multiple catalogs.

More helpful site scan detail pages

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 11:24:57 +0000

We’ve made improvements to the page that shows you the status of a site scan for broken links. Now, while the scan is running, you are able to see the current page being scanned and any broken links found so far. No more waiting for the scan to complete.

Learn more about scanning your Shopify store for broken links.

Changing an edit's scheduled start or undo time

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 11:03:13 +0000

It’s now possible to change the time of a scheduled edit without having to clone the edit first. You can modify the start time of a scheduled edit anytime until it starts. After an edit runs you can still schedule an undo, even if you didn’t schedule one when creating the edit.

To edit the start or undo time go to the edit’s detail page and either:

Click on the pencil icon next to the scheduled time
Select ‘More actions → Edit schedule’ from the top menu

This should make the process of managing sales easier and remove the need to clone edits when you want to modify an edit’s schedule.

Improved collection searching

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 14:05:52 +0000

We’ve improved the collection search for products in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. Now collections are matched by ID and include an icon next to them to identify if they are a smart collection (star icon) or a manual collection (tag icon). This should make it more easy to distinguish between collections with similar names.

Learn more about searching for products to bulk edit.

Database maintenance on March 8

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 15:25:36 +0000

On March 8, starting at 05:30 UTC, we will be performing database maintenance which will result in the Shopify apps being briefly unavailable. Scheduled tasks will run automatically once the maintenance completes but bulk edits running during that time may be interrupted and need to be restarted. We are trying our best to schedule the maintenance during periods of low usage, if you have any questions please reach out.

Updated app permissions for Ablestar WooCommerce Importer

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:07:44 +0000

The next time you log into Ablestar WooCommerce Importer you may notice that Shopify prompts you to accept updated permissions for the app. These updates are necessary in order for the app to stay compatible with the latest versions of the Shopify API. Specifically, the permissions allow the app to continue to see the locations on your store and to publish uploaded products to your online store (if the products are active).

New APIs for bulk editing product categories

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 13:11:25 +0000

We’ve upgraded the Shopify APIs that are used to bulk edit product categories. For the most part these changes should be transparent however there are a few things to note:

The ‘Product category’ field is now renamed to ‘Category’ to stay consistent with how Shopify calls it
Recurring edits, code snippets, and product rules that are configured to use the old category IDs should continue to work
Code snippets now have access to a taxonomy_category field where you can see the category in Shopify’s product taxonomy format.

Learn more about editing product categories.

Updated APIs for handling product images and media

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 08:10:30 +0000

We’ve made a large update to how we handle product images across our apps. While you shouldn’t notice any immediate changes, this paves the way for supporting additional types of product media like external videos and 3d models. If you do encounter any issues product images not updating in our apps please let us know and we’ll get them fixed right away.

If you are using Ablestar Bulk Product Editor you may need to update the app’s permissions for edits to work. You can do this by going to the Settings section of the app. If you see a yellow banner prompting you to update the permissions follow those steps.

Improved configuring and error handling for product imports

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 15:02:12 +0000

We’ve made two improvements to importing products with Ablestar Bulk Product Editor:

When you configure the fields to map into Shopify we now display the column letter on the left. This can help when mapping files with a large amount of columns
When the app encounters an error creating a product on Shopify (for example if you’re trying to set a numeric metafield to a value like “shoes”) the app will display that error message immediately and the row number from your file.

Together these should make it easier to configure and import product data. Learn more about creating products in Shopify.

Fulfillment service is no longer directly editable

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 12:59:51 +0000

Because of changes to Shopify’s API, it is no longer possible to directly edit the Fulfillment Service field for product variants. Originally, variants could only be stocked with a single fulfillment service, and you could bulk edit that field through the app.

With changes starting in 2022, variants can now be stocked at multiple fulfillment services. As a result, the upcoming version of the Shopify API has removed the ability to modify the Fulfillment Service field.

Improving edit logs for inventory edits

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:10:58 +0000

We’ve improved the edit logs when running an inventory level edit. Now, the location of the inventory will be shown to the right of the ‘Inventory Level’ label. This will make it easier to see what data has been changed, especially if the edit is updating multiple inventory levels at once.

Learn more about editing inventory levels.

Download a product's price history in Shopify

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 10:01:58 +0000

We’ve added a ‘Download log’ button on the price history page which allows you to download a CSV file of the product’s price history:

As a reminder, the price history page will show you all price changes that have occured while the app is active, not just changes that occured in the app. You can access the price history page by:

Navigating to the product or variant in the Shopify admin
Clicking on the More actions button at the top of the page and selecting Price history

Learn more about viewing a product’s price history in Shopify.

See which product caused a product rule to pause

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 09:26:21 +0000

You can use product rules to automatically enforce actions on your products—such as archiving any items that are out of stock. However, because of this flexibility, it’s also possible to create rules that loop, continuously toggling a product between two states. To prevent these loops, Ablestar Bulk Product Editor automatically pauses any rule that runs too frequently on a single product.

We’ve made it easier to identify which product triggered a pause. When you view the details of a product rule, you’ll see a link to the affected product and its edit logs. Reviewing these logs can help you determine what caused the product to be edited too many times.

Bulk edit an arbitrary list of specific products

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:18:13 +0000

We’ve updated Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to make it easier to bulk edit an arbitrary list of products. Now, if you select Specific products under the ‘+ Add filter’ dropdown, you’ll see a popup window where you can quickly select multiple products by title:

This should speed up the process to select specific products when they aren't easily identifiable by other fields.

Learn more about searching for products to bulk edit.

Speed increase when analyzing spreadsheet files

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 09:13:38 +0000

When you run a spreadsheet edit in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor you have the option to limit the spreadsheet to a specific vendor. When you select the vendor the app will analyze the file to see how many products match each row.

Previously, this analysis could take several minutes, especially on stores with a large amount of products. We’ve made some changes that should significantly improve the speed of this analysis, allowing you to set up your edits even faster.

Sunsetting Ablestar Automatic Order Tags on February February 13, 2025

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 09:38:17 +0000

We will be sunsetting our Ablestar Automatic Order Tags app on February 13, 2025.

When we launched the app in 2021 we felt there was significant room to improve order tagging automation. However, since then Shopify has invested significantly in Shopify Flow and made it available for all Shopify stores. Much of the functionality provided by our app is now available in Shopify Flow for free and we think this is a better solution for store automation.

Connect products to multiple inventory locations at once

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 11:48:14 +0000

You can now connect products to multiple locations in a single modification. Previously, if you wanted to connect products to multiple locations in a single edit you would have had to click on ‘+ Add modification’ to include each new location. Now you can do this simply by selecting mutliple locations from the dropdown. The same process applies for disconnecting inventory from locations.

Learn more about connecting inventory to locations in Shopify.

Ablestar WooCommerce Importer is now 'Built for Shopify'

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 10:33:33 +0000

We’re very happy to announce that now the Ablestar WooCommerce Importer 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.

Ablestar Email Reports is now embedded in the Shopify admin

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 12:18:40 +0000

We’re happy to share the Ablestar Email Reports is now embedded within the Shopify admin. As with our Bulk Product Editor, Link Manager, and WooCommerce Importer apps, this app is now fully integrated into the Shopify admin and does not need to open in a separate tab.

We’ve done our best to keep the experience consistent between the old and new versions of the app but please let us know if you run into any issues.

Improved keyboard support when creating in-app edits

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:11:57 +0000

We’ve improve the ‘Configure modifications’ page to make it easier to configure edits with just the keyboard. Now, the app will switch the highlight to the next field automatically and we’ve also improved the order of tabbing between elements.

Code freeze around Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2024

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 12:02:02 +0000

We are establishing a code freeze between November 25 and December 6. During this period we will only deploy critical fixes to our Shopify apps.

The idea behind a code freeze is to reduce the possibility of introducing bugs and unexpected system interactions that could cause problems during the peak holiday shopping days.

After December 6 we will resume deploying changes as usual.

Improved search for products by theme templates

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:15:15 +0000

We’ve improved the autocomplete when searching for products by their theme template. Using the autocomplete you can quickly search for products assign to a particular theme template or products that aren’t assigned to any template (the ‘Default product’ template).

Discover more search tips for Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

Quickly view documentation for the editable fields

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 11:06:35 +0000

We’ve made it easier for you to learn more about the fields you’re trying to edit. Now you can access documentation for a field directly from the app:

For an in-app edit, click on the link below the ‘Field to edit’ button
For a spreadsheet edit, click on the (i) icon to the right of the field selector button

This quick reference should make it easier to learn editing options and formats for specific fields and we’re continuing to update our documentation to cover all field types.

Prompt to update Shopify permissions

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 09:06:13 +0000

Starting today, you might see a prompt in the ‘Settings’ section of the app to update your Shopify permissions. Occasionally Shopify makes changes to the permissions that we need to operate the app. Updating the permissions will ensure that you’re able to continue to use all the app’s features.

This message should only appear for users who have installed the app prior to June 2024 but may occasionally appear in the future if we need to request more permissions from the Shopify API.

Transitioning to Embedded App on January 13

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 13:55:41 +0000

As of January 13, 2025, we will be officially deprecating the old fullscreen version of Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. In July 2024 we launched a new version of the app fully integrated into the Shopify admin. While most users are already using the new version, those still using the fullscreen version will be switched over on January 13.

