Shopware 6: merchant plugin guide

About this guide

This guide describes ChannelEngine's integration with Shopware 6, including how to install and configure it.

Table of contents

Introduction

Features

Requirements

How to request an account

Installation

How it works

FAQs

Introduction

Shopware 6 is a cloud-based ecommerce solution for B2B and B2C merchants to sell their products and scale their businesses online. This integration with ChannelEngine is a generic, API-based plugin that can be used by all ChannelEngine customers. 

Features

* While Shopware 6 supports adding multiple sales channels, only one sales channel can be added per ChannelEngine environment. Note that in the context of Shopware 6 integration, a sales channel differs from its conventional understanding on ChannelEngine and essentially refers to a storefront. To learn more, check out the Shopware sales channel article.

Requirements

• Active account on Shopware 6
• Shopware 6.4 and higher
• Active merchant account on ChannelEngine

How to request an account

To sign up for an account with Shopware 6, visit their website and request a product demo. 

Installation

Obtain Shopware 6 API credentials

To establish a successful connection between Shopware 6 and ChannelEngine, you need to obtain your API client ID and Client secret by creating a new integration.

1. Log in to your Shopware 6 account and go to Settings, System, Integrations. 
2. Click Create new integration, give the integration a name (e.g.: ChannelEngine), and toggle the Administrator option next to the name field to enable administrator permissions. 
   
3. Click Save integration, and then copy the Access key ID and Secret access key. More information on creating integrations can be found on the Shopware help center.

Create a sales channel on Shopware 6

While Shopware 6 allows you to add multiple sales channels to your merchant system, only one sales channel per ChannelEngine environment is supported. You can, however, add multiple countries and currencies to a single sales channel on Shopware 6. For more information on this, consult the Shopware help center article Add a sales channel.

Add iDeal as a payment method in your sales channel on Shopware 6. This allows you to create test orders and check the connection between ChannelEngine and Shopware 6.

Create Shopware 6 plugin on ChannelEngine

1. Log in to your ChannelEngine environment. From the left-hand side menu, go to Plugins, Shopware 6 to add the plugin.
2. On the Setup page, add the URL of your Shopware store in the Shop URL field. 
3. Paste the Access key ID and Secret access key you copied earlier from the Shopware 6 back-end into the Client ID and Client secret fields.
4. In the Sales channel field, enter the name of your sales channel from the Shopware 6 back-end.
5. To map your Shopware color and size attributes to ChannelEngine's equivalents, under the Plugin-specific settings section, enter the identifiers of your color and size attributes. You can find these identifiers in the Shopware 6 back-end by navigating to Catalogues, Properties and selecting the corresponding attribute (i.e.: color or size) from the overview. The identifier is the last part of the URL, following the slash. E.g.: your-shopware-6-url/admin#/sw/property/detail/'9n6d9j0l3b2m7t9z0ibc8'. Note that if you leave these fields empty, ChannelEngine does not import color or size attributes from Shopware.
6. Click Save when you are done, then proceed to the Activate section to activate the plugin and validate the API credentials. A green checkmark indicates that the connection was successful.

Advanced settings

• Product synchronization - enable the synchronization of products between Shopware and ChannelEngine.
• Include orders fulfilled by marketplace - enable it to include orders fulfilled by marketplaces in the order import.
• Shipment synchronization - enable the synchronization of shipments between Shopware and ChannelEngine.
• Cancelation synchronization - enable the synchronization of merchant cancelations between Shopware and ChannelEngine.
• Import merchant invoices - enable it to include merchant invoices in the shipment import to ChannelEngine. Besides, make sure the Merchant invoices setting is also enabled under Settings, Settings, Orders. Once both settings are enabled, you can attach an invoice in your Shopware 6 back-end. This must be done before or immediately after the order is shipped. Bear in mind that only one invoice can be attached to each order on Shopware 6. To learn more about merchant invoices, check out the article ChannelEngine: merchant invoices.
• Update stock on product import - enable it to update your stock upon the import of products.
• Check for return tracking code - enable it to capture a return tracking code for marketplaces that require it. Once enabled, a new custom field labeled 'Return tracking code' appears on the relevant orders in your Shopware back-end. When creating a shipment for marketplaces such as Zalando, OTTO Market, or About You, enter the return tracking code in this custom field. If the return tracking code is not provided, ChannelEngine rejects the shipment. To learn more, check out the article Shopware 6: return tracking code.

How it works

After establishing the connection between Shopware 6 and your ChannelEngine tenant, the following tasks are performed every 15 minutes:

• Exporting product data and product offers, including pricing and stock information.
• Importing new orders.

Orders

Following the activation of the plugin, all new orders are exported from ChannelEngine to your merchant system during the initial synchronization. Orders created in the Shopware 6 webstore must be acknowledged for the order status to update to In progress on ChannelEngine.

Shopware 6 has four default order statuses: Open, In progress, Canceled, and Completed. Newly created orders on ChannelEngine have the status Open. Marking an order as shipped on Shopware 6 causes ChannelEngine to import those shipments. 

Shipments

Shopware 6 shipments are exported to ChannelEngine for all orders every 15 minutes. 

Cancelations

When a cancellation is initiated on an order from another channel, that order is updated in Shopware 6 via the integration. After the initial synchronization, further update tasks are scheduled every 15 minutes. These tasks ensure that order statuses are correctly updated in Shopware 6 and aligned with the order statuses on ChannelEngine. 

Products

• EAN/GTIN - to ensure successful import on ChannelEngine, it is important to always include a GTIN for standalone products created on Shopware 6 – even though it may not be mandatory within your merchant system. Standalone products without an assigned GTIN are rejected during import, and an error message is shown on ChannelEngine. Note that this does not apply to parent products, as they are not sellable.
• Categorization - while Shopware 6 allows you to select multiple categories for a product, this is not supported on ChannelEngine. ChannelEngine assigns the product to the first category listed and ignores the rest.
• Variations - Shopware has built-in support for child product variations. Child products can be generated from the Variants tab in the product creation menu on Shopware 6, and are based on properties such as material, color, etc. Stock is assigned to variants separately from the parent product.
• Three-level product structures/grandparents - to enable three-level product relationships (i.e.: grandparent products), you must first enable this option on the Setup page of your Shopware 6 plugin on ChannelEngine. The option Generate grandparent products can be found in the Advanced settings section.
  
  Once this option is enabled, a field called Custom fields appears on Shopware 6 in the Specifications tab under Catalogs, Products. Enter a value for the grandparent SKU into this field to create the relationship and generate product data for the grandparent. The data which is automatically generated for the grandparent product follows the same logic as is explained in the article ChannelEngine: product feeds. The longest common name and the minimum price are taken from the associated parent products and used for the grandparent. 

Extra data

There is currently no support for extra data on orders or order lines through the plugin, other than the Channel name and the Channel ID. 

FAQs

Can I have multiple languages/Shopware 6 stores connected with ChannelEngine?

There are two options for multi-language and multi-store support. While Shopware 6 does support multiple sales channels, only one sales channel can be used for the connection per ChannelEngine environment. Therefore, you can have two separate ChannelEngine accounts – and connect each one to a different Shopware 6 store. Alternatively, you can use a single ChannelEngine account and include your translated product data fields as custom fields.