Integrating GitHub and Shopify allows you to leverage Git to make and keep track of changes related to Shopify theme codes. Setting up this integration lets you collaborate better with your Shopify developers and keep everyone on the same page. In addition, you can connect your GitHub branches with Shopify themes to build, modify and publish themes with ease.
This article will provide you with an in-depth understanding of how to set up your Shopify GitHub Integration effortlessly in just four easy steps. It will also help you gain a holistic understanding of what Shopify and GitHub are all about, along with some key features of each of them! Read along to find out more and get started with Shopify GitHub Integration.
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
- A Shopify Partner account and permission to manage themes.
Introduction to Shopify
Image Source
Tobias Lutke launched the Ottawa-based company in 2006 with the goal of assisting aspirants in launching their ideal online business faster. Shopify also caters to the more advanced demands of website owners, allowing for tweaks and even the creation of apps from the ground up via the Shopify API. Shopify has grown in popularity around the world as a result of its versatility. Shopify had over 1.7 million enterprises using it in around 175 countries as of May 2021.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows businesses to establish online and offline stores and sell products. Merchants can also sell their products in person using their online retail Point of Sale System (Shopify POS). It is suitable for all types of companies, regardless of their size.
Users may effortlessly develop their businesses with Shopify’s tools and services, which include Payment Gateways, Shipping, Marketing, and Customer Involvement.
Customers’ data can be analyzed using Shopify’s built-in features. Businesses and organizations, on the other hand, must retain this information in a database since it helps them to acquire deeper insights by merging other organizational data with Shopify. This allows businesses to take advantage of the power of a full-fledged Database (or, in some cases, a Data Warehouse) to get beyond Shopify’s Aanalytics limitations.
Key Features of Shopify
Shopify has expanded quickly since its start and now offers some of the most user-friendly features:
- Simple Setup: Shopify makes it easy for businesses to create an online store without having to invest in servers or other infrastructure.
- Security and Reliability: As Internet companies handle sensitive and financial information from customers, security is an important domain. Shopify delivers on every security aspect with enterprise-grade security built-in.
- Affordable Plans: Shopify offers three plans to meet the needs of sellers: Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify.
- Shopify’s Advanced Marketing Tools: This includes Digital Marketing, Shopify SEO tools, and product reviews, all of which help businesses advertise themselves more effectively.
Introduction to GitHub
Image Source
GitHub is a web-based platform that enables access control and a variety of collaboration features, including wikis and basic task management tools. On GitHub, millions of developers and businesses create, ship, and maintain their software. It was founded in 2008 as a SaaS service based on Git, an Open-Source Code Management system built by Linus Torvalds to speed up software development.
By providing a web interface to the Git code repository as well as management tools for collaborative work, GitHub supports social coding. It can be thought of as a Software Developer Social Networking site. GitHub offers an On-premises version of its software in addition to its well-known SaaS option.
GitHub Enterprise provides a wide selection of apps and services from third parties. The platform offers a wide range of integrations for Code Review Automation, Continuous Integration, Code Performance, Error Monitoring and Task Management, ranging from apps that connect GitHub to your Amazon and Google Cloud accounts to Project Management tools.
Key Features of GitHub
GitHub assists developers in maintaining version control and enhances the software development ecosystem as a whole. The following are some of GitHub’s features:
- Profile Weight: Many firms utilize GitHub profiles to evaluate the skill set of any developer during the hiring process.
- Integrations: GitHub integrates with a variety of third-party tools and apps, allowing users to sync data and streamline their workflow.
- Project Management: Companies can use GitHub to keep track of all Software Development progress and collaborate with team members.
Hevo Data is a No-code Data Pipeline that offers a fully managed solution to set up data integration from 100+ Data Sources including 40+ Free Data Sources such as Shopify and GitHub and will let you directly load data to a Data Warehouse or the destination of your choice. It will automate your data flow in minutes without writing any line of code.
It helps transfer data from Shopify and GitHub to a destination of your choice for free. Its fault-tolerant architecture makes sure that your data is secure and consistent. Hevo provides you with a truly efficient and fully automated solution to manage data in real-time and always have analysis-ready data.
Let’s look at some of the salient features of Hevo:
- Fully Managed: It requires no management and maintenance as Hevo is a fully automated platform.
- Data Transformation: It provides a simple interface to perfect, modify, and enrich the data you want to transfer.
- Real-Time: Hevo offers real-time data migration. So, your data is always ready for analysis.
- Schema Management: Hevo can automatically detect the schema of the incoming data and map it to the destination schema.
- Scalable Infrastructure: Hevo has in-built integrations for 100’s of sources that can help you scale your data infrastructure as required.
