Connect
Shopify
Connect your Shopify store to Piste from onboarding, the Connections page or the Shopify admin. Piste reads it live and changes it only when a person approves.
Piste works from your Shopify store. The workspace owner connects it once, and from then on Piste reads orders, products, stock and discounts live from Shopify, with nothing to import. The install gives Piste read-only access: Piste changes your store only through store edits that a person applies, and publishes landing content only after approval.
Where can I connect my store?
Each way ends the same: the store joins your workspace, and Piste can answer from it in the web app, in Slack and over iMessage.
| Where | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Onboarding's "Connect your Shopify store" step | You're setting up Piste for the first time. |
The Connections page (Connections, in the links at the foot of the sidebar), under Store | You skipped the store in onboarding with Skip for now, need to reconnect, or want to add another store. |
| Piste's page in your Shopify admin | You installed Piste from the Shopify App Store. |
How do I connect my store from Piste?
Enter your store address
In onboarding, or on the Connections page under Store, type your store's address into "Store address". It's in your Shopify admin's address bar: for admin.shopify.com/store/your-store, enter your-store. The full your-store.myshopify.com address works too.
Press Connect Shopify
Press Connect Shopify. Piste sends you to Shopify to approve access for that store.
Approve access on Shopify
Approve on Shopify's screen, and Shopify sends you straight back to Piste. Approve within 10 minutes and in the same browser you started in, or Piste asks you to start again.
Onboarding then shows the store as "Connected", and the Connections page lists it under Store.
How do I connect from the Shopify admin?
Open Piste in your Shopify admin
Piste's page in the admin says "Connect this store to Piste".
Press Connect to your Piste workspace
Press Connect to your Piste workspace. Piste opens in a new tab.
Sign in, or sign up
Sign in to Piste, or create an account. The link stays valid for 30 minutes, which is long enough to sign up first.
Press Connect store
The page names the workspace the store will join. Press Connect store. If you haven't finished setting up Piste yet, you go on to onboarding.
Back in the Shopify admin, Piste's page now says "Piste is working on this store", with an Open Piste button.
Who can connect a store?
Only the workspace owner can connect a Shopify store, add another one or reconnect one. Anyone who talks to Piste in your workspace, including your team in Slack, can then ask about the store.
A store can be connected to one Piste workspace. If another workspace already has it, Piste says the store "is already connected to another Piste workspace" and doesn't connect it.
What does Piste ask Shopify for?
The install asks for read-only access to six things: orders, products, inventory, locations, discounts and marketing events. Nothing in it lets Piste change your store.
Anything more is optional. Once the store is connected, Piste's page in the Shopify admin shows "More access Piste can use", with a button for each kind of access you haven't given, which opens Shopify's own permission dialog.
| Button in the Shopify admin | What Piste uses it for |
|---|---|
Allow Piste to read your sales reports | Answering questions about sales over any period, from Shopify's reports. |
Allow access to older orders | Seeing orders from more than 60 days ago. Without it, Piste sees the last 60 days of orders. |
Allow Piste to publish landing pages | Publishing landing content for the Piste theme blocks. |
Allow Piste to change prices | Applying price edits, clearance markdowns, price probes and pre-orders, and reverting a price change. |
Allow Piste to change discounts | Limiting a discount to one use per customer, setting or removing its end date, and turning a discount off on Revert. |
Allow Piste to hold orders | Holding a risky order's fulfilment before it ships, and releasing that hold. |
Sales reports also need Shopify's approval of Piste's access to customer data, which Shopify gives to the Piste app itself. The reports button says this approval may still be pending.
If you press a card's button before giving the access it needs, nothing changes. Piste replies with the button to press in the Shopify admin, and you press the card's button again afterwards.
What does Piste read?
Piste reads your store live each time it needs to, and stores no customer records.
| What | What Piste can read |
|---|---|
| Orders | Find orders and read one in full, with its line items and refunds. The last 60 days, unless you allow older orders. |
| Products and stock | Products, variants, prices, unit costs and stock levels. |
| Discounts | Discount codes and how they're used on orders. |
| One day's figures | A report for any single day in the last 30 days. |
| Sales reports | Sales over any period, once you allow reports. Piste asks Shopify only for totals, and refuses any report query that names a customer, an address or a member of staff. |
What can Piste change in my store?
Two kinds of change, and both wait for a person:
- Store edits. Price edits, discount limits and end dates, clearance markdowns, price probes, pre-orders and order holds. Each is proposed on a card, applied when someone presses its button, and can be undone. A change follow-up's Revert also sets a price back or turns a discount off.
- Landing content. Headlines, text, images and FAQs for the Piste theme blocks. Each publish waits for approval from the workspace owner or the person who started the conversation. An automation run can't publish it.
One write happens without anyone pressing a button: when a price probe ends, Piste puts the price back to exactly what the probe replaced, unless someone has changed the price since.
Store edits have so far been tested only against a simulated store, not yet a live one. Piste never changes your theme's files.
How do I add the Piste theme blocks?
Landing content appears on your storefront through four Piste blocks, which you place once in Shopify's theme editor, since Shopify doesn't let an app place them. Piste needs Allow Piste to publish landing pages before it can publish to them.
| Block | Shows |
|---|---|
| Piste hero | A headline, a subheadline, a hero image and a button |
| Piste features | A grid of features, each with a title, text and an icon or image |
| Piste FAQ | Questions and answers, headed "Frequently asked questions" unless the content gives its own title |
| Piste call to action | A headline and a button |
Open the theme editor
In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes > Customize, and pick the home page or the page template.
Add a Piste block
Choose Add block in the section where the content belongs, or Add section > Apps, then pick a Piste block under Apps.
Paste the landing content handle
Paste the handle Piste gave you into "Landing content handle". Use the same handle in every Piste block that shows that landing content.
Save
Save the theme. Later landing content can reuse the same blocks: point them at a new handle.
Each block has its own layout settings in the theme editor, such as alignment, width and padding, and takes your theme's fonts and colours. On Piste call to action, leave "Heading" empty to reuse the content's headline.
What if Piste loses access to my store?
The Connections page says "Piste can no longer reach" your store and shows the connect form, and Needs you shows "Shopify needs reconnecting". Connect the store again from that form, or open Piste from your Shopify admin.
How do I disconnect my store?
There's no Disconnect button for Shopify in Piste. To disconnect, uninstall the Piste app from your Shopify admin.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| At once | Piste's access to the store is cleared and the store leaves your workspace. Piste can no longer read or change it. |
| About 48 hours later | Shopify asks Piste to erase the store, and Piste deletes the store's record: its access, the permissions you gave, and its name, currency and time zone. If you've installed Piste on the store again by then, the record stays. |
Your workspace keeps its chats, memory and decision log. To come back, connect the store again from the Connections page, or install Piste again and use Connect to your Piste workspace in the Shopify admin.
Related
- Several stores: a store per market in one workspace.
- Store edits: every change Piste can make to your store, and how to undo it.
- Security and privacy: what Piste stores and how access is protected.