Set up transactional subscriber collection and messages for Shopify

Transactional journeys let you send subscribers messages about the status of their order. With the Shopify integration, you can send transactional journeys, such as Order Confirmed and Order Shipped, to your SMS subscribers.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up transactional messages for Shopify, you must meet the following requirements:

• You must have an existing Shopify or Shopify Plus account.
• The Shopify integration must be connected.

Steps in Shopify

Step 1. Collect phone number during checkout

Before you can send transactional messages to subscribers, you’ll first have to collect their mobile phone number in the checkout form:

1. From your Shopify site, go to Settings > Checkout.
2. Scroll to the Customer information section, and for Shipping address phone number, select Optional.
   
   Note: We recommend that you select Optional (rather than Required) so that your shoppers can decide whether they want to opt in to receive SMS transactional messages.
   
3. Click Save.
   The transactional SMS opt-in option appears, and customers can enter their phone number in the Phone field.

Step 2. Turn off existing native SMS alerts (Shopify Plus customers only)

If you want to use Attentive to send transactional messages, you should turn off any automated messages that Shopify itself sends. Otherwise, your customers could receive two or more messages, which can create a confusing experience.

1. From your Shopify site, go to Settings > Notifications.
2. Click each order notification type to edit it. At minimum, we recommend turning off the Order confirmation message, as long as you have an order confirmed or post purchase journey set up.
   

Steps in Attentive

Step 3. Turn on Shopify integration setting

After you’ve enabled the Shopify integration, you must enable the data syncing setting so that when subscribers opt in through Attentive or Shopify, that data is synchronized between both platforms. Additionally, you must ensure the setting to ingest transactional events is enabled so that Attentive can see transactional events and you can send transactional messages to subscribers via Attentive.

To enable data syncing and ingest transactional events:

1. Go to the integrations setup page and locate the Shopify tile.
2. Click Shopify > Settings.
3. Enable the checkbox under Ingest transactional events.
   

4. Click Save.

Step 4. Confirm Shopify transactional sign-up unit is created and activated

After you enable the Ingest Transactional Events setting, a Shopify Checkout Transactional Checkbox sign-up unit is automatically created. (If for some reason it wasn't automatically created, complete the steps outlined in Step 4a.)

To confirm that the sign-up unit is active, complete the following steps:

1. Go to the Sign-up Units tab.
2. In the Search field, enter Shopify.
   The Shopify Checkout Transactional Checkbox sign-up unit appears in the table with an Active status.
   
3. If your Shopify sign-up unit isn't active, click the three vertical dots in the row of the sign-up unit and select Activate.
   

Step 4a. Create a Shopify transactional sign-up unit if it doesn't exist

Complete this step if a Shopify transactional sign-up unit wasn't automatically created:

1. Go to the Sign-up Units tab.
2. Click + Create sign-up flow, select Build custom, then click Continue.
   The Create sign-up flow page appears.
   
   Note: You don't need to enter a name for this sign-up unit. It's automatically named Shopify Checkout Transactional Checkbox after you select the Shopify Transactional template in step 4 below.
3. Click Integrations; then select Shopify Transactional under Templates.
   
4. Click Create.
   The Shopify transactional sign-up unit appears in the sign-up units table with a Draft status.
5. Click the three vertical dots in the row of the sign-up unit and select Activate.

Step 5. Create and submit a transactional journey

Now you can create a transactional journey using Shopify triggers to complete the configuration. If you use the templated copy of a transactional journey, you can activate it immediately.

If you make any changes to the journey template, keep in mind that you’re responsible for ensuring that your transactional messages don’t include marketing content. See What are transactional journeys? for more information.