Documentation

Deploy a Connector in Merchant Center

Learn how to deploy a Connector in the Merchant Center.

  • After completing this page, you should be able to:

    • Explain the specifics of deploying a Connector in the Merchant Center.

    • Now that you are familiar with the basics of Connectors and Connect applications, let’s see this in action by deploying a public, certified Connector to your Project.

    While commercetools Connect handles the infrastructure provisioning and runtime environments, to deploy a Connector you will need certain configuration information such as a Composable Commerce API Client's client ID and secret. Connectors that use third-party services may also require some settings, such as or API keys, from that service. The deployment process includes the following steps:

    1. Search for a Connector.
    2. Install the Connector (create a Deployment) with the correct configurations.
    3. Test the Connector in your project.

    The diagram above shows an important feature of commercetools Connect: Connectors are hosted by commercetools. A Connector is, technically, a container for running your code. Given our long history in providing stable, robust, reliable, and fast SaaS applications, you can trust commercetools to run your extensions and remove the need to worry about the hosting infrastructure!

    Step 1: Search for a Connector

    To assist you in this, Connect provides a search option that can narrow down your search on certain keywords, names, or creators to find the Connector that is most suited to your business needs.

    Search for a Connector in Merchant Center.)

    Let’s search for a freely available, public, training Connector, for which we can also find the source code on Github. You can explore the source code to understand this sample Connector in more detail. For now, you must read through the README and gather the information you need to install this Connector in your project. Navigate to the Merchant Center and perform the following steps:

    1. Click your profile icon in the top right of the screen and select Manage Organizations & Teams.
    2. Select an Organization and click the Connect tab.
    3. Use the keywords sample and training to find the Connector developed by training@commercetools.com. You are searching for a Connector called Self Learning Training Connector.

    Now, let’s install the Connector (or in other words, create a deployment).

    Step 2: Install the Connector

    Let’s follow along with the tutorial from the docs to continue and install the Connector found in the previous step.

    1. Before starting the installation process, select Learn more and read the Connector's documentation, including the prerequisites and installation guide.
    2. Click Install and select the Region in which you want to install the Connector.
    3. Choose to install the Connector for a specific Project, select your project, and click Next.
    4. Enter the values for all fields for each application within the Connector. These fields are specific for each Connector, and more information can be found in the Connector's documentation.
    5. Click Install. The Manage connectors page appears, which displays the installation status.
    6. The status will show Installing for some time before it changes to Installed or Failed.

    Manage Connector installation.)

    Select the Connector from the list to change its configuration,

    Connector apps configuration.)

    or view app logs and build details.

    Connector app logs.)

    Voila! The Connector has been successfully installed. It’s time to test the Connector functionality in your project.

    Step 3: Test the Connector

    Test the service app

    We can test the sample distributor app by creating a Cart and adding items that will change the total Cart value to more than the configured amount.

    1. In the Merchant Center main menu, go to Orders > Add order.

    2. Select a Currency from the drop-down box and click Next.

    3. Select a Customer from the list and click Next.

    4. Search for an item by its SKU and click Add to add the item to the cart. If the Cart Total is more than the configured value, you will see the free sample item added to the Cart.

    Service app test.)

    Test the event app

    We can test the event new arrivals category management app by creating a new product.

    1. In the Merchant Center main menu, go to Products > Add product.
    2. Fill in all the details and Publish the Product.
    3. That should notify the Event app to add the Product to the Category you configured as your New category in the Connector.

    Event app test.)

    Test the job app

    We can test the job new arrivals category clean-up management app by manually adding a product that was created more than 30 days ago.

    1. In the Merchant Center main menu, go to Products and then select a Product.
    2. Click Add categories to add the product to the New Arrivals category.
    3. Now, wait for the clean-up job to run. Currently, it’s configured to run daily at 1 AM.
    4. Your product will be removed by the clean-up job.

    Test your knowledge

    Fantastic work! Head on over to the next Connect module to dive deeper into the development process of a custom Connector: