Is anyone else missing Google Fields in the More Actions menu?

[jeany]

Hello, All.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue?  The Google Fields within the More Actions drop-down menu is missing.  It's not in the main Products page nor the individual product page.  

Thank you for your time.

Jeany

[360_J]

Having the same issue cannot locate the option we used to select to add Part Number Condition etc variables for google!

[mjoubert]

Same issues. No google menu available on more actions button in Shopify.

[donnamac]

Same issue here.

**Update  3/3/23 10:20am PST**

Just finished a chat session with support and they are checking to make sure Tech Support is aware.  They will send me an email once they hear back. Send them the link to this post also. I'll keep you updated

[donnamac]

**Update  3/2/23  11:43am PST  **   You are NOT going to like this

In a nutshell...

         the Google fields menu on product pages is no longer available.

   It seems they want us to add those Google Fields to our product page as variants and load them
   that way.  Then those will be sent to Google if they match their fields exactly (and we would

   never know if they changed those!).  At least that's my initial take on the matter.  More work for

   us, of course.  This is the last straw for us.  They are forcing us to go to a paid Google service

   that actually works maybe. 

   I may not have interpreted this right...any insight is welcomed.  
   I suggest getting on chat or whatever way you can contact them and voice your concern

Below is their response and what we need to do to maintain them.

***********  their response follows  ********************

Our Marketplaces Team has gotten back to me, and they confirm that the Google fields menu on product pages is no longer available. All Google product categories will now have to be edited and completed from the Google product editor.

There are certain Google fields that can be automatically mapped to the Merchant Center account. This is possible if you have variant options that are named very specifically:

• Size
• Color
• Age Group
• Condition
• Gender

If you have variant options called “Color” or “Size”, those variants are automatically submitted as values for color and size. In this scenario, you would not need to fill out the color or size metafields in the bulk editor.

So you will first need to make the product available to the Google sales channel, then edit the Google product category fields within the bulk editor. When selecting a certain segment of products, you can bulk edit those products. I'll outline those steps below:

I know when changes in the admin occur, this can interrupt your workflow. I will send this to the Merchant feature request team on your behalf. To that end, I’m going to share this feedback with our developer team on your behalf. I can’t guarantee if or when you’ll see any changes there, but what I can promise is that I’ll advocate thoroughly for you. You can always keep an eye on the Shopify Changelog, which announces all updates and feature rollouts on Shopify’s platform

If you have any further questions or concerns about your store please don't hesitate to reply to this email or reach out through our live chats or phone support. Have a great weekend!

*****************  end of support response ************************

Hopefully the screen shots loaded.  If not, I apologize...won't let me attach jpg/png's.  Just another

hurdle I'm afraid.

[jeany]

Thank you.  I don’t care for that method, either. 

[donnamac]

The only possible way Shopify would change this is if you COMPLAIN (at least that's my understanding).  And they do not make that easy.

So...please take the time and either go to chat and tell them to log your complaint to put the Google Fields edit back on the More Actions menu. 

If there are many complaints they might do something. 

IMO, the Google App bulk edit is awful.  We have alot of very small items that we can't barcode or anything, and they always get Google 'errors'.  We ignore them cause they aren't worth the time. So we have some pages of products in that bulk edit report...and you have to go through it page by page to find the product.  There is no search on it (last time I looked). 

It definitely was written by people who do not use the system.

[etienne21]

That kind of sucks is my first impression. I am creating a draft product and then would like to add the product category, material to it.

The Google Editor is not allowing you to do that easily if at all as I could see. I can't filter draft only, or search by title.

So @Shopify , how is this change going to make my life easier?

[bfujita31]

Agreed! Support is tellingell us bulk editing so much easier than editing within your product page. You literally have to add the missing columns to edit each time you want to edit different items. How is that easier?

