Shopify recently added WhatsApp marketing consent to customer records, and you can now manage it in Altera the same way you already handle email and SMS.
What’s New # WhatsApp consent columns - export and import WhatsApp Marketing: Status, Level, Updated At, and Source on the Customers sheet. Bulk subscribe or unsubscribe - set a customer’s WhatsApp status to subscribed, unsubscribed, or pending in one import (see the customers reference). Sample file - grab the WhatsApp consent sample to get started quickly. Heads-up # WhatsApp consent is tied to a customer’s phone number. Rows without a unique phone number skip the consent change and report a warning so nothing fails silently.
Altera now plugs into Shopify Sidekick, the AI assistant built into your Shopify admin. Describe what you need in plain language and Sidekick handles the Altera side for you, no need to open the app first.
🚀 What’s New # Sidekick integration - Ask about Altera right inside Shopify admin, from the Sidekick chat. Conversational exports - Say “export all my orders as a CSV” and Sidekick opens a pre-filled export for you to review and run. Specific records and filters - Ask to export this product, last week’s orders, or just the columns and metafields you want. Job status at a glance - Ask about your recent imports and exports and get the latest status with a link to the job. Quick downloads - Ask for the file from a finished export and Sidekick hands you a download link. Built-in help - Ask how-to questions or what an error code means, answered from the Altera help center. Exports never start on their own, so you always review the pre-filled setup and click Start export yourself. See the Sidekick guide to get started.
Until now a catalog export always returned every catalog in your store. You can now narrow it down to exactly the ones you want.
🚀 What’s New # Catalog export filters - Filter a catalog export by Title, Type, Status, or ID, so a scheduled daily export can target one specific catalog (see Catalog fields). Target B2B catalogs - Set the Type filter to Company location to export just your B2B catalogs and skip market and app catalogs. Match several catalogs at once - The ID filter accepts a list, so one export can pull a chosen set of catalogs together.
When you connect an AI assistant like Claude or ChatGPT to your store through Altera, you can now scope precisely what that connection is allowed to touch, right from the authorization screen.
What’s New # Per-connection data access - on the authorization screen, expand Data access to limit a connection to specific resources instead of granting full read and write access. Read and write, per resource - choose read (export) or write (import) for each resource type, so a connection can, for example, read products and orders but never change them. Quick select all - tick the Read or Write column header to grant a whole column at once, then fine-tune individual rows. Clear status at a glance - a badge shows Full access when a connection is unrestricted and Limited when you’ve scoped it, both on the authorization screen and under Settings > MCP connections. How it works # Leave everything unchecked for full access (the default), or check only the resources and permissions you want to allow. Resources that can only be exported, like Activity and Payouts, show their write option as unavailable.
Setting up an FTP connection? You can now encrypt it with TLS without touching the database.
What’s New # Security selector - the FTP connection form now offers “None (plain FTP)” or “TLS (FTPS)” for both import and export connections under Remote connections. Explicit TLS - choosing TLS (FTPS) opens the connection, upgrades it with AUTH TLS before your credentials are sent, then encrypts the data channel too. Note: this covers explicit TLS (FTPES) on the standard FTP port. Implicit FTPS on port 990 is not supported.
If your store has more than one business entity, your Payouts export used to include only the primary one, leaving the others out. Now every entity is covered in a single export.
What’s New # All business entities included - a Payouts export now combines payouts and transactions from every business entity, not just the primary one. Business Entity column - a new column in the Payouts sheet shows which entity each payout belongs to, so multi-entity reports stay clear. Business entity filter - pick a single entity to export, or leave the filter off to get them all. Trace ID column - each payout now includes its bank trace reference, so you can match a payout to the deposit on your bank statement. See the Payout fields reference for details.
If you’ve added color swatches or standardized materials to your Shopify products, you’ve used linked variant options, whether you knew the term or not. Instead of a plain-text option value like “Black”, the option points at a metaobject entry that carries structured data: a color code, a swatch image, a taxonomy reference. The option becomes a reference to a single source of truth for all “Black” variants and you can update it from a single place.
Moving files in and out of Altera through the ChatGPT and Claude connector is smoother now, especially when your assistant runs in a locked-down environment.
What’s New # Inline imports - your assistant can pass a file’s contents straight to Altera instead of uploading to a separate URL, so imports work even in restricted environments. Direct job links - job status now returns a link that opens the job right in your Shopify admin. Improvements # Fewer network settings - importing and downloading files through an assistant no longer needs you to allow extra domains, and small exports come back ready to read.
You can now export theme translations by ID, even from a theme that is no longer published.
Fixes # Theme ID filter - exporting translations with a Theme ID filter now reaches unpublished and older themes, not only the currently published one. Recover old translations - pull theme content from a previous theme after a swap by filtering on its theme ID (see the translations guide).
Page exports now give you more control over what you pull and a clearer view of how much there is.
What’s New # Visibility filter - export only visible or hidden pages. Published at filter - narrow exports to a date or date range. Improvements # Page totals - unfiltered page exports now show a total count so you can track progress.
