Altera already converts many metafield types automatically during import - things like booleans, colors, dates, money, measurements, and rich text. This update extends that support to cover more types.
Improvements # Link metafields - Plain URLs like https://example.com are now converted to Shopify’s required JSON format with url and text keys. Rating metafields - Plain numbers like 4.5 are now wrapped with the correct scale values from your metafield definition. List types - List variants of link and color types are now converted automatically. Metaobject fields - Metaobject imports now use the same conversion logic as product metafields, so all type conversions work consistently across both.
Invalid metafield values used to block entire rows from being imported. Now they’re handled gracefully - the row still gets created or updated, and any metafields that couldn’t be saved are reported as warnings.
🚀 What’s New # Warning status – import results now show a “Warning” badge when an item was saved but some data was skipped. 🔧 Improvements # Metafield errors no longer block imports – invalid metafields are skipped individually instead of failing the entire row. One-by-one retry – when a batch of metafields fails, each is retried individually so valid ones still get saved. Consistent error handling – products, collections, articles, and companies all handle invalid metafields the same way.
Product imports now validate that your metafield columns are targeting the correct resource type, helping you catch mistakes before they happen.
🚀 What’s New # Owner type validation – when you upload a product file, Altera checks if each metafield column matches an existing metafield definition for the correct owner type (product or variant). Helpful suggestions – if you use a product metafield column but the definition only exists for variants (or vice versa), you’ll see a warning with the correct column header to use. Pre-import detection – issues are caught during file analysis, before your import starts.
Handle filters for product exports now support comma-separated values, making it easier to export multiple products at once.
🔧 Improvements # Equals any of – Provide a comma-separated list of exact handles to match (e.g., blue-shirt,red-pants,green-hat). Contains any of – Provide a comma-separated list of partial matches (e.g., shirt,pants matches blue-shirt, cargo-pants, etc.). Filter documentation – Updated the Understanding Filters guide with handle filter examples.
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.
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”).
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.
We’ve added new filtering options for product exports that let you target products based on whether they have a Shopify product category assigned.
🚀 What’s New # Category filter – filter product exports by category ID with four options: is equal to, is not equal to, is set, and is not set. Is set / Is not set – quickly find products that are missing a category or already have one assigned.
Stores with multiple locations can now import products without worrying about accidentally overwriting inventory at the wrong location.
🐛 Fixes # Multi-location inventory safety – imports now reject Variant Inventory Qty and Variant Inventory Adjust columns when updating existing products for stores with multiple locations, preventing accidental inventory overwrites. Creating new products with these columns is still allowed and will set inventory at the default location.