- Live Monitoring: Advanced monitoring gives you a one-stop view to watch all the activities that occur within Data Pipelines.
- Live Support: Hevo team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to its customers through chat, email, and support calls.
SIGN UP HERE FOR A 14-DAY FREE TRIAL!
Steps to Set up Shopify GitHub Integration
Image Source
Here are the simple steps involved for Shopify GitHub Integration
Step 1: Integrate with a GitHub Account or Organisation
To begin the Shopify GitHub Integration process, you first need to link/set up a connection for your GitHub account and the Shopify store.
Note: In case, you’re in a development store, you need to log out and again login via the Shopify Partner Dashboard.
- Go to Online Store > Themes in your Shopify admin.
- Click Add theme > Connect from GitHub in the Theme library area.
- Click Log in to GitHub in the Connect theme window.
- Enter your GitHub username and password.
- Now, the Shopify Online Store GitHub app must be authorized and installed. You can now choose whether to install the app on your personal account or on behalf of your organization.
- In case you’re planning to install the app for your company, you may decide whether the app should be installed for all repositories or just a few. Only allow access to certain repositories that you want to use with this Shopify GitHub Integration.
Step 2: Create a Shopify Theme using a Branch
You must first select a branch from the Shopify admin before connecting it to a theme. The contents of the branch are added to your theme library as a new theme.
- Go to Online Store > Themes in your Shopify admin.
- Click Add theme > Connect from GitHub in the Theme library area.
- Log into GitHub if required.
- If you’re integrating a repository associated with an organization, you’ll need to choose the organization to which the repository belongs.
- Select the repository to which you want to link, then the branch to which you want to connect it.
All commits to the branch you chose are pulled into the theme after the initial connection is made, and all modifications made in the Shopify admin are pushed to the branch.
Step 3: Put your Connection to the Test
Make a modest update to the theme and then verify that a commit was made in the branch. This will help ensure that the link between your branch and repository is working.
- Go to Online Store > Themes in your Shopify admin.
- Click Customize on the theme that is linked to GitHub.
- Any setting related to your theme can now be changed. You could, for example, edit the text on the announcement bar.
- Exit the theme editor after clicking Save.
- To go to GitHub, click the name of the branch on the card associated with the theme in the theme library.
- Take a look at the most recent commit after the Shopify GitHub Integration. The authors of the commit should be listed as the Shopify-online-store app and your username.
Image Source
Step 4: Make the Theme Public
You must publish a theme from your theme library that is linked to a GitHub branch. This will help you track changes to your published theme. You can use Git Branching and Merging tactics to keep your published theme up to date by adding your Master or Main Branch as a theme.
You can also use the Shopify CLI or Shopify Admin to manually publish the theme.
Here’s an example from the Shopify Github Integration of what will happen with your GitHub repo if you make changes straight on Shopify: Every single save will result in a git commit.
Image Source
Your Shopify Github Integration is now complete and is ready to use!
Benefits of Shopify Github Integration
- You can link a GitHub account to your Shopify login and then connect Git repositories to themes in your Shopify admin using the Shopify GitHub Integration.
- This integration allows you to build and track theme code modifications. It also allows you to collaborate with other developers in real-time and share your progress.
- You can pull and push theme code for any organization or repository linked to your GitHub account automatically.
- To quickly build and test new theme features or campaigns, connect one or more branches from a repository.
Conclusion
This article provided you with an easy step-by-step guide to help you set up Shopify GitHub Integration in no time! In addition, it introduced you to the fantastic benefits of integrating your Shopify Store with GitHub Repositories. It also provided you with an in-depth understanding of both platforms, along with a detailed list of features these platforms have in store for you.
You might wish to take your business growth a step further after learning about the Shopify GitHub Integration by employing Data Analytics techniques on your Shopify & GitHub data. This will necessitate the deployment of different complex ETL techniques to transfer data to a Data Warehouse.
Extracting complex data from Shopify, GitHub, and numerous other platforms can be challenging & require immense engineering bandwidth, and this is where Hevo saves the day!
Visit our Website to explore Hevo
Hevo Data with its strong integration with 100+ Sources & BI tools such as Shopify and GitHub allows you to not only export data from sources & load data in the destinations, but also transform & enrich your data, & make it analysis-ready so that you can focus only on your key business needs and perform insightful analysis using BI tools. It helps transfer data from Shopify and GitHub to a destination of your choice for free.
Give Hevo Data a try by Sign Up for a 14-day free trial today.
Share your experience of understanding Shopify GitHub Integration in the comment section below!
Davor is a data analyst at heart with a passion for data, software architecture, and writing technical content. He has experience writing more than 100 articles on data integration and infrastructure.