You can now manage blog metafields directly through blog post (article) imports and exports, similar to how variant metafields work for products.
🚀 What’s New # Blog metafield exports – when exporting articles, select the “Blog Metafields” category to include metafields defined on each article’s blog. Blog metafield imports – use columns with the Blog Metafield: namespace.key [type] header format to set metafields on blogs during article imports. 🔧 Improvements # Smart deletion handling – when importing multiple articles from the same blog, blank blog metafield values won’t delete metafields that were set by earlier rows in the same import.
Scheduled jobs just got easier to manage. You can now view and edit schedule settings right from the job detail page.
🚀 What’s New # Scheduling card – job schedules now appear in a dedicated card on the job detail page, making it easier to find scheduling info. Inline schedule editing – click the edit button to change the frequency and start time without recreating the job. 🔧 Improvements # Clearer schedule display – the scheduling card shows the repeat frequency and next run time in plain language (e.g., “Runs every day. Next run is tomorrow at 3:00 PM”). Active/paused toggle – quickly enable or disable a schedule with the toggle button directly in the scheduling card.
Migrating products with category attributes (like color pattern or material) between stores used to require setting up metaobject definitions, metafield definitions, and metaobject entries on the destination store first. Now Altera handles all of that for you.
🔧 Improvements # Automatic metafield definition setup – Altera enables the required product category metafield definitions on the destination store during import. Automatic metaobject creation – metaobject entries for category values like “solid” or “cotton” are created if they don’t already exist. Validated category values – category attribute values are checked against Shopify’s product taxonomy before creating them.
When importing companies with customer contacts, things don’t always go smoothly – a customer might not exist yet, or they could already be linked to another company. Previously, these issues would either fail the import or be silently ignored. Now you get clear warnings explaining exactly what happened.
🔧 Improvements # Customer not found – if a customer email or ID doesn’t match an existing customer, the import continues and shows which customer couldn’t be found (COMP026). Already linked to another company – when a customer is already associated with a different company, you’ll see a warning instead of a failure (COMP022). Catalog not found – location catalog assignments that can’t be resolved now warn rather than fail (COMP027). Main contact warnings – the same helpful warnings now apply when setting the company’s main contact.
We’ve redesigned the import setup page to help you spot issues faster and get your imports running with fewer clicks. If you have any feedback, please let us know at support@getaltera.com.
🔧 Improvements # Two-column layout – File details and scheduling options now appear in a sidebar, keeping focus on your sheets. Sheet status badges – Each sheet displays a status badge: green for “Ready”, yellow for “Ready with warnings”, or red for “Action required”. Prominent error banners – Single validation errors or warnings now appear as a banner at the top with linked error codes. Replace file button – Quickly swap out your uploaded file without navigating away from the page. Formatting guide links – Each sheet card includes a direct link to the field reference documentation for that object type. File name tooltip – Hover over truncated file names to see the full name. Bottom action buttons – Analyze and Start Import buttons now appear at the bottom of the page for easier access on long pages.
When jobs fail, it’s important to understand why. We’ve improved how errors are displayed so you can quickly identify the cause and take action.
🔧 Improvements # Specific error badges – Failed jobs now show the reason for failure, such as “API rate limit”, “Shop closed”, or “App uninstalled” instead of a generic “Error” label. Help article links – Clicking the help icon on a failed job now takes you directly to the relevant help article when available. Better error tracking – Jobs now track specific error codes, making it easier to diagnose issues and get support.
Shopify’s category metafields only apply to products in specific categories. Previously, importing a product with a category metafield that didn’t match would fail the entire import. Now Altera skips incompatible metafields and imports the rest of the product successfully.
🔧 Improvements # Category metafield mismatch – when a metafield like shopify.gender doesn’t apply to a product’s category, Altera skips it and continues instead of failing. Unresolved references – metafields referencing metaobjects or files that don’t exist are now skipped with a warning rather than blocking the import. Warning details – skipped metafields appear in import results with the specific field and reason (e.g., “Skipped shopify.gender: not valid for this product category”).
You can now control which sales channels your collections appear on, just like you already can with products.
🚀 What’s New # Per-channel collection publishing – use columns like Published: Online Store or Published: POS to control visibility on each sales channel. Export sales channel status – select the “Sales Channels” field group to include publication status for each channel in your export. Works for both collection types – Smart Collections and Manual Collections both support the new sales channel columns. 🔧 Improvements # Backwards compatible – legacy Published and Published Scope columns continue to work as before, with sales channel columns taking priority when both are present.
Unit price imports just got simpler. You can now use individual columns for each unit price field instead of dealing with JSON formatting.
🚀 What’s New # Separate columns – use dedicated columns for Unit Price Total Measure, Unit Price Total Measure Unit, Unit Price Base Measure, and Unit Price Base Measure Unit. Export field group – select the new Unit Price Columns group when creating product exports to get the separate column format. Clear unit prices – set either measure value to 0 to remove unit pricing from a variant. 🔧 Improvements # Backwards compatible – the original JSON format in Variant Unit Price column still works exactly as before. Pre-import validation – file analysis now validates separate column values before import starts. Better error messages – new error code PRD031 helps identify issues in the separate columns, while PRD019 covers JSON format errors. 📝 How It Works # Instead of JSON:
Following our recent Google Drive import support, you can now import product images and files directly from Dropbox shared links.
🚀 What’s New # Dropbox media URLs – product and file imports now accept Dropbox sharing links and automatically convert them to downloadable URLs. Multiple URL formats – supports both old-style /s/ links and new-style /scl/fi/ links with rlkey parameters.
