creating an app to have many more customer fields as default, where to start

[medlington]

Hi,

Im about to import thousands of customers into Shopify from Magento and we have more data for each customer than Shopify has as default, for example we store VAT numbers for some customers.

I've been told these fields will be created as meta fields automatically when I import the customers via the transporter app however I want these fields to be there when someone clicks on create new customer. The last thing I want is for when one of my colleagues tries to create a new customer that they have to remember to create these extra meta fields each time as no doubt they will forget or not be able to figure out how to do it.

I was told Id need an app to create new default fields like this.

So my question is where to start?

I had a look at the customer API but it doesnt seem quite what Im after, it looks like I could add metafields to an individual customer or even all existing customers but I cant see anyway to make it show these fields as default fields for every new customer?

Im going to want to do this for products too as our products have many extra fields which we use for various things and I need these to be available as default when a new product is added.

This is my first look at Shopify so maybe Im missing something obvious

Thanks 

[Zolbayar]

Hi medlington,

On Shopify, customers are created automatically when they create an order for the first time. What you want to do is creating them manually, but with some extra fields. Is that right?

[medlington]

Hi,

Yes thats pretty much it. Our sales team often create new retail customers in the admin area of our current site and we require more fields than the default fields when creating a new customer manually.

Having thought about it more is the idea that I would create my own hosted app that the sales team would use to create the customers on which would take all the required details and completely replace the default create customer section on Shopify? Then my app would just create the customer with the new metafileds via the customer API?

[Zolbayar]

Hi, 

Then you're right. Create an app → build the forms → use Shopify Admin API to create customers 😃

[medlington]

Thanks,

I think I understand how these apps work on Shopify now, I was getting confused as always worked on Magento in the past where youd add a custom attribute to a customer or product and it would be there as default selection whenever you created a new one.

[michael-helium]

Hi @medlington,

This is a common use case for the Customer Fields app. As the name of the app suggests, Customer Fields enables you to create new fields for saving customer data in Shopify, but more importantly, helps you manage and integrate your customer data with other business tools.

It sounds like you'll need more than just a basic metafields editor since you'll be wanting your colleagues to easily add/update VAT numbers for new customers.

For example:

• Add new fields such as VAT to your customer registration form
• Use the app's database to view/edit unique customer data that you can't store in Shopify
• Set up rules to add customer tags, mark as "tax-exempt", or pretty much anything you can think up.

How to handle something similar for products is out of my personal domain experience, but many of our partners have recommended Accentuate Custom Fields.

[michael-helium]

For developers: we've built our own APIs (front-end and REST) to help simplify related use cases on Shopify.

See Customer Fields developer documentation.