If you encounter any issues or notice differences between the two versions that impact your workflow, please reach out to us. We want to ensure the embedded app meets all your needs and are open to improvements based on your feedback before the final transition.

Save edits as favorites

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 11:09:30 +0000

You can now save an edit as a favorite, making it easy to access later. To save a favorite:

Open up the edit from the history page
Click on More actions -> Add to favorites

To view your favorited edits click on History in the left-hand menu and then click on the Favorites tab.

'Custom collections' renamed to 'manual collections'

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 09:22:54 +0000

We’ve renamed “Custom collections” to “Manual collections” in the app. The field will function as before but we’ve updated its name to be consistent with what Shopify now calls the field.

Learn more about bulk editing manual collections.

Ablestar WooCommerce Importer is now embedded in the Shopify admin

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 09:03:37 +0000

Starting today, Ablestar WooCommerce Importer is now embedded directly in the Shopify admin. Previously the app loaded in a separate tab when you opened it but now it’s embedded, just like our Bulk Product Editor and Link Manager apps. At this point the app is functionally very similar to the old version, but this will lay the groundwork for us to add new features to make migrating from WooCommerce even easier.

GraphQL API is used for order uploads

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 10:25:21 +0000

We’ve upgraded the WooCommerce Importer to use Shopify’s newer GraphQL APIs for uploading orders. Previously we were using the REST API which will eventually be deprecated. There should be no noticable changes while using the app however if you encounter any errors please let us know.

Improvements to sorting variants with size options

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 17:31:02 +0000

We’ve improved the automatic sorting for variants. Now, when you sort variants by size, the app will do a better job of ordering the variants. Specifically it will handle size formats like XXL and 2XL. This should make it quicker to sort variants instead of having the drag the options to the correct order manually.

Learn more about sorting variants.

Changes to undoing tag edits

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 12:17:30 +0000

We’ve changed the way that undoing tag edits work. Now, when you undo a tag edit, the app will:

Remove any individual tags that were added by the edit
Add any individual tags that were removed by the edit

Previously, undoing a tag edit would reset the whole tags field the value it was when the edit started. This could cause conflicts if other, unrelated tags, had been edited between when the edit started and when it was undone.

Use regular expressions for wildcard redirects

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 12:08:14 +0000

You can now use regular expressions when creating wildcard redirects using Ablestar Link Manager. Regular expressions (or regex) allow you to perform more advanced matching against URLs including looking for patterns or just certain groups of characters.

Learn more about .

Improved previews for variants

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 08:44:47 +0000

We’ve improved the preview process for products with lots of variants. Now, you’ll be able to preview the modifications for all variants in a popup window. Within the window you can filter for specific variants by option values or by SKU.

These changes should make it easier to manage products with many variants and will be especially useful when Shopify begins to release the new 2,000 variant limit.

Separating product and variant metafields when exporting product data

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:31:19 +0000

We’ve updated the screen in the app where you select the fields for a product export. Now, the product and variant fields will appear separately and will be sorted alphabetically (case-insensitive). This should make it easier to find the correct metafield, especially if you have product and variant metafields with the same name.

Learn more about exporting your Shopify products to a spreadsheet.

Better previews when bulk editing product descriptions

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:21:10 +0000

We’ve made it easier to see your changes when bulk editing product descriptions with an in-app edit. Now, you can see both the full descriptions and HTML output for the description. This should make it easier to see changes when modifying part of a description, for example when doing a search/replace on a few words.

Learn more about bulk editing product descriptions.

Search for products by Harmonized System (HS) Tariff Code

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:12:35 +0000

We’ve added a filter to search for products by their Harmonized System (HS) Tariff Code. You can use the filter to identify products containing a certain code or for products that do or don’t have the field set.

Discover more search tips for Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

Faster edits

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 10:35:46 +0000

Today we’re rolling out changes that should significantly increase the speed of edits in many situations. The updates allow us to more efficiently take advantage of Shopify’s increased API limits. This improvement will be particularly noticable on Shopify Plus and Advanced stores. If you run into any issues, please let us know.

View edit history or price history for an individual variant

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 12:07:31 +0000

We’ve added links to view the edit or price history for a specific variant directly from the Shopify admin. Now, when you’re viewing variant details in the Shopify admin, the ‘More actions’ menu includes the following:

Price history
Edit history

This should make it easier to follow changes for products that may have a lot of variants.

See which user performed an edit

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 11:54:32 +0000

We’ve updated the edit history page to show which user performed an edit. This should make it easier for teams to keep track of which changes were made by whom. If you still want to view the time that a scheduled to be undone at, you can do so from the ‘Scheduled edits’ tab of the history page.

It’s also possible to see who performed an edit while looking at the edit detail page. Just click on More actions → View configuration and scroll down to the bottom of the popup window.

Shopify Markets Improvements

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 10:30:07 +0000

We’ve made several improvements to how we process editing Shopify Market prices with a spreadsheet. These updates should improve the reliability of Shopify Market price updates, especially with newly-created markets. Uou may notice a slight pause when starting the edit as the app will need to check with Shopify to make sure it has the most recent markets data.

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

Matching all variants when filtering for inventory at a location

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 08:31:08 +0000

We’ve added a ‘Must match all variants’ option for when you’re filtering for inventory levels at a specific location. If this box is selected, a product will only show in the search results if all of its variants match the condition. If the box is not selected, the app could match on some variants but not the whole product.

This can be useful when searching for products with multiple variants that are completely out of stock at a single location. Previously, if you did a search for “inventory at location is less than 1” the app could return products where one variant was out of stock but another variant is still in stock. When the ‘Must match all variants’ checkbox is selected a product would only display if all variants are out of stock at that location.

Added support for link metafields

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 14:40:31 +0000

We’ve added support for bulk editing link metafields directly in the app. Link metafields contain both a URL and text for the link and are a good way to manage links to external resources like product spec PDFs.

Learn more about bulk editing metafields in Shopify.

Better support for spreadsheet uploads in all languages

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 08:03:15 +0000

We’ve made improvements to spreadsheet processing, making it easier for you to work with any language or writing system. The app now auto-detects different character encodings in the upload files so text in non-Latin alphabets is displayed correctly, even right-to-left languages like Hebrew and Arabic.

Learn more about working with spreadsheets working with spreadsheets in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

Performance improvements for large product exports

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 11:34:28 +0000

We’ve enhanced product export processing to improve reliability, especially for large-scale exports. Previously, exports containing hundreds of thousands of rows occasionally failed. Today’s update addresses these issues, with the most significant improvements seen in Matrixify format exports.

All stores now default to embedded version of app

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 07:49:18 +0000

Over the last month and a half, we’ve been gradually transitioning stores to the new version of our app, which is now embedded directly within the Shopify admin. As of today, all stores will default to using this new version.

For now, it’s still possible to revert to the old version by navigating to Settings → Integrations and features and disabling the ‘Shopify admin’ integration. However, please note that the old version of the app will not be available long-term and will no longer receive new features or updates.

Bulk editing collection reference list metafields

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 19:11:48 +0000

We’ve added in-app support for bulk editing metafields that are a list of collection references (list.collection_reference metafield type).

With the in-app edits you can now make the following changes to list of collection references:

Set the list to a new value
Add collections to the start/end of the list
Remove collections to the start/end of the list
Delete the metafield

Learn more about bulk editing metafields in Shopify.

Scheduling edits to the minute

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 23:33:14 +0000

We’ve updated the interface for scheduling edits to allow you to select the exact minute you want the edit to start. When we moved Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to be embedded in the admin you were only able to schedule edits at the start or half-way through an hour but now you have more control over exactly when to start them.

After you’ve scheduled an edit you can now see exactly when it will start or undo by going to the edit detail page and clicking on More actions → View configuration

Homepage and navigation updates

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:18:59 +0000

Based on feedback from Shopify we’ve made two updates to the app’s navigation:

You’ll now see a homepage with metrics and onboarding information when you first open up the app
The ‘Product rules’ and ‘Recurring edits’ menu items have been merged under a single ‘Automations’ item

If you’d like to continue to go straight to the Product list page when you open up the you can toggle that feature by:

Searching for products where cost is not set

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 15:07:07 +0000

We’ve added an option to the ‘Add filter’ dropdown to make it easier to search for products where the cost field isn’t (or is) set:

See more search tips for Ablestar Bulk Product Editor

Wildcard redirects preserve URL query parameters

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 10:22:02 +0000

Now wildcard redirects will preserve URL query parameters through the redirect. For example, if there’s a wildcard redirect setup for:

/p/* → /products/*

A visitor to the wildcard redirect would be redirected like so:

https://myshopify.com/p/summer-hat?promo_code=SUMMER2024 → https://myshopify.com/products/summer-hat?promo_code=SUMMER2024

Preserving the values in the URL that come after the question mark can help for user attribution or for promotions.

Learn more about wildcard redirects in Shopify.

Improved visibility when searching for specific variants

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:24:55 +0000

We’ve made it easier to see which variants you’re editing for a product. Now, if you add a variant-level filter (like price or option 1 value) you’ll see the number of variants selected in the search results. You can also click on the eye icon to see a list of each variant.

It’s always been possible to edit only some variants of a product but this will make it more clear which variants are being edited before you go to the ‘Configure modifications’ and see the preview of your edit.

