Connecting to Shopify

Shopify uses basic authentication, making it incredibly simple to make API calls. The only information you need is the API Key, the API password for your private app, your store's name (with hyphens instead of spaces), and the specific endpoint for the call that you are trying to make.

To retrieve your API Key and password, you simply create a new private app on your Shopify dashboard. The key and password will be automatically generated.

Once you have the key and password, using Shopify’s Rest API couldn’t be easier to use. As an example, the call to pull orders would look like this:

{API Key}:{API Password}@{Store-Name}.myshopify.com/admin/api/2020-01/orders.json

Capabilities

The included demo file specifically covers pulling orders from Shopify, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Shopify’s API has endpoints for pretty much any type of call you would ever want to make. From creating or updating customers, to creating products, to pulling order information from a given date range, integrating with Shopify can handle just about any action you’d want to take straight from FileMaker.

The API documentation will tell you everything you need to know for each call you are trying to make. It even shows you any query parameters that can be added to your call to receive more specific information. For instance, you can append the created_at_min query parameter to show all orders created at or after a specific time. Shopify measures time by UTC, so be sure to include your UTC offset at the end of the call so that the time that you're attempting to query is relevant to you. Ours is -5:00.

{API Key}:{API Password}@{Store-Name}.myshopify.com/admin/api/2020-01/orders.json?created_at_min=2020-02-05T15:00:-5:00

Shopify's API will also give great examples of the response information that you will receive from a successful call.

With the JSON that you receive from your request to Shopify, you can store the data into a field or variable and then use FileMaker's JSONGetElement function to pull JSON values using the JSON keys.

Conclusion

Integrating FileMaker with Shopify is not only incredibly simple, but incredibly powerful. With basic calls you will be creating products, updating orders, and keeping track of billing, all from your FileMaker system in no time. Contact us if you would like help integrating your FileMaker application with Shopify!