[dlevens]

Uggg, this sucks, I used this feature all the time to get our products listed in the right Google Product Categories, update whether custom product or not, set Age, Gender, Condition, Material and a bunch of other stuff. The "Google product editor" is crap, it does not let you filter so you have to scroll through all your products. The bulk editor does not let you pick the same columns as you see in google product editor so you cannot edit that way. If they added a filter to google product editor that could fix this. 

[dlevens]

I figured out that you can use the bulk editor to show just the products you want then append this to the URL

&app_context=1780363

This will turn on the google product categories. 

To make it work you need to remove edit status and have your url look like this. Essentially keeping only the 3 things, resource_name, ids, app_context. If you delete everything else it should look something like this. These are my 2 products so wont work for you but if you bulk edit something, delete everything after ?resource_name=Product and before &ids= then you can append the &app_context=1780363 at the end and it work show the right fields to edit. PIA and not cool that Shopify just ripped this out without a proper solution. 

e.g.

/admin/bulk?resource_name=Product&ids=8171049386278%2C8136815903014&app_context=1780363

[donnamac]

Thanks @dlevens 

I found that you can just append that code to the very end of the URL and that seems to open the fields also.

The only down fall I have seen, is when I do that, if the fields are already populated (i.e. if I bring up a product where I formerly entered these fields) it displays blank fields.  I find that really weird and confusing.  Makes it look like they are all empty, when in reality they are not.  I wonder if I decide to 'SAVE' it with those fields showing, if it will overwrite what is in there with blanks.  Not going to test it at this point.

[dlevens]

@donnamac something is not right, keep in mind there are google fields exposed in the CSV import that are no longer used, if you updated those then the correct fields will still show blank in the website admin. There is no way to edit google fields outside of the website admin. Try not appending the code but use the format I listed. For me I made a google sheets formula that I just paste the &ids info into and it always works. Anything existing shows, so I do not have the blanks issue with this method. 

[donnamac]

The only way I am aware these fields can be accessed using the Google
Product Editor is:
1. go to Google App
2. Click on OPEN SALES CHANNEL
3. Click on NOT APPROVED
4. Select the ones you want to fix and go into Bulk Editor
5. It displays all the google fields for edit.

As far as I can tell, they have to ERR out first...then you can access them.
Crazy!

[donnamac]

***  UPDATE  4/12/23

Today I am adding product (as we do almost everyday!) and the list of categories I entered for the GOOGLE CATEGORY METAFIELD is not available.

Things have just gone from bad to worse.

[kmmiller45]

##- Please type your reply above this line –##

I have found that the Google product categories are no longer getting synced. So when Google interprets one wrong I have to change it on GMC.

[donnamac]

I read somewhere that Merch Ctr assigns a category if one comes over without it.  Some say it does a pretty good job.  You might try just leaving it blank and see how Google does.  Worth a try and will save time trying to make all this work. 

[kmmiller45]

##- Please type your reply above this line –##

That is correct. The problem is when it guesses wrong I used to be able to just add the correct category on Shopify and it would sync. But now it doesn’t so I have to fix it on GMC.

[Kathy_Bankston]

I'm still seeing my meta fields and everything is syncing properly with Google 

[kmmiller45]

##- Please type your reply above this line –##

All of my meta fields work except Google product category.

[jeany]

Hi, @donnamac Are you still having this issue?  I haven't had a problem since we all created defined metafields and pinned it.  I thought maybe your category metafield may have been unpinned.  That was the only thing I could think of as a possible reason for that particular field disappearing. 

Also, I use the full product category (i.e., Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Pants).  I keep a cheat sheet of the types of products I create as they are all the same and just copy & paste.  I've also created preset choices for the common metafields I use (gender, age, shopping condition, etc).

[donnamac]

@jeany 

I did the same as you.  To get past the whole issue, I 'defined' the metafield with some of the higher level categories so we could at least enter one. 

I hope I can explain what prompted by latest issue....here goes.

The products we entered the last few years via the 'More Action' menu, we often entered the category number.