Bulk edit variants action in the Shopify admin

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:47:31 +0000

You can now bulk edit variants for a product directly from the Shopify admin. When you’re looking at a product in the admin, click on the Bulk edit variants link to open up Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. When the app opens it will have all the variants for the product selected. You can optionally filter for a subset of variants and then bulk edit them.

Learn more about bulk editing variants for a single product.

Quickly search for multiple Shopify products by ID

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 10:59:42 +0000

You can now copy and paste of list of product IDs to quickly select those products in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. Just copy the cells from your spreadsheet and add a filter for ‘Product ID contains any of the IDs’:

This way you can quickly edit or export a set of products that match arbitrary condition or that were sent to you by a supplier.

See more search tips in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

Export just a Shopify product's primary image to spreadsheet

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 09:24:06 +0000

We’ve added a ‘Primary Image’ field to the product export section. Previously, when you exported product images to a spreadsheet you would see a column for each product image. With this new field you can choose to just see the first image for a product.

Learn more about exporting Shopify products to spreadsheets.

Bulk editing ALT text for existing images with spreadsheet

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 09:51:20 +0000

You can now use Ablestar Bulk Product Editor to update the ALT text for existing images using a spreadsheet edit. All you need is a spreadsheet where the first column specifies your product and the remaining columns are the ALT texts you want to update.

This should make it quicker to bulk update these fields to improve your images’ SEO. Learn more about editing your products with a spreadsheet.

Ablestar Bulk Product Editor now embedded in Shopify admin

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 08:58:24 +0000

Starting today some users will notice that the app is now embedded directly within the Shopify admin. This will make the app faster and even quicker to use and is a result of months of hard work but our development team.

The changes will graudally be rolled out to stores in the coming weeks. If you have any feedback about the new embedded app please let us know.

Filtering for a list of values in metafields

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 09:22:21 +0000

We’ve added a “contains any of the words” filter for metafields. This allows you to quickly copy in a list of values and find products whose metafields match any of them:

See more search tips in Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

'Percentage of compare-at price' will display an error if compare-at price is blank or zero

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:12:23 +0000

When you bulk edit a price or cost, you have the option to set the value to be a percentage of the compare-at price. Previously, if you tried to do this and there was no compare-at price set, the app would use the value of the price field instead. This was intended to make it easier to use but could lead to unexpected results.

Now, when you use the ‘percentage of compare-at price’ option on a variant where the compare-at price is blank or zero, the variant will not be edited, and you’ll see an error message instead.

Export and import image alt texts with a spreadsheet

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:05:24 +0000

You can now export product image ALT text using Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. In the spreadsheets the image Alt text will appear in a separate column next to the image column.

You can also use the Image ALT text column in spreadsheet edits to add new images to your products.

Track wildcard redirect visits on dashboard and in exports

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 14:00:55 +0000

When a vistor lands on a page with a wildcard redirect they’re seamlessly redirected to the new page. Now, you can see each time this happens in the app’s dashboard.

This data is also available when you export a spreadsheet of your wildcard redirect visits. This information can be especially useful if you’ve just migrated to Shopify because you can see the most frequent broken links, all the while ensuring your visitors get redirected to a relevant page.

Product reference metafields now use product handles by default

Fri, 31 May 2024 07:46:58 +0000

Now you can use product handles when exporting and importing product reference metafields. This will make it easier to see things visually and to transfer metafields between different stores (like a development and production one).

Previously product reference metafields were exported in the native Shopify format which looks like gid://shopify/Product/123456789 but now you will see the product’s handle in the exported spreadsheet. This applies to metafields that are lists of product references as well.

Additional access scopes/permissions for Ablestar Bulk Product Editor

Thu, 30 May 2024 08:41:31 +0000

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.

Shopify Search & Discovery integration

Wed, 22 May 2024 10:37:58 +0000

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.

Automatically create redirects when bulk editing product handles

Mon, 20 May 2024 10:47:42 +0000

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.

Switching to Shopify's GraphQL API

Mon, 20 May 2024 09:52:49 +0000

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.

Use placeholders in wildcard redirects

Fri, 17 May 2024 08:27:48 +0000

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.

Adding timestamps to product edit logs

Tue, 14 May 2024 12:27:45 +0000

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.

Removing fixed prices from a Shopify Markets price list

Tue, 14 May 2024 12:22:56 +0000

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.

Speed improvements when using the barcode to edit Shopify products with a spreadsheet

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 09:48:13 +0000

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.

Canceling WooCommerce import tasks

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 10:22:49 +0000

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.

Weekly broken link reports for Shopify

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 10:15:59 +0000

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.

Metaobjects are now referenced by handle instead of GID

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 10:31:27 +0000

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.

Improve wildcard support for FTP files

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 08:58:42 +0000

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:password@example.com/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.

Changes to how empty Google Shopping feeds are handled

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 10:36:44 +0000

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.

Wider view for editing code snippets

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 09:04:48 +0000

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.

Speed improvements when undoing inventory level edits

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 08:41:18 +0000

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.

Stricter validation for prices in spreadsheet edits

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 09:00:55 +0000

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.

Bulk edit ShipperHQ fields in Shopify

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 14:14:12 +0000

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.

Improved column auto-detection when creating products

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:06:28 +0000

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.

Ablestar Link Manager is now 'Built for Shopify'

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 12:56:02 +0000

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.

More frequency options for repeating Shopify product exports

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 10:15:14 +0000

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.

Improved support for importing Dropbox images into Shopify

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 11:32:22 +0000

When you import product images into Shopify you can specify a URL for the new images. In most cases Shopify is able to download these images directly but in some situations this fails and no product images get imported. We’ve noticed this with Dropbox images hosted on the dl.dropboxusercontent.com domain.

We’ve added a work-around to this in the app so now any Dropbox images should import correctly, even if they’re from the dl.dropboxusercontent.com domain.

Search for product by last updated date

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 11:20:53 +0000

You can now search for products based on when they were last updated on Shopify. We’ve supported searching on the created date for a while but held off on adding the updated date because the results can be counter-intuitive.

The updated date for a product represents the last time any of the fields relating to the product, including inventory, were changed. Inventory levels can change when the product is ordered which means a popular product could have an updated date that’s more recent than expected.

Edit variant reference list metafields in bulk

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 13:43:15 +0000

We’ve updated the app to support editing variant reference list metafields with an in-app edit. Now you can choose from the following options when editing this type of metafield:

Add a variant reference to the start or end of the list
Set the metafield to a new list of variant references
Remove x entries from the start or end of the list

Performance improvements for searching for inventory at a specific location

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 11:55:55 +0000

We have made some optimizations to how the app searches for products based on their inventory at a specific location. This should result in faster searches for things like “Inventory at Warehouse B < 1”. The improvements should be most noticable on stores with a large number of products.

Improving support for downloading files from an FTP server with implicit SSL

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 09:34:42 +0000

We have made improvements to the code to download spreadsheet files from an FTP server with implicit SSL enabled. When you download a file from an FTP server there are two different connections taking place, one for the commands and one for the actual data being transfered. Some FTP servers require the SSL session to be reused between both of these connections.

The app will now reuse the SSL session in these situations. This should not affect any existing FTP downloads in the app but will make it so that the app can download files from a wider range of FTP servers.

Edit URL list metafields in bulk

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 11:22:13 +0000

You can now edit Shopify metafields that are a list of URLs directly in the app. Just select the metafield from the ‘Field to Edit’ popup and you can:

Add an URL to the start or end of the list
Set the metafield to a new list of URLs
Remove x entries from the start or end of the list

Learn more about bulk editing metafields in Shopify.

Ablestar Link Manager is now embedded in the Shopify admin

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 13:46:20 +0000

We’re happy to announce that the Ablestar Link Manager is now embedded within the Shopify admin. This means that you can access your broken link reports without leaving the Shopify admin and also give you the option to pin the app to the sidebar.

This update involved a significant rewrite of our application. If you encounter any issues while using the app please contact us and we’ll resolve them as quickly as possible.

Broken link visit tracking now uses app embeds

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 13:27:02 +0000

Ablestar Link Manager now uses app embed blocks instead of script tags to track visits to 404 error pages. App embed blocks provide a better-performing way to track broken link visits and ensure that the app will remain compatible with the newest themes and versions of the Shopify API.

App embed blocks require a store administrator to enable the block within the Shopify admin. For existing users of the app, tracking will continue to work using the script tags but we recommend that you log in to the app and enable the app block instead.

Ignoring compare-at price of zero in Google Shopping exports

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:32:50 +0000

When you export your data to the Google Shopping feed format, the values of the price and sale_price fields depend on whether Shopify’s compare-at price field is set.

Going forwards, if the compare-at price in Shopify is zero, the app will treat that the same as if the compare-at price was not set. This will prevent prices of zero from unintentionally making their way into the Google Shopping feed.

Learn more about the Google Shopping feed format for Shopify.

View configuration for product exports

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 13:04:46 +0000

We’ve add a ‘View Configuration’ button on the product export detail page.

Clicking this button will show you the configuration for the export including:

The search filters for the export
The format of the export
All the fields included in the export

This is similar to the ‘View Configuration’ buttons that already exist for the edit and import detail screens.

