Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The following is a set of Frequently Asked Questions from users of Report Toaster:

I'm stuck! How do I get help?

Well don't panic - our dedicated support team is always here to help.
  • Chat
    • The best way to get in touch is via our chat widget in the bottom right corner of our app.
    • Our chat hours are from 6AM - 5PM PST, Monday through Friday. 
    • If we aren't available, you can always leave a message and we'll get back to you. 
  • Email - If you're not into the whole chat thing, you can go old school and send us an email at support@cloudlab.com.
  • Knowledge Base - Finally, you can check out our knowledge base here. There are a load of great intro guides and some helpful instructional videos.
Want something added or to request a new feature in the app? Feel free to reach out to us at any time :)

What is Report Toaster?

Report Toaster, created by Cloudlab™, is the most powerful reporting app available for Shopify merchants.

How do I start using Report Toaster?

Install Report Toaster using our listing in the Shopify app store.

Please bear in mind that if you aren't the store owner, you will likely need app permissions to install the app.

It says my data is syncing, what does that mean? How long will this take?

When you first install the app (or upgrade to our Premium plan), Report Toaster syncs the relevant Shopify data from your store. 

This process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours for larger stores. Please be patient.

See here for more information. 

Does Report Toaster have a Free Plan?

For our Shopify and Shopify Basic Customers, Report Toaster has a free plan available. This plan is limited to 1 year of historical data (see below).
 
However, these users can choose to upgrade to our paid plan for only $9.00 a month. This plan comes with a lot more features, including:
  1. Unlimited Data (see below)
  2. Premium Reports (see below)
  3. Calculated Fields
  4. Shared Links
  5. Scheduled Reports
  6. Mechanic
See our main guide here for more information. 

How do I switch back to the Free Plan? 

For Shopify and Shopify Basic Customers, Report Toaster has a free plan available (see above). 

If you have upgraded your account to a Premium Plan and want to switch back to the Free Plan, you can simply uninstall and reinstall the app.
This will cancel the recurring charge and the free plan will be selected by default when you reinstall. 

If you would like to sign up again at a later time, simply follow the directions here as normal. 

How do I cancel my subscription?

Firstly, we're sorry to see you go! We'd love to help you with using our app or finding further value from our reports, so feel free to reach out to us and hopefully we can get you sorted :) 

Secondly, before you do anything - you may want to check out some of things you'll be missing out on without Report Toaster (especially all our features that you just can't get from Shopify).
We would strongly advise that you also double check all of your saved custom My Reports, Shared Links, Scheduled Reports, Mechanic Tasks, etc in case you are removing something that other members of your team were relying on! 

Finally, if you do still want to go ahead and cancel your subscription then you can simply uninstall the app. This will automatically cancel the recurring charge.
Note - we don't put code on any merchant's site, so there are no further steps required to complete the uninstallation. 

We'd love your feedback, so please email us to support@cloudlab.com and let us know how we can help. 

Unlimited Data - what does that mean?

By default, our free plan for Report Toaster syncs 1 year of historical data (Orders, Transactions, etc.) from your Shopify admin. This means you will only have the last 365 days of data for your store. 

For users on our paid plan, we can sync additional historical data. Simply contact us at support@cloudlab.com and we can add the extra data upon request. 

What are Premium reports? 

These are included by default on all paid plans of Report Toaster. As of the time of writing, we have over 30 Premium Reports now available in the app.

See our main section here for more information.

Free apps scare me, does that mean you sell our data?

Absolutely not! We pride ourselves on privacy and security. Your data is safe with us. If for whatever reason, you decide to uninstall our app, your data is removed from our servers.

For more information on our Privacy Policy, see our article here. 

Will installing Report Toaster slow down my store?

No it will not! There are apps that can affect the performance of your store, but those apps inject code into the front end of your store. 

Report Toaster catches webhooks provided by Shopify and then gathers data using the Shopify API. None of which have any impact on your store's performance.

For more information, see our article here.

Which Reports are historical (true at time of sale) vs. live (true right now)

Most of the attributes on our Sales Reports are historical, meaning that they track the data that was true at the time of sale.
This is done to preserve historical integrity of the order data as well as to make sure that the profits accurately reflect what was true when the goods were actually sold. 

In contrast, most of our Product and Inventory reports are live, meaning they reflect the current prices, costs, profits etc.

If you make changes to your Products/Inventory, these updates will be shown on the Product and Inventory reports automatically. 
If you want these changes to be reflected on Sales reports, you will need to use NOW fields. See our guide here for more info 

How long does it take for my data to update if I make changes to my store?

If something changes with your store data (e.g. a new order is placed), Report Toaster updates automatically. This will be done in near real-time, with a built-in delay of around two minutes to wait for Shopify to complete the update.

On rare occasions, Shopify has been known to have delays in delivering the webhooks that inform our app of changes to your data.
When this happens, we will be out of sync until Shopify catches up. Historically, this is normally just a few minutes, but it has been known to sometimes take a few hours.

Please be patient and feel free to contact us if you would like us to investigate further. 

How many built-in reports are included with Report Toaster?

Report Toaster has over 100 pre-built reports and we are always adding more!

Can I create my own custom reports?

Yes. Start with one of our pre-built report and customize with your own filters, column, sort order, chart type, etc. Save to "My Reports" for later access. 

Watch our video tutorial or check out our basic guides here for more information.

How do I track Inventory History from before I had the the feature enabled in Report Toaster. 

Put simply, you can't ...(in any app, not just Report Toaster).

This is because:
1.) Shopify does not store detailed inventory adjustment history past 90 days (see this article by them here and this community discussion here). 
2.) Even then, Shopify does not make any of this information available via their API. This means that no third party app would have access to the information required to track historical inventory prior to the app's installation. 

This is why we advise all our merchants to start tracking inventory history right away. Contact us as soon as you sign up for Report Toaster and we'd be happy to add this feature to your account.
Check out our main guide on inventory history here.


My download Times out/won't complete. What should I do? 

Usually this happens only for very large datasets.
So for large data exports, note that even if the process times out on the front end for large sets of data, the process will still complete on the backend and the file will eventually display in History for you to be able to download.

You can see this by navigating back to the report in question you tried to download, click the file icon (top right) and go to History.

There under Export History you should see a log of your past download attempts with a subsequent timestamp.
Anything that displays here has finished compiling, so you should be able to simply click the download button on the right to save the file to your device without any issues.
 

What does this field/attribute mean? 

Most of our fields and various attributes come from Shopify and work in much the same way.

For a list of common attributes and some key definitions, check out our main guide here.

What if I'm not sure how to create the report I want?

If you are having trouble creating a report, just contact us and we can create it for you. This is a service we provide free of charge.

Why should I use Report Toaster instead of the Shopify reports?

Report Toaster contains a lot of features that Shopify lacks, including new data, more customizable reports, and better support.

See here for more info.

How is Report Toaster better than other reporting apps?

Our team consists of experts in Ecommerce, Big Data Analytics, and Enterprise software development. Below are just some of the things that make us different.

  • Privacy - The privacy of your data is our first priority. Our apps are completely GDPR and CCPA compliant.
  • Security - Your data is secure. We protect against unauthorized access by your staff or by cybercriminals.
  • Support - Get support when you need it. Our staff is always available to answer questions or help create custom reports.
  • Free - Did we mention that Report Toaster has a Free Plan available with all of our base features. Check pricing on our app listing here..

My question is something else?

Fantastic. We're happy to help you out, so feel free to reach out to us via the chat in the bottom right corner of the app (available 6AM to 5PM PST, Monday through Friday) or email us to support@cloudlab.com.

 





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