Blackpurl

This article will go through the Website Product Management Tool which is a very important feature in managing your e-commerce store 

Please note that your Dealership cannot start this process until the integration fee has been discussed with Blackpurl Sales Team

Blackpurl Sales Team can be contacted by emailing - sales@blackpurl.com

A - What is the Website Product Management Tool 

The Website Product Management tool is your connection between your Blackpurl and your Shopify Store which will allow the Dealership to have total control over what inventory part items are to be synchronised from Blackpurl / the quantity / the prices and also allows Orders taken on your Shopify Store to automatically create a Customer Order in Blackpurl

Just confirming that Blackpurl is the source of truth

Any changes made to the relevant Blackpurl Part Records that are attached to Shopify Products are synced across to the Shopify Products 

Syncing is one way - if you make changes to your Shopify Products, these changes ARE NOT then synced back to Blackpurl Part Records 

B - Prerequisite 

• Connectivity between your Shopify Store and Blackpurl must be completed 

If connectivity has not been done, please refer to this article - How to Install the Super Connector for Blackpurl and Shopify

• All Setup Configurations must be completed

If setup configuration have not been completed, please refer to this article - Setup Configuration - Blackpurl / Shopify Store

C - How to access the Website Product Management Tool

• From the Blackpurl Header > click on to open up the Other Tools options

• Then click on to access the Website Product Management 

D - Basic Navigation of the Website Product Management Screen 

• This will indicate what Shopify Store it is connected to:

• Poll Website - when you click on this icon, it will fetch the latest link status and display it in this section.  **The Poll Website icon should ONLY be used when checking if any “unlinked” parts exist, it is not a substitute for refreshing the browser

• The layout of the rest of the page will depend on your Dealerships current situation as per the scenarios below:

Scenario 1: 

When there are not any Products created in your Shopify Store, the landing page will appear as below:

The user has an existing Shopify Store and has linked to some Shopify Store products to Blackpurl parts, then on the Website Product Management screen, they will see a listing of all the Shopify store products:

Let's work through the column headers: 

• Status - this will show the status of all the part line items.  The statuses include:

of TIP:  You can use the search filters to show list only specific statuses:

• Website Product - it is where the products linked to your Shopify Store will be listed. All the products are hyperlinked and you can click on any of them to open your Shopify product page.

• Variant options - There could be multiple Part variants of a single Product.
  
  For example, you may have a shirt that can be supplied in black or white but only uses one product number / part number.  A variant is basically a Part classification - “Part A - White”, “Part A - Black” etc
  
  The user cannot create multiple Products for “Part A - White” and “Part A - Black”. They have to list them as variants under a single Product. Think of it as different colours and/or sizes of a T-shirt (which is a single product on an online store)

• Vendor - The vendor attached to the Shopify Store product
  
  Note:  do not publish a link if the Vendor record in your Shopify Store and Blackpurl do not match. This will create an unrecognized part

• Blackpurl Part - This will indicate what Blackpurl the Shopify Store product is attached to.  To search the Blackpurl part from the search drop-down

• Ignore product - Click on the Ignore toggle to ignore the product from linking. In this case, no Blackpurl part will be shown. Note: This status can be changed later if you decide to publish this product to your Shopify Store

E - Linking existing Shopify published products (due to Scenario 2 above)

1. Filter your search to list only “New” Status products. You achieve this by clicking on the Status: All modal and the drop down will appear

Now remove the checks so only New Status is displayed

A list will appear as per diagram below.

2. Search the Blackpurl Part which needs to be linked with the Website Product from the searchable drop-down. By clicking mouse on the blue lettering under the “Website Product” heading you will transfer to the corresponding product in your Shopify Store to help identify the product that you need the Blackpurl Part number for. You can search for that part by placing part number in field as shown below:

3. As soon as a new part is added, the colour of that line item will change to blue and a bottom bar will appear asking to either Review & publish changes or Cancel

4. Should the user not want to match a product to a Blackpurl Part, they can click the Ignore toggle on the line item. Then the input field will disappear from the line item and the background colour of the line item will change to blue

Note: The user can also update an existing linked product with a different Blackpurl Part in order to rectify a publishing user error

5. The user can delete the products by clicking on the delete icon. When they do so, the product will be deleted from the Shopify Store. The user will need to confirm the deletion by getting the following message:

6. If the user leaves the page after making any changes and without saving, the following message will show up:

7. If the user clicks on Cancel, the previous modal window will open with all the products selected

OR

If the user clicks on Save, the changes will be published (Step 9 will occur)

8. If the user clicks Publish [] changes, the following modal window will appear:

OR

If the user unchecks all the products, the Discard changes button will be shown.