Speed improvements to spreadsheet edits on Shopify

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 12:53:39 +0000

We’ve made several optimizations to how spreadsheet edits are processed. Due to this changes you may noticed increased speeds when runnning spreadsheet edits, especially for those that are only updating inventory or that have the ‘skip unchanged rows’ option selected.

View partially-edited products from a spreadsheet

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 11:40:39 +0000

When you run a spreadsheet edit the app will go through each row of the spreadsheet, find the matching products or variants, and update them with the values from the row. Many times the spreadsheet will have multiple rows for a single product. For example, if a product has five variants, there could be five rows in the spreadsheet, each with the SKU of one of the variants.

In some situations the spreadsheet might, unintentinoally, only be editing some of the variants for the product. This could be because the spreadsheet is missing data for one of the variants or perhaps the variant is mislabeled in Shopify. Either way, some product data isn’t being updated when it should be.

Improved formatting for IDs and headers for Excel Shopify export format

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 09:57:44 +0000

When you export products with the Bulk Product Editor you have the choice of different formats. We’ve made several updates to the Excel format which should make it easier to use:

IDs will not display in the scientific notation format
Wider column widths by default so you can see more data at a glance

Learn more about exporting product data in Shopify.

Adding column names to unmatched rows report

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 09:43:50 +0000

When you run a spreadsheet edit in the app there’s an option to download a report of the rows in your spreadsheet that didn’t match any products in Shopify. This can be helpful in identifying any Shopify products that are missing or mis-labled.

We’ve updated this unmatched rows report to include the column names from the original file. Previously the columns were numbered sequentially but now you’ll see the actual names of the columns which should make it easier to identify the missing products.

Skip unchanged rows setting is included in spreadsheet configuration popup

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 09:53:54 +0000

When you look at the details for a spreadsheet edit in the app, there’s a View Configuration button on the top of the page which will show you the column mappings used for the spreadsheet edit. We’ve updated this screen to also show whether the ‘Skip unchanged rows’ option was selected for the edit:

Learn more about skipping unchanged rows in spreadsheet edits.

Improving error message for daily variant limit

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 09:50:27 +0000

We’ve improved the error message that’s displayed when you hit the daily variant limit with an in-app edit. Previously the app would just show that the edit errored out but now the message will tell you why.

This message was already displaying if you hit the variant limit when creating variants with a spreadsheet but now will also appear when adding variants with an in-app edit.

Hidden sheets are ignored when uploading an Excel Workbook

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 10:24:54 +0000

When you upload an Excel spreadsheet to the Bulk Product Editor the app will automatically choose the first sheet in the workbook to use. Previously this could lead to a hidden sheet being selected if it was in the first position in the workbook. We saw this will working with some other tools that would automatically insert an hidden sheet at the start of the workbook when you export data.

Skipping unchanged rows when just editing inventory levels

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 15:32:30 +0000

Previously the option to skip unchanged rows for spreadsheet edits would not work if the spreadsheet edit was only updating inventory levels. This was because the app uses different API calls to update inventory levels that’s faster than the typical edits.

Now, if you select ‘Skip unchanged rows’ for a spreadsheet edit, that will also work for edits that are just modifying the inventory levels.

You can find the option to skip unchanged rows for a spreadsheet edit by clicking on the Advanced button after uploading a spreadsheet to the app.

Improved support for text metafields with preset choices

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 18:12:22 +0000

When you create an text metafield in Shopify you have the option to limit the values to a set of choices. This makes it easier to ensure you don’t have unexpected or unhandled data in the metafield.

Now, when you go to edit these text metafields with a preset list of choices, you’ll see an dropdown with the available options:

This will help prevent accidentally trying to set the metafield to an invalid value.

Automatically tag orders with tips

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 18:02:26 +0000

We’ve added a condition to the Order tags app that let’s you filter based on the total tip for an order. Now you can automatically add tags to orders that have a tip.

Collection reference metafield support for Liquid code snippets

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 13:59:32 +0000

Now you can access properties about a collection through a collection reference metafield. Previously if you access a collection reference through a code snippet:: you would just see the ID of the object, like gid://shopify/Collection/1234567890.

With this change you now have access to the collection’s ID, title, handle, description, and the date it was published. This works for both collection references and lists of collection references.

Learn more about using Liquid code snippets to edit products in Shopify.

Search for Shopify products with duplicate titles

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 13:38:09 +0000

You can now search for all products with a duplicate title from directly with in the app. When used with the ‘Date Created’ filter this will help manage duplicate products on your store.

Learn more about searching for Shopify products with duplicate titles.

Code snippet fixes and improvements

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 10:41:34 +0000

Code snippets allow you to write code in Liquid to set different product fields. We’ve released several updates to the Code snippets to improve their usability:

The parse_json filter is more generous when converting a string to a JSON object. It will accept things like trailing commas in lists that aren’t part of the official JSON specification
Number and boolean metafields are now rendered as number and boolean objects instead of strings. For example, a number metafield will now render as 123 instead of "123"
We fixed a bug where in some cases you could not read product metafields after setting one

Learn more about Code snippets.

Bulk edit metaobject references in Shopify

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 11:28:16 +0000

You can now use the Bulk Product Editor to edit metaobject references on your products and variants. You can do so through either an:: in-app edits or with a spreadsheet.

Learn more about bulk editing metaobjects in Shopify.

Feature freeze for BFCM 2023

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:55:42 +0000

For the last three years we have implemented a feature freeze during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday season. The primary goal is to maintain the stability of our app.

We’ve found that, after a certain point, most of the bugs we encounter stem from recent changes or additions to the app. By refraining from making any changes or introducing new features for a brief period, we can minimize the chances of disruptions and ensure smooth operation throughout the holiday season.

Skipping unchanged rows in a spreadsheet edit

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 06:08:27 +0000

We’ve optimized the spreadsheet editing process in our app to make your edits faster and more efficient.

Now, when uploading a spreadsheet, you have the option to skip unchanged rows, allowing for quicker edits, especially when dealing with numerous products where only a handful differ. Simply utilize the “skip unchanged rows” option in the advanced settings during the upload.

For a detailed guide, check out our knowledge base article on skipping unchanged rows.

Bulk deleting metafields in Shopify

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 06:03:35 +0000

We’ve streamlined the process of deleting metafields in our app for a more consistent and user-friendly experience. Now, you can delete metafields in two straightforward ways: either through an in-app edit by selecting “delete metafield,” or by formatting a spreadsheet with “delete” in the cell.

For additional details and guidance, check out our knowledge base article on bulk deleting metafields in Shopify.

Improved descriptions for edits

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 05:58:07 +0000

We’ve upgraded your editing experience by introducing more descriptive titles for edits. Instead of generic labels like “edit SKU” or “edit title,” you’ll now see specifics such as “decrease price by 20%.”

This improvement makes it easier to locate and identify your previous edits, streamlining your workflow.

Automatically connect Shopify products to locations when the product is created

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 21:16:52 +0000

Now, you can effortlessly connect inventory to different locations in Shopify automatically.

With this update, you can use product rules to automatically connect and disconnect inventory to specific locations. This means that as soon as a product is added to your Shopify store, it will be associated with the correct inventory locations, saving you time and ensuring your inventory is always in sync.

Easily edit list metafields with Liquid code snippets

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 21:05:06 +0000

With code snippets, you can craft custom logic in the Liquid template language to modify and monitor your product data.

In this update, we’ve introduced two new filters to simplify the process of adding or removing items from lists, making it especially convenient when handling meta fields with lists of strings.

Learn more about these new filters and how to make the most of Liquid code snippets

Search by product or variant ID in command palette

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 16:55:37 +0000

Now, when you use the search function within the Bulk Product Editor, you have the option to enter a product or variant ID directly.

This means that if you have a product ID in a spreadsheet or any other source, you can effortlessly navigate to that specific product by hitting Ctrl or Command + K, pasting the ID, and pressing Enter. You’ll be swiftly directed to the product or variant associated with the ID you provided.

Improved handling of unicode characters in SKUs

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 17:46:56 +0000

We’ve made some important changes to how the app handles SKUs.

As technology evolves, we increasingly encounter a multitude of characters beyond the traditional ASCII set, including Unicode characters and special characters. These characters may look similar to standard ones but can cause issues when used in SKUs.

Our update addresses this by improving how we handle and search for Unicode and special characters within SKUs. This ensures that you can find products by SKU, even if they include these non-standard characters.

Update your Shopify products using Liquid code snippets

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 03:47:05 +0000

You can now write your own logic to update your products with code snippets. Code snippets are written in the Liquid language (also used by Shopify themes) and give you a powerful tool to keep your product data in sync.

Using a few lines of code and the assign operator, you can set your product data according to your business requirements.

You can then apply to the code snippet to your products using an in-app edit. For more automation, you can combine the code snippet with product rules, so that the code snippet to applied to product whenever they are created and/or updated.

View and modify status of product exports from list view

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 17:50:13 +0000

In the Export History, you can now effortlessly manage all your product exports, including those you’ve scheduled to repeat at regular intervals.

We’ve added a brand new “Status” tab, which allows you to see at a glance if you have any paused exports. You can also change the status to paused/active by clicking on the status badge.

Use the Shopify Admin to use UI to generate product descriptions

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:28:09 +0000

In an effort to streamline our app, we’ll be removing the ‘AI Description Help’ feature. You can now accomplish this task directly within the Shopify admin.

