How to Add Metafields to a Report?

What are Metafields? 

Metafields are a way for merchants to create additional fields that store specialized information.

Merchants can use metafields on both the front end of the storefront (to provide extra details to the customers) or on the back end in the Shopify admin (for internal tracking purposes). 

In Report Toaster, we can take metafields that are created on Products, Variants, Customers, and Orders.

Once added, these are then available as columns/filters just like regular fields you can include in your reports.  

Note - You must be on a paid plan of Report Toaster to have access to this feature. You can signup at any time by following the directions here.

Setting up Metafields

First, we have to add metafields to your Report Toaster account.

Start by going to the Settings menu in the left-hand pane. Under Metafields, click Select Metafields:

You'll then be taken to the following window, and we'll go over each of these in turn:

1. First at the top, you can choose the tab to switch between Product, Variant, Customer, or Order metafields. 
   
2. Name corresponds to the Definition name of the field in Shopify. By default, this is what the field will be called in Report Toaster after you add it.
   
3. Description corresponds to the Description of the field in Shopify. 
   
4. Namespace and Key are the unique IDs for the field. This is just what we use to map the fields.  
   
5. Type is what kind of metafield it is (e.g. text, number, etc)
   
6. Status is where you can choose to Add to Report Toaster or Remove a field that's already active. 

To add a new field, find the field in question (in this case we'll use Material) and click the button for +Add to Report Toaster. 

Once you do this, the Status will temporarily switch to Pending.

You will then need to click the Save Changes button to confirm the metafields you want to add (so you can add multiples at once and confirm any changes):

Do this and you'll see the following popup:

To make this possible, we have to resync the applicable store data so that the fields will populate with any values you have entered in the respective metafields.

(e.g. for Products this means resyncing all of your store's products).

Depending on what is being resynced and the amount of data for your store, this may take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours for larger stores, so please be patient! 

Removing Metafields

Here we can follow the same process, only in reverse. 

Click Remove and the Status will switch to Removing. 
Click Save Changes to confirm. 

Note - No syncing is needed for this process; the custom field is removed, and that's all there is to it. 

Using Metafields in a report

Once added to your account, we make all metafields available on all Sales reports

This includes anything under the Sales, Sales Over Time or Retail sections in the Built-in Reports tab.

So these are a great place to start if you're looking to include metafields on a report:

As well as on any Sales report, we made metafields available on several other built-in reports as follows:

1. Product Metafields - Anything under the Inventory menu. Products, & Product Variants (under the Products menu)
   
2. Variant Metafields - Anything under the Inventory menu. Product Variants (under the Products menu)
   
3. Customer Metafields - Anything under the Customers menu.
   
4. Order Metafields - Anything under the Orders and Fulfillments menus.
   

We try to make metafields available wherever they might be applicable.

However if you're needing the fields somewhere else and don't see them available then contact us at support@cloudlab.com and we'll try to get you sorted.

Once you've found the report you want, you can add metafields just like any other field as a column...

or a filter in any applicable report: 

**If a metafield isn't displaying as expected as a field, then there is a good chance it's using a Type that isn't suitable for inclusion in reports. 

Feel free to contact us at support@cloudlab.com and we'd be glad to help troubleshoot any issues. 

For other articles in our Basic Guides series, check out our main section here.

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