Then Google fields option was taken down from the 'More Actions' .

I then defined the metafields, as you did, with just a few dozen categories to 'keep us adding products'. 

However....we often duplicate products to save time and when I duplicate a product where the category number is in it, the metafield category doesn't like the number because it doesn't 'match' the ones I entered when I defined the field. 

So, when I looked at the definition for  Google Metafield Category, I saw the checkbox for 'Limit to preset choices' was checked and wondered if I unchecked that, if it would then accept either the number OR the list of items I entered. 

I unchecked that, and lo and behold, my entered list no longer is there. 

All in all, I haven't had the time to go back and enter ALL the categories we utilize (about 150) and have just left it.  I just duplicate a product that has a good category in it and let it send that over and that goes over well.  I'm at the point where I just ignore the category field most of the time.

Just trying to help keep the business moving forward at this point and save the shop owner precious time they need to do it . . . . and it's not easy!!!

[Kathy_Bankston]

Shopify needs to put this back because now all new products we are adding are throwing errors in merchant center and are no longer shown due to the errors.  This is BS and shopify should put this back immediately.  All this does is hurt sales.  Why? Why? Why would they remove this?

[donnamac]

Hi Kathy,

Yes, this is very problematic to us all. They told me that Google had them
take that
out because it was interfering with the Google feed that *they *now
administer.

There is a solution by Dlevens on that thread: in a nutshell if you
=== the following is his solution ====

*I figured out that you can use the bulk editor to show just the products
you want then append this to the URL*

*&app_context=1780363*

*This will turn on the google product categories. *

=== end of the excerpt from his solution ===

*I think the only place this works is in the Product bulk editor. I have
played a little with it and I just added that to the very end of the URL
and it worked. What happens is:*


*- you add it, press enter, it redisplays the list of products you have
selected to bulk edit. - Then you go to *COLUMNS
*and scroll down to the bottom and all the Google Fields should be there
under Metafields.- Select the ones you want to edit and they will display
for you to enter info*

It's not pretty, but gets you access.

Otherwise, you send them over to Google, wait for Google to reject them and
put them on the NOT APPROVED list under the Google Channel and when you
bulk edit those, it shows the Google Fields.


*If you can get a support person via chat, I would complain. When they get
a huge uproar they might do something about it. But it takes a LOT of
complaints!*

[stillfriday]

There is now a metafields section at the bottom of each product page below search engine listing.
Click on Show all, Click on Metafields without a definition, you will see all the fields. Currently this is my workaround 

[Kathy_Bankston]

But they are not there on new products, only if you want to edit existing products that already have them.  Do they turn up once Google errors them?  What a PITA!

[dlevens]

@stillfriday can you share more details on this? I do not have this Metafields section below "Search engine listing". Do you see this on all of your products now? Would you mind expanding that section and share a screenshot of what you can edit?

[donnamac]

Ditto.  I didn't see these fields either.

Went to Settings/Custom Data/Products after researching a little.

Clicked on Metafields without a definition and the Google and Facebook metafields are listed.

I selected a field we populate and if it applied, I added the valid values that can be used in that field.

Now those fields show up at the bottom of our Product page and we can enter values, i.e. color or select from a drop-down list of valid choices.  For the Google category, I just entered a few general categories we use. 

Am testing this to see if it actually is going to work.

Anything to get this issue off my plate at this point.  We are constantly adding new products as we get new seasons of clothing lines in.

Thanks @stillfriday for mentioning this.  It might be the life-saver we need.

[jeany]

Tried this and it works!  Added definitions to the fields so that it will show metafields will show for new products.  I entered a new product and entered the Google fields (now metafields) I normally populate.  To check, went to Google bulk editor and all the data I just entered were there!  This is a much easier workaround.  Thank you!

[Kathy_Bankston]

@jeanyHow do you know what to put in all the blanks?  I guess I'm a little stupid but I have no idea what to fill in.  It won't save the definition if its blank.  