For instructions on how to do this, check this article: https://www.shopify.com/blog/ai-product-descriptions

New shipping discounts metric

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:50:57 +0000

We’ve introduced a new metric to the Email Reports app: ‘Shipping Discounts’. This lets you view discounts specifically applied to shipping for your orders.

Running product rules only when a product is created

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 11:35:53 +0000

Product rules allow you to enforce rules on your products like ‘all products with a price of zero should be unpublished’.

Now you can choose to run rules either only when a product is created or both when it’s created and updated. This flexibility aids in scenarios like one-time price edits or initial tag settings. Adjust your settings as needed in the app.

Preserving capitalization on ‘redirect to’ URLs

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 18:46:26 +0000

Previously, when creating redirects, the Link Manager treated all URLs as case insensitive, turning any uppercase characters in your ‘Redirect To’ field to lowercase.

Now, we’ve refined this: while Shopify URLs remain case insensitive, we’ve ensured that the capitalization you input in the ‘Redirect To’ field is preserved. This is particularly crucial for redirects leading off Shopify where URL capitalization might matter.

Rounding prices in bulk in Shopify

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 06:02:49 +0000

We’ve added new rounding options to the Bulk Product Editor:

Round decimals: This option rounds the decimal portion of the product’s price to a specified value
Round whole number: This option rounds the price to the nearest whole number
Round whole number up: This option rounds the price up to the nearest specified value

You can learn more about rounding prices in bulk in Shopfy on our Knowledge Base.

New capitalization options for dynamic fields

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 12:09:20 +0000

You can now change the capitalization of your Dynamic Fields. Choose from uppercase, lowercase, or titlecase to better match the needs of your content. This is particularly useful when importing products with varying text formats from third-party suppliers.

Renaming placeholders to dynamic fields

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 12:07:58 +0000

When you bulk edit a text field you have the option to include values like the product’s vendor or title. Previously these were called ‘Placeholders’ but we’ve renamed them to ‘Dynamic Fields’ to make them more clear to users.

New Automations menu

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 07:02:57 +0000

Previously, you saw two separate menu items on the left-hand side: “Product Rules” and “Reccurring Edits.” Now, you’ll find both options nested under the “Automations” menu.

Excel summary of broken link scans

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 11:15:59 +0000

Previously, when you conducted a scan for broken links on your website, the download of the results would yield a CSV file filled with raw data. We’ve made a key upgrade to this export functionality.

Instead of a CSV file, you will now receive an Excel file when you download the results of a broken link scan. The Excel file includes some built-in filtering options, as well as built-in hyperlinks.

Convert prefixed tags to metafield list

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 11:23:04 +0000

The Bulk Product Editor now offers a feature to convert tags with a shared prefix into a metafield list.

In the editing interface, you can now select the desired field, such as “Size List” for example, and then choose the “Set from Prefix Tags” option. You would then specify the prefix for the tags you want to convert, like “size:”. After running the operation, tags with the specified prefix will be aggregated into a new metafield list on the product page.

Wildcard redirects for Shopify

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 10:58:34 +0000

While Shopify offers a default feature that allows for specific URL redirects, our recent update introduces a more flexible approach: Wildcard or Pattern Redirects.

Instead of defining specific URLs, these pattern redirects allow you to set up a system where any URL that matches a given pattern will be redirected accordingly. For instance, creating a pattern redirect for* “old page/*” ensures that any URL under the “old page” directory (like “old page/A” or “old page/B”) will be redirected to your defined destination, such as the homepage.

View average unit retail on top-selling product Reports

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:29:51 +0000

We’ve added an optional setting for the top-selling product reports so you can see the Average Unit Retail (AUR) for each product on the report.

As a reminder, the Average Unit Retail is calculated by dividing the total sales for a product by the quantity of products sold in the specified time period.

'Visitor Errors' are now 'Broken Link Visits'

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 10:44:51 +0000

Previously in the Link Manager App, we tracked instances where visitors landed on 404 ‘page not found’ pages under the term ‘Visitor Errors’. To clarify the purpose and ensure better understanding, we’ve renamed ‘Visitor Errors’ to ‘Broken Link Visits’.

This new terminology reflects instances when someone visits a broken link on your site. The change is reflected throughout the app and any associated email reports.

New average unit retail metric for email reports

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:34:15 +0000

A new metric titled ‘Average Unit Retail’ is now available in the email reports configuration. This metric represents the average selling price for items during a specified time period. It’s calculated by summing up all sales and dividing by the number of items sold.

Speeding up product searches

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 13:39:25 +0000

The Bulk Product Editor’s search functionality has been optimized. Stores with a large number of products and searches that utilize both variant and product fields (like price and tags) will notice improved search speeds. In certain scenarios, search speed has increased up to 7 times for larger searches.

Improvements to configuring spreadsheet edits

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 13:29:59 +0000

When you map different columns to different fields, the focus will now automatically shift to the next column. This accelerates the mapping process, allowing for quicker spreadsheet edits.

We’ve added buttons to seamlessly navigate through columns left and right, so you don’t have to scroll down to the bottom first.

We’ve also made improvements to the ‘Clear All’ button functionality.

Renamed filter option for inventory tracking

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 14:48:07 +0000

If you’ve previously used the filters to search for products that are tracked by inventory, you would have found this under the “Inventory Policy” option. This option has been renamed to “Track Quantity”.

So the next time you’re searching for products based on their inventory tracking status, just look for the “Track Quantity” filter.

Field name updates for the Ablestar Bulk Product Editor

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 08:38:48 +0000

We’ve updated some field names in the Bulk Product Editor to align with Shopify’s updated naming conventions.

The ‘compare price’ field in the app is now labeled as ‘compare-at price’ field. When you filter products or view specific items, you’ll immediately spot the updated ‘compare-at price’ field.

If you are exporting price lists, you will notice that the column name has also been changed from ‘compare price’ to ‘compare-at price.’

Editing multiple fields at a time

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 13:25:49 +0000

Previously, you could only edit one field at a time when doing an in-app edit with the Bulk Product Editor. This meant that if you wanted to launch a sale, you might need to do one edit to update the prices and another to set the tags.

With our latest update you can modify multiple fields in a single edit. Once you’ve configured a field to be modified, just click on the plus sign to the right to add an additional field.

Monitor low Shopify inventory with Ablestar Email Reports

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 14:15:53 +0000

You can now monitor products that are about to go out of stock with the low inventory report for Abletar Email Reports. You can add this data to existing sales reports or create a dedicated report for low inventory.

The report is customizable and also includes the number of times the products have been sold recently.

You can learn more about low inventory reports for Shopify on our knowledgebase.

Speed improvements for Matrixify exports

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 12:11:44 +0000

We sped up product exports in the Ablestar Bulk Product Editor that output the data in the Matrixify format. Especially for larger exports, we noticed it was taking a long time to write the collected data to the Excel file and we’ve implemented several improvements to speed this up.

The exports run faster across the board but the results will be most noticable for larger product exports. In one test a product export of 2,905 rows of standard product fields and Google Shopping fields completed in just 24 seconds.

Speed improvements in product exporter

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 13:06:46 +0000

We’ve made your product exports with the Bulk Product Editor a whole lot faster. The speed depends on things like the number of products and the type of fields you choose.

Some exports that previously took around 24 minutes now finish in just one minute. In some cases, we’ve seen the process become more than 20 times quicker.

If you’re exporting lots of meta fields or Google Shopping fields, you should see a big speed boost when you’re exporting data. Our aim is to make these exports run as fast as possible. If you continue to encounter any slowdowns in product exports please reach out and we’ll try and improve them.

Field selector for spreadsheet edits

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 15:28:23 +0000

In the past, you may have found it challenging to navigate through the small dropdowns when mapping different fields in our spreadsheet interface. Therefore, we’re switching from dropdown menus to a more intuitive field selector pop-up.

This new design will not only provide a larger, clearer selection area but also include all the same field options as before.

The field selector is also more compatible with keyboard shortcuts allowing you to select the fields you want more quickly and with fewer clicks.

Site Scan Improvements

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 11:55:32 +0000

We’ve improved our Link Manager’s site scan tool. It will now better identify and report broken links on your Shopify site, even when multiple pages refer to the same broken link. You may notice minor changes in your reports compared to previous weeks due to these enhancements.

Use Google Sheets in Inventory Sync

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 19:15:01 +0000

The Inventory Sync feature in our Bulk Product Editor now supports Google Sheets URLs. This means you can easily integrate and synchronize your inventory data directly from Google Sheets. We support Google Sheet URLs, just keep in mind that the URL needs to be publicly available and there has to be data in the Google Sheet.

Learn more about Google Sheets and Inventory Sync.

Update to order count metrics in Email Reports

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 10:43:05 +0000

Until now, the order count metric included all orders placed over the reporting period. This count included orders made solely for gift cards.

Starting today, we are updating the way we count orders. We will now be excluding orders that are exclusively for gift cards from the order count. This change is aimed to closely align our metrics with Shopify’s reporting system.

In Shopify’s reports, orders that are exclusively for gift cards aren’t counted as a typical ‘order’. Therefore, to maintain consistent and accurate reporting for our users, we decided to replicate this in our Email Reports App.

