Data Sync
The Data Sync section is the heartbeat of your SparkLayer integration and gives you visibility of the product and customer data being synchronised from your online store. It's largely used as a way to diagnose any issues and is also useful to review the data being sent from your online store to SparkLayer.
There are a number of reasons why data is synchronised:
- Product Sync: By synchronising product data, SparkLayer knows what product pricing to display when a B2B customer is signed in and visits a product page on your store. Learn more
- Customer Sync: By synchronising customer records, SparkLayer can recognise when a B2B customer signs into your store (and subsequently display the correct B2B information to them). Learn more
Once you've connected your platform via the Configuration section, you'll see your product feed appear in the 'Product Sync' tab within the Data Sync section.
At the top, the status box will notify you of the following states:
Status | Description |
Green | Products are successfully syncing and data being received |
Amber | Products are successfully syncing but errors have been found |
Amber | No product data being received and configuration is required. |
From within the interface, clicking the product feed status box will show further details, such as:
- Products synchronised
- Last import time
- Errors with the feed
By default, SparkLayer will synchronise all products from your online store. By default, products won't be purchasable until you've assigned pricing to your products.
SparkLayer will be default perform feed refreshes every 10 minutes however if you want to manually trigger a refresh, you can do so by clicking the Refresh button. This is useful if you've updated data on your eCommerce platform and want to ensure SparkLayer is synchronised more rapidly.
The product data lookup is a handy tool that lets you inspect and diagnose the product data you're sending to SparkLayer. The search results will display all relevant data, allowing you to drill into more detail.
To use the Product data lookup tool, you can search by either of the following:
Type | Details |
|---|---|
Variant SKU | Within your product catalogue (e.g. in Shopify), you will likely have SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) assigned to your products and variants. For example, a product may come in 3 variants with SKUs:
ABC-1
ABC-2
ABC-3 |
Product ID | For third-party platforms such as Shopify, you can also find this ID in the URL when navigating a product within the admin. For example, the URL in your browser may look something like this:
https://your-shopify-store-url.com/admin/products/7356521840875
In this example, the external Product ID would be 7356521840875 |
The Customers Import section works in much the same was as the Product Sync, giving you visibility of the Customer data that is being received by SparkLayer. As with Products, you'll need to ensure you've configured your platform first and data is being sent. For third-party platforms using the SparkLayer Connector, this will happen automatically.
The feed status box will notify you of the following states:
Status | Description |
Green | Customers are successfully syncing and data being received |
Amber | Customers are successfully syncing but errors have been found |
Amber | No customer data is being received and configuration is required. |
From within the interface, clicking the customer feed status box will show further details, such as:
- Customers synchronised
- Last import time
- Errors with the feed
Customer data that gets sent
It's important to note that SparkLayer will only import customer data that has been specially tagged as a
b2b customer or sent through with meta fields with the namespace of 'sparklayer' . This is to ensure that you have control over the types of customers that get imported.Customer data from Shopify
For third-party platforms, such as Shopify, this is set up within the platform itself and you can read our guide here on how this works.
As with the product data lookup, you can drill in to the details of the customer data that gets sent to SparkLayer. The search results will display all relevant data in JSON format and you can access the details you need.
The customer data lookup works by matching on either the internal or external customer ID you send to SparkLayer. For third-party platforms such as Shopify, you can also find this ID in the URL when navigating a customer within the admin. For example, the URL in your browser may look something like this:
https://your-shopify-store-url.com/admin/customers/5917633347819 In this example, the external customer ID would be
5917633347819For valid results that are returned, you can also view specific records in your third-party platform such as Shopify by clicking the results returned.
Last modified 16d ago