As an interesting side note, The item I just added Friday is buyable on google shopping and is listed as a Google free listing.  BUT it is erroring out inside of Google Merchant account with errors. 

[jeany]

@Kathy_Bankston I hope the pictures help.  For each google field that I use, I entered a name (which I chose as the metafield itself.  You can name it however way you want to).  Now, each time I create a new product (I sell clothing and accessories), the metafields are available at the bottom of the page and I enter the information I normally did through More Actions, Google Fields.  This actually is less steps for me.  I don't have to go to another screen to add the data required for Google.

[kmmiller45]

Do you have to name the definitions preceded with "Google Shopping"?

[donnamac]

No.  The field where you can enter the NAME is so you can name it something that makes sense to you.  This is an additional  NAME field.  The internal name of the field will remain Google Shopping Gender (in the screenshot example).  So name it what makes sense to you

[kmmiller45]

I see that now.  This is actually a better solution than the google fields menu but n typical Shopify fashion they just blow everything up with no notification or training and the support has no idea of what to do.  I also noticed that I no longer have to fiddle with the Custom Products flag as the identifier exists is getting correctly set on google based on the presence or absence of a UPC along with my feed rules.  Before I had to toggle that flag on and off every time I had a new product because of a Shopify bug that they refused to accept responsibility for.

[etienne21]

This is really great solution to our problem (caused by Google taking over the Channel app from Shopify btw).

I guess, but not tried yet, you can create a dropdown list of options to choose from like: male, female, unisex or True/False.

[kmmiller45]

Yes you can. Its still clumsy like all Shopify menus because lt seams not a single person who works on this software ever tried to sell something on here. At least not in bulk. They broke so much though. My image links are often not getting sent to Google causing errors and forcing me to have resync items. And I am plagued with indexing errors since Google took this over. And I don’t even know what to do about those yet.,

[Kathy_Bankston]

So as a follow up since Shopify has now added this feature, do we just delete the product metafield definitions that are duplicates now?  I feel like now I have them doubled up.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Kathy_Bankston]

@jeany Thank you for your in depth reply.  I really appreciate you taking the time to do that for me.  I was able to add the fields.  Now I'll give it a few days and sees if it clears the errors in Merchant Center.  Thanks!

[xalwayswins]

When entering the Google Product Categories have you been entering the full typed out category or using the short hand numerical codes for each category. The numbers are so much easier but its not change the code to the category automatically on my end. 

[Kathy_Bankston]

I entered the category fully typed out, Google merchant center did accept all of these fields this morning, so we are good to go with these instructions! YAY!

[donnamac]

I entered the number in Shopify and it went over to Merchant Center with the correct category.
It will still only display the number in Shopify.

So,  YES, you can enter the number and be good.

[fabricgardenaus]

I am experiencing the same issue - Google Merchant Centre is throwing up pricing errors as I sell in metres on Shopify and cm on Google. It was an ugly solution but at least it worked. I want to maintain products from Shopify and NOT edit them in GMC.

[GleimGearLLC]

Hi all! First time posting in this forum as I'm still pretty new to Shopify.

However, I found a solution that Shopify has already implemented within the Google Sales Channel app. This is the solution that worked for me, I hope it works for all of you. 

Click on your Google app on the left then click on Manage Products to the right of Product Status.

Then check the box under the Google column and after that, you should be able to fill out the fields under the columns. Don't forget to click Save at the top right!

[bfujita31]

I have been doing the workaround someone mentioned earlier for quite some time. After speaking with customer support, they quickly refer you to a paid resolution. This is only my opinion, but quite a few customizable options are slowly being removed from Shopify, and solutions are now with paid developers.

Perhaps to create more revenue, Shopify has an agreement with developers willing to pay Shopify a fee to promote their services to its members. Shopify does not have to spend as much on in-house development and can increase revenue allowing other developers to do the work while getting a kickback to promote their applications. This allows Shopify to increase revenue on both sides.