Using external IDs with Shopify and Talon.One

Having the same customer and product IDs across your systems helps you deliver a seamless omnichannel experience, driving promotions and loyalty everywhere — web, app, and POS.

In Shopify, you can use custom ID metafields to store external IDs on customers and product variants.

You can then sync these external IDs with Talon.One to use them in your campaigns and loyalty programs. This tutorial walks you through the necessary steps to set up the sync.

Talon.One requirements

• You are an admin user.
• You have set up an Application.
• You have created a Third-party API key for use with Shopify.

important

When using external customer IDs, ensure your Application does not contain any customer profiles with the same integration ID as the external IDs you are syncing. Otherwise, any existing customer data will be overwritten.

Shopify requirements

• You are an administrator user.
• You have completed the basic setup of the Talon.One Shopify app.
• You have created custom ID metafields to store external IDs on customers, product variants, or both.

Setting up the integration

1

Configure the app

Let's assume you are using external IDs for both customers and product variants. Your external IDs are stored in metafields named custom.external_customer_id and custom.external_product_id.

To sync these IDs with Talon.One:

1. In Shopify, open Apps > Talon.One > Custom ID.
2. Select Use customer custom ID.
3. Set the customer metafield key to external_customer_id and the namespace to custom.
4. Select Use product variants custom ID.
5. Set the product metafield key to external_product_id and the namespace to custom.
6. Click Save.

2

Sync your inventory

This step is only necessary if you are using external product IDs.

• If you have not synced your inventory before, follow the steps in Syncing your Shopify inventory with Talon.One.

• If you have synced your inventory before, re-trigger the product sync:

  1. In the app configuration, note the value in the Catalog ID field.
  2. Replace the value with 0 and click Save.
  3. Restore the previous value in the Catalog ID field and click Save.

After the sync is complete, your cart item catalog contains the products from your Shopify catalog, with the sku field set to the external ID. The actual SKUs in Shopify are stored in a separate sku_shopify field in Talon.One.

3

Verify the customer sync

This step is only necessary if you are using external customer IDs.

To verify that the customer sync is working:

1. In Shopify, create or update a customer profile that includes an external customer ID.
2. In Talon.One, on the left-side menu of your Application, click Customers.

You should see a new customer profile created with the external ID as the integration ID.

Considerations when using external customer IDs

• External customer IDs are also used in customer sessions. For example, when a customer adds an item to the cart, the session is opened with profileId set to the external ID.
• When a customer session is opened, and the external ID is not yet available, the creation of the customer profile in Talon.One is temporarily deferred, and the session is opened with profileId set to the internal Shopify customer ID. Once the external ID becomes available, Talon.One creates the customer profile and updates the session.
• When a customer session is closed, and the external ID is still not available, the session is closed with profileId set to the internal Shopify customer ID.