Mission:  The Retail Orbit Shuttle program connects various Point of Sale (POS) systems to Retail Orbit, allowing sales and inventory data to be collected automatically—without the need to run multiple POS reports or manually upload files. Because every POS system operates differently, the Shuttle must adapt as best as it can to retrieve data accurately from each one. This document answers common questions about the integration process to help you understand how it works, what to expect, and what steps you can take to ensure Shuttle receives the most accurate and complete data possible.

Which version of Shuttle should be installed for this POS?

Shopify Basic and higher. For Purchase Order Management, we can connect with Stocky and Faves currently. Shopify has not released an API allowing us to get PO or Transfer data, as of yet. We will keep our Shopify clients posted.

Does this POS use a relational database?  How does this affect Shuttle?

Yes, we pull data through Shopify’s GraphQL and through their API endpoints. This means that when you make a change to a product’s Product Type, we can  re-pull the historical data, and the changes will be reflected in Retail Orbit as well.

How does the department mapping work for this POS?

Support will pull all products from Shopify to create a department mapping document.  This department mapping will use the Product Type from Shopify to match with a Management One class.  Tags cannot be used in place of Product Types for this mapping process.

**Please Note: Retail Orbit requires a One-To-One or Many-To-One relationship between Shopify Product Types and Retail Orbit Classes. Support currently does NOT have the ability to break out a single Product Type into 2 or more Retail Orbit classes. Our recommendation is that your Product Types match the Class Structure you require for planning.

Are there any character limitations that we need to be concerned with for Shuttle to work?

We highly recommend that Class Codes should be limited to Letters and Numbers with a length not exceeding 10 characters. Shuttle currently has the following limitations: 

-Maximum Number of Characters: 20 (Please note that reporting can be thrown off if the combination of class code, class name, location name and category are too long).

-Characters Accepted: A-Z, 0-9, &, /, $, +, -, #, <, >,?
-Characters NOT Accepted: |, %, ‘, `, ,(comma)

Is Shuttle able to collect 24 months of historical data, and if so, how is the historical inventory populated?

Yes, history can be obtained for 24 months including historical inventory.

Historical Receiving:

Retailers using Stocky: Historical receiving can be captured, enabling more accurate inventory calculations.

Retailers using Faves: Historical receiving can be captured only for the current season (up to 3 months back)

IMPORTANT: 

• Products must have one of these statuses: Active, Draft, or Archived.
• If a product or variant ID has been deleted, Shuttle will still capture the historical data (except Inventory) and assign the proxy Product Type: UNCLS
• If a product or variant ID does not have a product type, Shuttle will capture the historical data (except Inventory) and assign the proxy Product Type:  UNCLS
• Unfortunately for inventory, deleted products/variants and active products/variants with no product type show up the same way, and by default we do not map it. If a client wants to show this inventory, they can use the proxy Product Type: UNCLS_INV. But please know that this will cause deleted items inventory to show as well, and may have unintended consequences.

Why does my Shopify POS Sales By Product Type report show differently than Retail Orbit's?

Retail Orbit maps your Shopify Product Types to Retail Orbit classes. For each month, Retail Orbit captures and reports sales based on the Product Type at the time the monthly data was processed. If a Product Type change has occurred and you need the data to align for previous months. Submit a Support ticket  and our team can reprocess the data to reflect the updated Product Type mapping.

When running the POS Sales By Product Type report, please ensure all filters are removed except: Line Type ‘is’ ‘Product’.

Finally, Retail Orbit rounds dollar values, and this may cause slight differences when comparing reports.

What options are available for collection of Markdown data?

POS markdowns are available through this shuttle.

Permanent markdowns are NOT available at this time. Stay tuned for news on this, as we are exploring options for permanent markdowns using the ‘Compare at Price’.

What dates are used when determining where to collect the Purchase Order data?

This currently only applies to Faves and Stocky. For Faves, we use the ‘deliver_start’ date. And for Stocky we use the ‘expected_on’ date.

How far back do we collect data on Open Purchase Orders?

The Shopify Shuttle looks at ALL Open Purchase orders as well as any future Orders for the next 12 Months (of course).  Anything without an expected date will fall under the current Month's On Order. 

For Stocky, it is important to archive any older PO’s that are not expected to be fulfilled.

For Faves, it is important to know that we receive the current season and next season orders. Once a season has passed, please ensure any orders that are still expected are moved to the current season. (For seasons, Faves provides a ‘FW’ [Fall/Winter] and ‘SS’ [Spring/Summer] file for our processing using Product Type]  

What stops Shuttle from working properly with this POS?

This shuttle runs automatically every night.

Some uncommon reasons for shuttle to fail would include:
1. The Shopify Endpoint closes communication (timeout) 

2. Shopify Admin User has uninstalled the Retail Orbit app from their Shopify Admin. Please submit a Support Ticket to assist with re-connecting the app to your profile.

Are there any other nuances with Shuttle that I need to be aware of for this POS?

1. If the client has an e-commerce location, please discuss with a support technician how that e-commerce site is being tracked (separate location in Shopify vs separate location in Retail Orbit vs Combining e-commerce data). 
2. Data is currently pulled by location. We can also use Sales Channel’s to direct Sales info to specific locations. Please consult with support.
3. Sales data from multiple Shopify locations can be combined into one (1) location in Retail Orbit for reporting and planning purposes   However, Inventory and Receiving data cannot be combined across locations.
4. Transfers and Adjustments are not available through the API as specific visible data points. However Shopify will be releasing Transfers soon.
5. If you are looking to update data manually, you will need to involve support to ‘unfinalize’ a historical month in order to upload a file.
6. Product Type changes should be communicated with the support team in order to ensure there is no interruption in the nightly shuttle service.  We recommend periodic mapping reviews (once per month) to make sure all departments are mapped correctly. 
7. Items should NOT be deleted. It is our recommendation that all items that are no longer being carried be archived instead of deleted.

If you require assistance, a support agent would be more than happy to help, and a Shuttle Support appointment can be booked at retailorbit.setmore.com for a day/time that is convenient for you to allow our support team to remote access the computer.

If there is an issue, where do I get support?

The best place to start with support regarding the collection of data is to contact Retail Orbit support by email at support@retailorbit.com, by phone at 520-612-2001 or by appointment at retailorbit.setmore.com