Inventory Sync: Update your products from Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP or a Web URL

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 07:57:24 +0000

You can now schedule spreadsheet edits from remote data sources using Inventory Sync. With this feature the app will download a spreadsheet from Google Drive, Dropbox, an FTP server, or a web URL, on a schedule and then use it to update your Shopify products.

You don’t need to reformat your spreadsheet into a strict format and, as with other edits done through the app, you can undo any changes if need to.

Support for tab-delimited and semicolon-delimited spreadsheets

Mon, 15 May 2023 14:01:40 +0000

The Bulk Product Editor app now offers enhanced file format support for seamless data management. In addition to Excel (.xlsx) and CSV (.csv) files, we’ve added compatibility for two more spreadsheet file types: semicolon-separated files and tab-separated files.

Previously, the app recognized CSV files with comma-separated fields as the standard format. However, we understand that some users prefer using semicolons or tabs as delimiters in their spreadsheets.

With this update, the Bulk Product Editor app intelligently detects the file format and automatically adjusts the import process accordingly. This update eliminates the need for manual configuration and ensures a smoother importing experience for all users.

Editing SEO fields on the product detail pages

Wed, 10 May 2023 12:12:41 +0000

We’ve made it possible for you to edit SEO data directly from the product detail pages.

Before this update, the SEO data was read-only, but now you’ll be able to edit both the meta title and meta description HTML tags that show up in your pages. This will be a huge help when it comes to optimizing your pages for search engines and driving more traffic to your site.

Preserve pagination when deselecting products

Mon, 08 May 2023 07:09:05 +0000

We have released a new update for our Bulk Product Editor app. When you search for products, you can deselect products that you want to exclude from the search. Previously, if you went to another page besides the first page and deselected a product, you would be taken back to page one. With this update, you’ll stay on the current page after deselecting a product, making it easier to remove multiple products without losing your place in the pagination.

Support for different types of metafields

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 11:30:06 +0000

We’re excited to announce a new update to the Bulk Product Editor that makes managing your product metafields even easier!

Previously, you could only change text metafields on product detail pages, but now you can add different types of metafields, including numeric metafields, true/false metafields, and list of strings metafields.

With these new metafield types, you’ll be able to add more detailed information to your products and manage them more effectively. We hope you find these updates helpful, and as always, we welcome your feedback.

Language option for AI descriptions

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 11:45:01 +0000

We are excited to announce another new feature in our Bulk Product Editor! We have added the ability to set the language for the AI product descriptions in the Selling section. With this update, you will have the option to select the language in which all outputs will be generated.

Please read our knowledge base article generating product descriptions with ChatGPT for more information.

Images on product detail pages

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 13:11:42 +0000

We’re excited to announce a new update to our Bulk Product Editor app!

We’ve added images to the product detail pages to make it easier for you to keep track of which product you’re viewing. While the images are currently read-only, they can be helpful in quickly identifying the product you’re working on.

Next/previous arrows on product detail page

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 09:05:40 +0000

We are excited to announce a new feature on the product detail pages of our Bulk Product Editor app.

Now, you can easily navigate through your products with the addition of next/previous arrows. This feature allows you to move forward or backward through your products without having to return to the search page.

With this new functionality, you can streamline your product editing process and save time by quickly jumping from one product to another. Whether you’re making small tweaks or major updates to your products, the next/previous arrows make it easier to stay organized and focused.

Bulk Product Editor command palette

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 08:03:27 +0000

We’re excited to announce the release of the Ablestar Command Palette, a powerful tool designed to help you navigate our app with ease. With just a few keystrokes, you can quickly access any page, product, or setting you need.

The Command Palette also includes a search function that matches on partial product titles or exact SKU matches, making it even easier to find what you’re looking for.

To get started with the Command Palette, simply press cmd + k on Mac or ctrl + k on Windows/Linux. We’ve also included a list of keyboard shortcuts that will help you work more efficiently in our app.

New 'Shopify ‘Data' page in settings

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 10:49:22 +0000

Our Shopify bulk editor for products keeps an up-to-date copy of your product data in its database so you can run custom searches for products. Each time a product is updated in Shopify the app receives the change notification (a webhook message) from Shopify and updates its database.

Due to limitations of the Shopify API, changes to the some data sources cannot be synced with the Bulk Product Editor app in real-time. If you have made changes to these data sources outside of the Bulk Product Editor you’ll need to manually trigger a data refresh.

Generate product descriptions with ChatGPT

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 11:40:18 +0000

You can now generate, or rewrite, product descriptions automatically using artificial intelligence. Powered by ChatGPT, this feature allows you to efficiently create concise, engaging product descriptions, saving you time and effort.

To update your product descriptions, just open up the product in the app and click on the Rewrite button below the description:

After a few seconds you’ll be presented with a fresh description that you can review and save. You can also rewrite the description multiple times to get the exact output you need.

Connecting and disconnecting Shopify inventory locations with a spreadsheet

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 09:22:40 +0000

You can now connect product inventories to one or more locations with a spreadsheet edit. Previously you could connect inventories to different locations with an in-app edit but using a spreadsheet can make it faster if you have a lot of unique combinations of products and locations.

To connect inventory just upload a spreadsheet with an identifier and the location’s ID to the app and select ‘Connect Inventory to Location’ from the field drop down list:

Remove individual products from search results

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 13:31:41 +0000

When filtering for the products you want to edit there can be cases where you want to manually exclude one or two products from the search results. For example, you might want to edit all products in a collection except for two products that are a special case.

Previously you could add an aditional filter to remove these products but it could be time consuming if there wasn’t any common, searchable, attribute between them.

More descriptive default file names for product exports

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 09:14:37 +0000

Previously, when you exported product data in CSV or Excel format the default file name would just be the name of the first column of the spreadsheet in lower case. For example, product_handle.csv. This naming convention could make it difficult to go back and find an downloaded export you were looking for.

We’ve updated the default file name for the exports so now they’re in the format of:

Product Handles 2023-03-23_090807.csv

Delete products or variants in Shopify with a spreadsheet

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 11:47:55 +0000

You can now delete an arbitrary set of products directly with a spreadsheet edit. To do so just upload a spreadsheet with two columns, one to identify the products or variants and the other containing the text ‘delete’.

As with in-app edits to delete products, this action cannot be undone. In many cases is may be better to set the products to the ‘Archived’ state instead.

Learn more about bulk deleting products and variants in Shopify.

Improvements to spreadsheet edit interface

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 10:26:38 +0000

We’ve made two changes to the page where you configure spreadsheet edits. The first is the addition of a Clear All button to reset all column mappings at once. When you upload a spreadsheet the app will try to guess which columns you want to edit but if you only want to edit one column this will save you from having to de-select each column.

The second change is that we’ve removed the column showing the number of matching products. We did this to save space and remove the need for excessive scrolling. Now, a warning will show up if a product matches more than one product or if it doesn’t match any products at all:

Export the Inventory Item ID from Shopify

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 12:01:29 +0000

You can now export the ‘Inventory Item ID’ field to a CSV or Excel spreadsheet. When you’re configuring your export, you’ll find the field under the ‘Variant Attributes’ list.

In the Shopify API, the Inventory Item ID field tracks a one-to-one relationship between product variants and ‘Inventory Items’. Inventory items store additional information about the variant and are also used for multi-location inventory.

Edit Google Shopping fields directly on the product detail page

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 11:07:24 +0000

You can now view and edit a product’s Google Shopping fields directly on the product detail pages. From the product search page click on the product you’re interested in. On the product’s detail page, the ‘Google Shopping’ tab allows you to see and edit the Google Shopping fields:

While the app is primarily used for bulk editing some times you may need to quickly check or edit a product. We’ve created these product detail pages within the app so you won’t have to wait for the Shopify admin to load in a new tab to view the products.

Search/replace edits now suport metafield lists and case-insensitive searches

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 10:55:29 +0000

We’ve added two options to in-app edits to make searching and replacing more powerful:

You can now do a search and replace for individual elements within a metafield list of strings. This allows you to rename a single element in the metafield list regardless of its position.
Searching and replacing text values now has the option to use a case-insensitive search. This makes it easier to standardize capitalization in your product titles or descriptions.

Save product export presets

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:10:45 +0000

We’ve added the ability to save your product export configurations so you can retrieve them later. This way you won’t need to reselect all the fields you want to export if you’re switching between different export formats.

The export present will save your selection for all the fields you want to export as well as any delivery options to choose.

Learn more about saving product export configurations.

Identify products with duplicate barcodes in Shopify

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 12:45:55 +0000

We’ve added a search filter to the Bulk Product Editor for duplicate barcodes. If you choose ‘Has duplicate barcode’ from the ‘Filter’ drop down you’ll see a list of all products do not have a unique barcode.

This is similar to searching for duplicate SKUs and you can follow the same process to identify and fix duplicate barcodes.

Setting all variants to the have same SKU

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 11:14:43 +0000

If you’re adding new variants to products you might find yourself in a situation where some variants of a product don’t have a SKU set. You can now use the new “Product’s first tag” placeholder to set these variants to have the same SKU as the other variants for a product.

When editing the SKU field just select “Product’ first tag” from the “Add Placeholder” dropdown. This will set each variant’s SKU to be the first non-blank SKU from you product.

