BigCommerce Metafields & Data Mapping

Introduction
Metafields help you to customise the functionality and appearance of your BigCommerce store by letting you save specialised information that isn't usually captured in the BigCommerce admin. You can use metafields for internal tracking, or to display specialised information on your online store in a variety of ways. 
In the context of SparkLayer, metafields are used to capture additional B2B data that you can then use in a variety of ways:
Type
Details
Product metafields
Updating the Frontend Interfaces﻿ by adding configurations such as pack sizing﻿, RRP prices﻿, and more
Customer metafields
Updating a customer's information by adding information such as credit limits﻿﻿
Order metafields
Updating an order with invoicing information﻿﻿
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How to add metafields to BigCommerce
BigCommerce has a variety of ways to access and edit metafields and you may already have your preferred way of doing this. You can also refer to our guide below.
Useful resources
Item
Details
Approved apps
﻿Metafields Manager
This provides a simple way to manage metafield data within BigCommerce with the exception of "Customers"
Developer docs
We also recommend referring to the official BigCommerce guide on accessing metafield data
Configuring different types of metafields
Product metafields
We recommend using an app listed above in "Approved apps". This allows you to access metafield data at both a product parent and product variant-level.
Order metafields
We recommend using an app listed above in "Approved apps"
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Customer metafields
There are currently no BigCommerce apps that allow metafields to be added to Customer data. We therefore recommend a more technical approach to accessing and updating this data.
Currently customer settings can be added though the use of BigCommerce customer attributes. Before these attribute fields are shown on the customer "Create" and 'Edit" screens in BigCommerce, the attribute types must be manually created for each store.
This can be done using the shell command below. You will need to replace YOUR_STORE_HASH and YOUR_STORE_API_TOKEN values. You can find the store hash in the URL of the store admin page:
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You will need to create an API token by going to Settings -> Store-level API accounts, clicking the Create API Account button, entering a descriptive name (e.g. SparkLayer Support), and selecting the Modify value of the Customers scope:
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Click Save. You will now see a popup with the credentials, which are also downloaded to your computer. You will need the access token value.
Replace the two values in the command below and run it in your terminal (please note that you can remove the attributes that are not needed to only create the required attributes):
Curl
curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/YOUR_STORE_HASH/v3/customers/attributes \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --header 'X-Auth-Token: YOUR_STORE_API_TOKEN' \
  --data '[
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Price Lists",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Payment On Account",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Accounting ID",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Discount Percentage",
		"type": "number"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Sales Agent Groups",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Parent Customer ID",
		"type": "string"
	}
]'
curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/YOUR_STORE_HASH/v3/customers/attributes \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --header 'X-Auth-Token: YOUR_STORE_API_TOKEN' \
  --data '[
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Price Lists",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Payment On Account",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Accounting ID",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Discount Percentage",
		"type": "number"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Sales Agent Groups",
		"type": "string"
	},
	{
		"name": "SparkLayer - Parent Customer ID",
		"type": "string"
	}
]'
﻿
You will now see the attributes and be able to edit them in the customer create and edit pages.
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Important considerations
In order for SparkLayer to work with BigCommerce metafields, please note the following:
Product metafields
Metafields are always added at the product variant level, even if the product only comes in a single variant. 
JSON data
Some SparkLayer settings require metafields to be set up as JSON strings. These will need to be carefully added, making sure the formatting is set correctly.
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Advanced settings
To learn about more advanced settings, including customer-level product metafield settings, please see Product Settings﻿﻿

Type	Details
Product metafields	Updating the Frontend Interfaces by adding configurations such as pack sizing, RRP prices, and more
Customer metafields	Updating a customer's information by adding information such as credit limits
Order metafields	Updating an order with invoicing information

Item	Details
Approved apps	Metafields Manager This provides a simple way to manage metafield data within BigCommerce with the exception of "Customers"
Developer docs	We also recommend referring to the official BigCommerce guide on accessing metafield data

Updated 23 Apr 2024

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