Sync product metafields for simple and matrix items

Metafields in Shopify allows you to store additional information for products and their variants, collections, orders, blogs, pages, and your shop that cannot be managed within the native fields provided by Shopify. If you want to maintain additional description fields for your catalogs such as the detailed description of the featured description, you can do this in NetSuite by creating custom fields. But in Shopify, you can do this by leveraging the metafields functionality. A metafield in Shopify consists of a namespace, a key, a value, and a description (optional). For more information about metafields and their different parts, refer to Metafields.

Note: Shopify does not support syncing data from a NetSuite field that has an empty value.

Approaches to configure metafields

To configure the metafields, you can map the existing NetSuite standard fields or create custom fields to Shopify metafields. You can configure metafields using any of the below approaches:

• Using "Specify your Shopify metafield components for products and variants” setting
• Using the NetSuite saved search

Configure "Specify your Shopify metafield components for products and variants" setting

Using the “Specify your Shopify metafield components for products and variants” setting: (recommended): This approach allows you to configure and sync product and variant metafields for simple and matrix items, using the Namespace, Key, Value (Enter NetSuite Field ID), and Description (Optional: Enter NetSuite Field ID) fields. This setting is available in the Settings > Product tab. For more information, refer to configure metafields using the “Specify your Shopify variant metafield components” setting.

The following four checkboxes under the setting Specify your Shopify metafield components for products and variants allows you to handle all possible configurations from a single location:

• Sync as product metafield for simple item: Check this box to sync product metafields for simple items. The earlier mapping functionality that supported syncing of metafields for simple items is still functional. If you want to use this setting, select the checkbox. 
• Sync as variant metafield for simple item: Check this box to sync variant metafields for simple items. 
• Sync as product metafield for matrix item: Check this box to sync product metafields for matrix items. The earlier mapping functionality that supported syncing of metafields for simple items is still functional. If you want to use this setting, select the checkbox.
• Sync as variant metafield for matrix item: Check this box to sync variant metafields for matrix items. If you have already used the previous setting for syncing variant metafields, this checkbox is selected by default.

Pre-requisite: If you want to use this setting, remove the existing metafields mapping and add the below-mentioned mappings as shown in the following screenshot.

You can select one or more operations for your flow’s requirements. Once you make the entries and selections, save the settings, and configure the required mappings shown in the following screenshot. Now, run the NetSuite item to Shopify product (add or update) and NetSuite matrix item to Shopify product (add or update) flows to sync the metafields accordingly. 

Configure NetSuite saved search

Using the NetSuite saved search: This approach is recommended only if a meta fields value cannot be derived directly from a single field. For more information, refer to configure metafields using the NetSuite saved search.

Delete product and variant metafields in Shopify 

The integration app allows you to delete the product and its variant metafields for simple and matrix items in Shopify. For example, if the previously populated value for a NetSuite variant metafield (for matrix item) is updated to blank, running the matrix item flow deletes the variant metafield in Shopify for that particular matrix item. 

The import Delete metafields in Shopify is added to the following flows:

• NetSuite item to Shopify product (add or update)
• NetSuite matrix item to Shopify product (add or update)

Important: The delete import in simple and matrix item flows runs by default whenever you run the flow. If you don’t want to perform any delete operation on the metafields whose value is null, empty string, or blank, add the required mapping to the import Post products to Shopify as shown in the following screenshot. 

Additional information about metafields

The supported value types for metafields are string, integer, and json_string. The Integration App automatically sets the value type based on the value provided in the NetSuite item field. The Integration App allows you to create or update up to 250 metafields. 

Suppose you have a combination of metafields such as metafields that can fetch data directly from a single NetSuite field and metafields that cannot be written directly from a single field, in this scenario. In that case, you can use both the above-mentioned options to configure metafields. 

Note: In this scenario, do not repeat the same Namespace and Key combination in the “Specify your Shopify variant metafield components” setting and in the NetSuite saved search.

When you run the “NetSuite Matrix Item to Shopify Product” flow, the field mappings variants[*].metafields (Export Field - NetSuite) and product.variants[*].metafields (Import Field) generates or updates the metafields at the variant level in Shopify. These field mappings are independent of the field mappings (meta[*].Technical Specifications (Meta) - product.metafields[*].namespace:key) that are used to create metafields at the parent level.