9. After clicking Publish [] changes or Discard changes, the user will be taken back to the landing page

F - Filtering Options

1. If there are many Shopify Store products on the landing page, the user can apply filters

Click on the Status: All filter. The selection box as shown below will open. Check/Uncheck the relevant link statuses to filter your selection

Note: The user cannot uncheck the All product checkbox (at least one selection must be made)

For example, if the user wants to see only the unlinked Products, they can select the new status filter

2. The applied filter will be highlighted in dark

3. If no products are found by applying the filters, the following screen will appear:

G - Poll Website

1. Clicking the Poll Website button will search the latest Product Link Status results from your Shopify Store and display the results here

Warning. Do not Refresh Poll when Products are in process of “syncing”, as this breaks the connection momentarily and will cause an error to log. You will receive a warning not to perform any actions and your page will be obscure during the Polling process. Note: Carefully observe the steps outlined below

2. After clicking the button, the following message will appear:

3. When the user clicks Yes, proceed, they will not be able to perform other actions until the sync process is complete

Depending upon the number of unlinked (new) parts, it can take quite a while

Both messages will come one after the other (with a fade in - fade out animation) till the update occurs

H - Workflow for Creating Shopify Products

1. The user can Create products from existing Blackpurl Parts and display them on the Shopify  Store

 Click Create products

2. This opens a new modal window

• Here, all the Blackpurl Parts will be displayed in list form

• The part names are hyperlinked and will open the relevant part record

• Additionally, the user can search the Part using its Name or Description 

• They can also apply filters in multiple categories such as Vendors, Tags, Categories, and Date created to search for parts

• Select a Category, for example, Vendors, and start searching, then the search results will only show Vendors

When a filter is active, it will be highlighted in dark. Also, the number of applied filters in a particular category is shown next to it. When there is a single filter in a particular category, the name of the Filter will be shown next to the category, for example, “Vendors: BRP Customer Test”

As soon as there is more than one filter in a particular category, we will show the count instead of the filter name

3. The user can select the products and click Create products from selected

4. In case, there are hundreds/thousands of results, the entries will load as per the defined number, however, if they are selected in bulk (checked at the top), the action will be applied to all the entries (total number of results). Note: Top button at bottom right of screen to navigate back to the top of list.

5. In the Product title field, the original Part description will be displayed here by default. The user can then edit if they want to change how the product title will be displayed in Shopify  Store 

If the Product title is blank for any part, it will not allow to Publish products and the Publish product button will be a faded green

6. Now, the user can either directly click Publish products to create active products on Shopify  Store which will be visible to the customer

OR

They can select the Publish as draft checkbox and then click the Publish products button. This will create products (as a draft) in their Shopify Store to allow modification by the Dealer, before the product will be visible to the customers (for example add long descriptions or images)

When the store owner is satisfied with all the Product details, they change the status to “Active” in Shopify Store and then products are visible to the customers

7. If the user leaves the page without saving, the following message will appear:

If the user clicks on Cancel, the previous modal window will appear with all the products selected

OR

If the user clicks on Save, the changes will be published (Step 8 will occur)

8. On clicking Publish products, the user will be redirected to the initial page with all the new Products initially having syncing status (and error status for parts which could not be linked), and then linked status (when they are successfully linked)

I - Workflow for Creating Shopify Store Product Variants

1. The user can Create products with variants. Here, a single Product with multiple variants (different size, colour etc under the one product code) will be created on the Shopify Store

 Click Create product with variant

2. This opens a new modal window

• Here, all the Blackpurl Parts will be displayed in sequence.

• Additionally, the user can search the Part using its Name or Description. 

• They can also apply filters such as Vendors, Tags, Categories, and Date created to search for parts.

3. Select the parts that will be added as variants of a single Product and select them. Then click Combine as variants

4. This will create a single product. There will only be one Product name. Add the Product name. 

NOTE: This product name is what your customers will see when shopping in your store

5. Click Add option to create and assign options to each of the product variants.

6. This will open the modal window displayed below:

• Add the Option name

• Enter the different Values separated by commas

• Click Save

For example:

7. This will open the following modal window. The Option name is displayed at the top and the different Values can be selected from the drop-down for each line item

Note: The user can add multiple Option Names to a single Product. For example, along with Option name = Size, they may want to add Option name = Colour. 

Notice, the Add option button has now changed to Add & manage options (When at least one Option has been added)

8. The user can then add the Options values and click Save variants. This will create a new Product with multiple variants in the Shopify Store

 J - Workflow for Adding Variants to Existing Products

1. In the home screen of Website product management, click the Create & manage variant icon next to the Product to which you want to add variants (It will only be available for the linked products)

2. This will open the following modal window. Click Add variant to add a new variant.

3. Search the part to be added as variant(s), select it, and click Combine as variants

4. After the parts are added as variants, the user needs to create new Options and/or Option Values and then add those Values to the new parts to proceed further. Else they can delete the new parts to proceed. 

5. After creating and adding new Option Values, they can Save variants.

K - Workflow for Adding Options to Existing Products

1. In the home screen of Website product management, click the Create & manage variant icon next to the Product to which you want to add variants (It will only be available for the linked products). 

2. This will open the following modal window. Click Add & manage options to add a new Option name

3. This will open the following modal. Add the new Option name and Values

This will change the listing of Option Values in the drop-down. Instead of Values such as S, M, etc., the new Values will be S, Black; S, Red; M, Black, and so on (refer next screenshot). The user can also delete the already created Options

Note: The user can add a maximum of 3 Option names. They can either edit or delete the existing options

4. When the user creates and saves a new Option, they will be returned to the following modal window with red error boxes. This happens because the previous Option Values are not valid now and the parts need to be linked again with the new Values. (The previous Option Values are shown in disabled form)

5. They can select from the new Option Values. (The previous Option Values will still be shown in disabled form)

6. If one of the Values has been selected for a Part, it will be disabled from the selection when selecting Values for other Parts to avoid accidental duplication.

L - Workflow for Displaying Shopify Store Product Variants

1. If there are variants defined for any part, they will now be visible in the Blackpurl Part record. 

2. Clicking on Manage variants will bring the user to the following screen. Visibility of all variants attached to this part will be visible for users to assess.