Collection handles supported in spreadsheet edits

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 10:57:37 +0000

When running a spreadsheet edit you can now use either the collection’s title or the collection’s handle when you are adding a removing a product from a collection. Previously we only supported collection titles. If the text in a cell matches on both a collection handle and title, priority will be given to the matching handle.

Learn more about bulk editing manual collections in Shopify.

Support for editing Rich Text Metafields

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 11:55:15 +0000

You can now bulk edit Shopify rich text metafields in the app. These are metafield definitions with the type rich_text_field.

Shopify limits the HTML tags you can use in rich text descriptions. Basic formatting such as bold, italics and lists are available but you can’t insert images or arbitrary HTML.

Learn more about bulk editing rich text metafields.

Consistent labels for Online Store and Point of Sale visibility

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 10:27:56 +0000

We’ve update the labels for managing a product’s visibilty on the Online Store and Point of Sale channels. Before we had several different terms but in order to make them more consistent, internally and with Shopify, we’ve renamed them to the following:

Visible on Online Store
Visible on Point of Sale

Now, whether you’re searching for products, editing the fields or exporting the data, these fields will have consistent labeling.

Use part of a tag as a placeholder for your bulk edit

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 09:35:09 +0000

Lots of Shopify stores use tags to store different attributes for their products. For example, the tag “brand=Supply Depot” might indicate the original brand of the product. You can now use placeholders to extract the final portion of a tag and add it to another field. For example, you could set the vendor of the product to be whatever value comes after the “brand=” text.

To do so, select the Tag Suffix option from the placeholder dropdown and enter the fixed part of the tag you are looking for (‘brand=’ for example).

Improved options for editing product reference list metafields

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 10:38:25 +0000

We’ve made two updates to improve the experience of editing product reference list metafields. This metafield type contains a list of links to other products and is also used by the Shopify Search & Discovery app for the ‘Related Products’ field.

Previously you needed to enter the Shopify IDs of products you wanted to reference but now you can select them from a popup window.

We’ve also added an option to exclude the matching product from the list of products you’re adding. If you select this option, the new product reference list won’t include a reference to itself. You can use this to easily have a group of products all relating to each other, without any self-references.

Improved image import from wordpress.com

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 10:00:38 +0000

In some cases product images would not be transfered from WooCommerce stores hosted on Wordpress.com. This was due to issues between the CDN used by Wordpress.com and Shopify’s servers trying to download the images. We’ve made some improvements to the app which should allow Shopify to process the images correctly, even if they’re hosted on Wordpress.com’s CDN.

Tag orders based on the order's notes

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 09:51:18 +0000

You can now tag orders based on the order note attribute. Depending on your use-case you can tag:

Orders with no note
Orders with a note
Orders with a note that contains, or does not contain, certain words
Orders with a note that matches, or does not match, an exact string of text

Cancel product exports

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 11:16:47 +0000

You can now cancel product exports in the Bulk Product Editor. To cancel an export go to History -> Export History in the left-hand menu and click on the export you want to cancel. Then, click the Cancel button at the top of the page.

While you don’t need to cancel a product export if you’ve made a mistake configuring it, it may cause subsequent exports to run slightly faster. If you cancel and export and change your mind you can always recreate it by clicking on the Generate button at the top of the page.

Tag orders with all SKUs that are in stock at a specific location

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 09:56:58 +0000

Building off of yesterday’s update, now you can add dynamic tags to an order for all SKUs that are in stock at one or more locations. When you’re editing a rule click on the Add Dynamic Tag button and select ‘Product SKUs (In Stock at Location)’. Then select the location(s) you want to include from the list below.

This will only match on products that have their inventory tracked by Shopify and have at least one unit of inventory at any of the selected locations.

Tag orders with all in-stock SKUs

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 09:23:31 +0000

Now you can automatically tag orders with all SKUs that are in stock. To do this, edit your rule in the Automatic Order Tags app and click on the Add Dynamic Tag button. From the field list select ‘Product SKUs (In Stock)’.

A SKU is considered in stock if the inventory is tracked and greater than zero or if the inventory is not tracked.

In addition to tagging orders with SKUs that are in stock you can tag the order with all SKUs, SKUs that are fulfillable and unfulfillable SKUs.

Managing the European Price Indication Directive in Shopify

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 11:04:20 +0000

The European Price Indication Directive may require merchants that announce a price reduction to show the lowest price they previously charged for the product within the last 30 days. To help merchants comply with these requirements we’ve added a feature where you can set a field to the lowest price of a product for the last 30 (or more) days.

Once you install the app it will start recording all price changes for your products. It will then use this log of price changes to find the lowest price for the given time period. To make sure visitors to your site see the lowest price you can display this lowest price as either the compare price or as a metafield that is customized in your theme.

Export your Shopify products to Google Shopping

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 13:07:42 +0000

You can now export your products to the Google Shopping feed format. This option is available in the ‘Export Product Data’ section of the app, just choose the Google Shopping Feed format when you are configuring your export.

The generated file will contain tab-separated data (a TSV file) in the format that Google needs to display your products in Google Shopping. The values used in the feed are extracted from your product data and you can customize them with metafields.

Repeating and scheduled product exports

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 13:05:19 +0000

Users on the Advanced plan and above can now create product exports that run at a repeating interval. When you are configuring your product export you will see the settings in the “Delivery Options” tab.

Repeating exports can be used with public URLs to create feeds of your products that you can share to Google Shopping or other partners.

Edit individual products directly from the app

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 12:22:40 +0000

While our app is called the Ablestar Bulk Editor there’s some times you need to quickly edit an individual product. Instead having to wait for the Shopify admin to load, editing the product, and returning to the app, you can now edit most product details directly in the app:

To edit a product simply click on it in the search results. Pressing the back button will return you to your search.

New selector for choosing the field/action for your edit

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 08:54:47 +0000

When we first launched the Ablestar Bulk Product Editor back in 2017 the app supported about 30 basic fields like price, tags, and product title. Since then that list has not stopped growing; we now support metafields, multilocation inventory, Google Shopping and custom actions like sorting variants.

These are a lot of options to fit into a single drop down menu and it can be hard to find the specific field you want. To fix this we’ve redesigned the way that you can select fields and actions in the app:

New search filter "does not start with"

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 10:09:26 +0000

We’ve added a new filter which lets you search for products that do not start with a specific string. This is especially useful for filtering SKUs where you might want to exclude all SKUs that have a common prefix.

Read more search tips for the Ablestar Bulk Product Editor.

Bulk edit Price Lists for Shopify Markets

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 10:27:59 +0000

We added support for Shopify Markets to the Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. Now you are able to:

Bulk update fixed price lists for one or more markets with a spreadsheet
Map fixed prices for markets to a product when you create them
Export fixed price lists to a spreadsheet

You can view your Shopify Markets data by opening up the app and navigating to Settings -> Shopify Markets in the left-hand menu:

Menu changes for the WooCommerce Importer

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 08:59:40 +0000

We’ve updated the left-hand menu for the WooCommerce Importer app. Now you can directly access the “Manage” and “Advanced” pages for an import from the menu:

If you have multiple WooCommerce sites that you’re importing into a single Shopify store they will all appear in this menu so you can easily switch between them.

Support for automated collections using metafields conditions

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:22:17 +0000

Earlier this month Shopify made a change so you can use metafields as conditions for automated collections.

Since the Bulk Product Editor maintains a copy of your product data in its database we reimplement the logic for smart collections so you can quickly run searches in the app without running into API limits.

We’ve updated this logic to support automated collections with metafield conditions.

Full mapping of your WooCommerce to Shopify orders

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 13:55:14 +0000

You can now access a spreadsheet that lists all your WooCommerce orders and the migrated Shopify order that they map to. To get the file, go to the Advanced section on the manage import page and scroll down to the “Order Mapping” section:

Once you enter your email address the app will generate a spreadsheet with the following columns and send it to you:

WooCommerce URL
WooCommerce Order ID
WooCommerce Order Status
Date the order was placed
Customer Email
Shopify Order ID
Shopify Order URL (in the admin)
Date the order was uploaded

Previously we offered a way to download a mapping of the WooCommerce orders to Shopify orders for each individual import job. This was fine for simple migrations but became hard to manage if you had to do multiple order imports (for example, to keep the orders in Shopify up to date during the migration).

Added "Product is completely out of stock" search filter

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 09:14:42 +0000

We’ve added a search filter to the Bulk Product Editor to identify products that are completely out of stock:

We already had a search filter for a product’s total inventory however searching for “total inventory = 0” might still display in-stock products if you have negative inventory levels on other variants.

For example, if a product has two variants and one variant has 1 unit in stock and the second variant has a stock level of -1, the total inventory for the product will be 0. (Shopify treats this situation the same way.)

Sorting variants is now available as an edit action

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 14:48:59 +0000

Previously you could sort Shopify variants by clicking on the ‘Sort Variants’ link in the left-hand menu. We’ve moved this functionality to an action for an in-app edit.

To sort variants you can filter for the products you want to reorder, click on ‘Edit Products’, and then choose ‘Sort Variants’ from the ‘Field to Edit’ dropdown.

We’ve made this change so you can sort variants on any set of products instead of being limited to filtering by vendor.

Improving pagination through products with the WooCommerce API

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 09:40:19 +0000

We’ve released several changes which improve how we download products from the WooCommerce API. Previously there were some situations where products might be skipped, depending on how some versions of the API handle pagination.

