Connecting WooCommerce

This guide connects your WooCommerce shop with TRADElube: from the four entries out of the shop through the channel to the mappings and the first transfer. The four entries belong to two interfaces, because WooCommerce is an extension for WordPress, and the images go through WordPress. Why that is so is under WooCommerce (channels). The path through TRADElube, which is the same for every system, is covered in full by Setting up a channel.

Prerequisites

• Access to your shop's WordPress administration with administrator rights. The key pair and the application password are created there.
• The WooCommerce channel in TRADElube is created. We take care of that, see Setting up a channel.

Step by step

1. Create the REST key pair. In the administration, open WooCommerce, then Settings, then the Advanced tab, and there the entry REST API keys.

   

2. Describe and generate the key. Via Add key you open the form. Give it a description you will recognize the connection by, for instance TRADElube, pick an account with administrator rights and set the permissions to Read/Write. The reason: TRADElube writes your catalogue into the shop, and with read access alone nothing arrives there. After Generate API key, copy Consumer key and Consumer secret.

   

3. Create the application password. For the images TRADElube signs in to WordPress, with your user name and an application password. That is not your login password but a separate one WordPress generates for connected programs. Under Users, open your Profile and scroll down to Application Passwords: enter a name, for instance TRADElube, then Add Application Password, and copy the password shown.

   

4. Enter it in TRADElube. Under the navigation entry Channels, open your WooCommerce channel via the button Edit. In the Login Details section, the shop's address goes into the field Url, the key pair into Consumer Key and Consumer Secret, the WordPress user name into User Name and the application password into Password. Save the channel. Whether the entries are right is shown right away by the first Reload in step 5.

   

5. Fill the mappings. In the Mappings section there is little to do on this channel. The Order Status tab is correct without any work on your part, because TRADElube maps the fixed WooCommerce statuses by their meaning. In the tabs Payment Methods and Properties, Reload fetches the shop's entries, and matching names suggest the internal side. Tax Rates and Shipping Methods you map by hand. The Properties tab only offers what the shop knows as a select attribute: create your product attributes in the shop before you map here. The whole path is under Setting up a channel.

6. Enter the attributes in the transfer plans. The Attributes section comes empty in both plans of the task Products Upload and still decides the outcome. Into the plan Product go all selection properties the shop is to show, the variant axes included. Into the plan Product Variation go the axes only. WooCommerce inherits nothing from the parent article to the variation, so the second plan is no extra but the place where the axis values are created. What belongs in which section is under Products Upload (WooCommerce).

7. Start the initial fill. Start the tasks once by hand, in this order: first categories, properties and media, then the products, the stock after them. The reason: whatever a record needs as a reference has to be there first. Afterwards you set the cadence per task. Both in detail: Planning and starting tasks.

Checking the result

Whether the four entries are right is shown by the first Reload on a mapping tab: if the list arrives from the shop, the connection is up. This is what the Payment Methods tab looks like afterwards:

If something fails later, you can tell from the pattern of the failures which of the four entries is wrong. How to do that is under WooCommerce (channels). After the initial fill, the task's Traces section shows Created per record, and your catalogue is in the shop. Check a sample, ideally a product with variants.

Frequent pitfalls

• The profile shows no field for the name. WordPress only releases application passwords over an encrypted connection and otherwise leaves the section from step 3 without the field and without the button. If your shop is reachable over https and the field is still missing, the encryption ends before WordPress, at a proxy in front of it at your host for instance. WordPress then has to read the forwarded note about the secure connection from its configuration file, and setting that up is your host's job. A security plugin blocking application passwords produces the same picture.
• The login password instead of the application password. The field Password takes the application password from step 3. With the normal login password everything works, except the images.
• A key with read access. With the permission Read your catalogue never arrives in the shop. Create the key in step 2 with Read/Write. The permission can also be changed on the existing key afterwards.
• A lost key or a lost password. Both are shown at creation only, in steps 2 and 3. Searching is pointless: generate a new key or a new application password and enter the values in TRADElube again.
• No variation can be picked in the shop. Then the Attributes section from step 6 stayed empty, in the plan Product Variation or in both. The variations are in the shop, but without their axes, see Products Upload (WooCommerce).
• The product attributes are missing in the shop. The Properties tab from step 5 only offers what the shop knows as a select attribute. What to create in the shop beforehand is under WooCommerce (channels) with the special features.

Further reading

• Setting up a channel: the path through TRADElube, which is the same for every system
• WooCommerce (channels): the four login details, the five mappings and the nine tasks
• Products Upload (WooCommerce): the two plans and what belongs in the attributes section
• Planning and starting tasks: initial fill, cadences and the manual start