My company manages operations and administers several stores on Shopify (20+). Our Customer Service agents take phone orders and have difficulty switching between accounts and managing several browser sessions. This is not tenable or scalable.
So we want to update our current internal Desktop Order Management system which is integrated with our phone system for managing orders across all of these Shopify accounts in one Desktop application.
In order to do this we need to be able to create Checkout objects with the Shopify API. We use the “web_url” from the Checkout to show a payment page for our call center agents to enter discountcodes and collect payment. “DraftOrders” wont work because the invoice_url does not allow discountcodes to be used with usage tracked. Only the Checkout “web_url” supports a “discountcode” entry with tracked usage. So we are forced to use Checkouts to meet our hard requirement of taking payment and entering discountcodes with usage tracked.
As we all probably know, we can only call the Shopify REST API to create Checkout objects if the API app is a “Public” app that is configured to be a “Sales Channel”. We cannot create Checkouts in the API with Private API keys. Side note, this constraint does not make any sense. I should be able to create a Checkout record in an account I own without having to deal with partner accounts and public sales channel app approval. Why am I forced to deploy and authorize an app from a Partner account as a public sales channel just so I can create Checkout? Really? Am I missing something here?
So, I am being forced to create my app from a separate Partner account as a “Public Sales Channel” just so I can then install in my stores and create Checkout objects. Which I have done. But now I need to get it installed in all my stores and its not an approved public app.
How do I get approval for this app so I can install it on the accounts we administer? We do not want to sell this app or interact with the Shopify app market place in any way. We only want to create and deploy an app privately that creates Checkouts.
Is anyone else facing this dilemma? How do we get “approval” and move forward?