It’s still possible that third-party Wordpress extensions might interfere with how we retrieve products from WooCommerce. Please contact us if you continue to notice missing products in a WooCommerce import.

Added "Is not blank/empty" search filter

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 15:29:50 +0000

You could already use the Bulk Product Editor to search for blank values (for example, to find products with no SKUs) but now you can also search for products that have a value set:

In technical terms, this will match on fields that are neither null nor an empty string.

This can be useful for filtering for which products to export or for edits where you want to use a field as a placeholder value.

Fixed failed refund calculations in email reports

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 15:19:26 +0000

We’ve updated the way we calculate refunds in our email reports to correctly exclude refunds that did not succeed. Most refunds process correctly but occasionally they’ll fail. Prior to this fix some of the failed refunds were still being included in the calculations.

This affects the Return metric and all metrics that depend on it, like Net Sales or Total Sales.

WooCommerce data exports are now emailed to you

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 12:23:13 +0000

After you import products to WooCommerce you can download a spreadsheet that contains the new Shopify IDs for your products along with all the WooCommerce product data. This file is useful if you need to map additional data from the WooCommerce products to metafields or other custom fields using our Bulk Product Editor.

Before you could download the exports directly from the app however they would occasionally time out if you had a large number of products. Starting today we’ll email the results to you, avoiding the timeouts.

Bulk editing Shopify's Search & Discovery product recommendations

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 17:42:55 +0000

You can now use the Bulk Product Editor to edit product recommendations for Shopify’s Search & Discovery app. No more manually setting up related or complimentary products one at a time.

To edit the data in bulk, choose one of the fields in the “Search & Discovery” section of the “Field to Edit” dropdown:

Then you can proceed to configure the edit as usual.

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

Removing text after or before a specific word, include that word

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 18:11:56 +0000

We added two new ways to edit text that will make it easier to remove words from the start or end of HTML product descriptions:

Remove text from a word to the end
Remove text up to and including a word

With these options you can specify a word (or HTML tag) and remove everything before or after it, including that text.

We’ve seen lots of merchants include some generic information like shipping times in each product description. Previously we recommended using the Search and Replace edit to remove this kind of text however the presence of HTML tags and invisible characters can make it hard to get right.

Launching the Ablestar changelog

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 11:00:34 +0000

Today we’re launching our changelog, a site to keep everyone up-to-date with new features and changes across Ablestar. When we make a change to one of our apps or launch a new feature, you’ll be able to read about it here.

In addition to checking this site, you can also receive updates by subscribing to our RSS feed

As we continue to grow we’ve realized the importance of having a single place to publish our updates instead of trying to remember who to reach out to for each new feature. We hope this site is useful to the community and, as always, please reach out if there’s anything we can help you with.

Improved Autocomplete for Tags, Vendors, and Product Types

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 19:43:00 +0000

We’ve made several improvements to the autocomplete functionality in the Bulk Editor. These affect product searches for tags, vendors and product types.

New tags, vendors, and product types will show in the autocomplete list almost immediately after they’re first added to your Shopify store. We’ve also increased performance of autocompleting for stores with a large amount of unique tags.

Layout change for product export page

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 14:10:02 +0000

You’ll notice a new layout when you go to the page to generate a spreadsheet of your product data. The file format options have been moved up and the options below will change depending on which format you choose.

This change was made to support additional file formats (like Google Shopping) that have a different set of configurations that the current formats.

Metafield support for text placeholders in bulk product edits

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 20:19:16 +0000

You can now use metafield values as dynamic placeholders when doing a metafield edit. For example, you have a “Country of Origin” metafield you could set the add the following text to all your product descriptions:

This product was made in [COUNTRY OF ORIGIN VALUE].

Learn more about using placeholders for text edits.

Order conditions for orders placed x days ago

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 20:06:53 +0000

We’ve added a condition for order tagging rules to determine if an order was placed an arbitrary number of days ago.

The condition can either match either:

Orders placed more than a certain number of days ago
Orders placed less than a certain number of days ago

This can be used to treat older orders that are still open differently or flagging them for manual review.

Email notifications for Product Rules that get automatically paused

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 20:01:57 +0000

An Automatic Product Rule will be paused if the app detects that the rule is continuously being applied against the same product. This situation most commonly occurs when two automations are acting against eachother, changing a field back and forth.

You can now opt to receive an email if one of your Product Rules gets paused for this reason. You can configure these notifications on the Settings page in the Product Rules section near the bottom.

WooCommerce product attributes now have a normalized metafield key when imported

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 13:58:27 +0000

In WooCommerce products can have an arbitrary list of attributes, like Style: Holiday. We can import these to Shopify as metafields on request.

Previously the key for the metafield would be the exact name of the attribute in WooCommerce. For example, if the attribute was named Shipping Origin in WooCommerce, the key in Shopify would be the same.

We’ve changed this so that the key is now normalized: all characters are in lowercase and any spaces or special characters are replaced with a single underscore. To use the example above, the metafield key in Shopify would now be shipping_origin.

BFCM Code Freeze

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:54:28 +0000

We are establishing a code freeze between November 21 and November 30. During this period we will only deploy critical fixes. The idea is to reduce the possibility of introducing bugs and unexpected system interactions that could cause the service to be compromised during the peak days of the holiday season.

After November 30 we will resume deploying changes as usual.

Support for searching for products by the number of variants

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 11:49:17 +0000

When using the Bulk Product Editor you can now filter for products by the number of variants the it has. The option is named Variant Count in the filter dropdown menu:

Keep in mind that all products in Shopify have at least one variant. Products with a single variant are displayed differently in the Shopify Admin but still have a variant.

Edits for product rules are now grouped by day

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 11:54:42 +0000

Previously, a separate edit was created each time a product rule ran automatically against a product. The edit was created so there would be an audit log of activity but this resulted in a large number of edits for busy stores.

Starting today, all product rule modifications for a specific rule are grouped together as a single edit for that date:

Support editing and searching by Product Category (Standard Product Type)

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 12:01:57 +0000

The Bulk Product Editor now supports searching and editing the Product Category field. (Please note that up until September 2022 the “Product Category” field was called the “Standard Product Type” field.)

There’s full autocomplete support for the categories to minimize input errors and you can bulk edit the Product Category field with a few clicks.

Learn more about bulk editing the Product Category field in Shopify

Connect and disconnect inventory from locations

Fri, 21 Oct 2022 12:14:13 +0000

With Shopify multilocation inventory you can track the inventory quantity of a single product at different locations or warehouses. Today you can set which locations to track the inventory at across multiple products at once using the Bulk Product Editor.

We’ve also added a search filter to identify if a product is connected to a location or not.

Used together, these new features allow you to quickly identify

Bulk editing color list metafields

Fri, 21 Oct 2022 12:10:58 +0000

We’ve added support for in-app edits to modify metafields that are of the color list (list.color in the API) type. With the list edit you can set the metafield to a new sequence of colors or add/remove a certain number of elements from the start/end of the list.

Autocomplete for Google Shopping Categories

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 11:29:28 +0000

When you run an in-app edit to modify Google Shopping Categories the category input is now selectable instead of being a plain text input box. This should prevent input errors and ensure that the category ID is correct.

Learn more about bulk editing Google Shopping Categories

Add variants to products with an in-app edit

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 11:34:10 +0000

You can now add additional variants to a set of products with a bulk edit. Select Add variants in the “Field to Edit” dropdown and you’ll see the following popup to configure the new variants:

You can add multiple combinations at once by separating the option values with commas. For example, setting Option 1 to Red,Black and Option 2 to S,M,L will create six additional variants on the product (skipping variant combinations that already exist).

Easier filtering for empty SKUs and product types

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 11:39:36 +0000

When you search for a text field like SKU or product type there is now an option named is empty/blank to filter for empty values. Depending on the field in the Shopify API this will match on both null values and empty strings.

Previously you could accomplish this by doing a search where the text equals [EMPTY] however this wasn’t easily apparent.

Updates to the product detail page

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 11:43:19 +0000

We’ve release several updates to the product detail pages in the Bulk Product Editor including:

A Download CSV button to download the edit history for a product
Clicking on the Product Type, Vendor or Tags will take you to the search page and show all matching products
A list of all variants with their stock levels

Handling blank names in addresses for order migrations

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 13:54:09 +0000

When migrating orders from WooCommerce to Shopify the app will migrate the shipping and billing addresses if present. In WooCommerce the first and last name fields for addresses are not required, however Shopify will reject the address if the first and last name are not present.

To fix this, first and last names in the shipping and billing addresses will be set to a period if there is now value in the WooCommerce API. (We tried a single space character but that didn’t work.) This is needed for Shopify to accept the address.

Added order condition for refering site

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 14:15:20 +0000

You can now tag orders based on their refering site. This is the URL of the referrer that brought the customer to your store and it may be blank.

Rolling out new user interface

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:50:39 +0000

We’re pleased to announce that the new user interface for the Bulk Product Editor is now generally available. The new UI contains usability improvements and will allow us to develop new features more quickly.

You should see the new user interface on your store in the coming weeks. If you want to switch now, you can do so from the Settings section of the app. We’ll keep the old UI available through BFCM 2022 to ensure continuity and then retire it in December 2022.