Shopify admin extensions

Assemblified plugs into the Shopify admin in two ways: it writes data into Shopify metafields, and it renders UI directly inside the admin via extensions. Your team rarely has to leave Shopify to act on BOM data, and other tools that read from Shopify (storefronts, third-party apps) can pick up Assemblified’s component breakdown straight from the variant.

On this page

• Metafields written to Shopify
• Order-detail blocks
• Packing-slip print actions
• Product-list admin actions
• Install and enable

Metafields written to Shopify

Assemblified writes a material_requirements_json metafield in two places — on Orders and on Product Variants — under the same assemblified namespace. Each has its own switch on Settings → Integrations, in the sections Shopify order metafields and Shopify product-variant metafields, and both are off by default, so nothing is written to Shopify until you opt in.

Note

The order-detail blocks below read the order metafield. Anything that reads the product variant metafield (storefront badges, third-party catalog tools, your own reports) is outside Assemblified — the metafield is just a public surface other systems can hook into.

Order metafield

Written on every Shopify order Assemblified touches. Kept up to date through the order’s lifecycle — creates, cancels, refunds, and edits all rewrite it.

Namespace / Key	assemblified / material_requirements_json
Owner	Order
Setting	Write material requirements into order metafields
Cost option	Hide cost and price in order metafields — zeros out costs while keeping quantities and structure intact
Read by	The two order-detail blocks below
Shape	JSON array of BOMs with quantities and their resolved material requirements

Prefer pulling over reading metafields?

The REST API’s order BOM breakdown endpoints return the same shape on demand for 1–50 orders per call — without enabling this metafield writeback, and always computed from the order’s current line items. Ideal for warehouse and 3PL integrations.

Product variant metafield

Written on the Shopify product variant linked to a BOM (the BOM’s finished good). Updated whenever a BOM is created or edited — but only while the BOM’s status is active. If a BOM is set to inactive or deleted, Assemblified clears the variant’s metafield so stale data doesn’t linger on the product.

Namespace / Key	assemblified / material_requirements_json
Owner	Product Variant
Setting	Write material requirements into product variant metafields
Cost option	Hide cost in product variant metafields — same behaviour as the order cost option
Active-only	Yes — inactive or deleted BOMs have the variant metafield cleared automatically
Bulk action	A one-shot sync in the same settings section — writes across every BOM, including inactive ones (the only path that ignores the active-only gate)
Read by	External systems (storefront blocks, third-party catalog tools, custom reports) that want a product’s component breakdown straight from Shopify

Completing a work order refreshes the order metafield for every order that work order was created from, laying the work order’s own recorded values over the ones derived from the bill — see Material metafield tracking.

Developer note — JSON shape

The two metafields share the namespace and key but use different payload shapes — a consumer must branch on owner type. Annotated examples below match the schema written today.

Product variant metafield — one top-level object describing the one BOM that owns the variant.

{
  "bomId": "BOM-1768434482737-20pcga4xq",         // Assemblified internal BOM ID
  "bomName": "Example BOM",
  "generatedAt": "2026-01-15T19:22:22.511Z",       // ISO 8601, UTC
  "materialRequirements": [
    {
      "productId":   "15236237230403",
      "variantId":   "54072478040387",
      "sku":         "#sku-123",                    // empty string if no SKU
      "productName": "Shopify Product Title",
      "variantName": "Shopify Variant Title",       // string | null
      "specifications": "6061 grade aluminum",      // string | null
      "notes":       "Cut to length",               // string | null — BOM raw-material edge notes
      "unit":        "pcs",
      "quantity":    3,                             // per 1 unit of the BOM's finished good
      "cost":        5.99,                          // unit cost — 0 when "Hide cost in product variant metafields" is on
      "imageUrl":    "https://cdn.shopify.com/.../Main.jpg",  // string | null
      "isEssential": true                           // false = non-essential material
    }
  ]
}

When the BOM is set inactive or deleted, this metafield is cleared to {} — consumers should treat an empty object as “no active BOM on this variant”.

Order metafield — wraps every BOM on the order plus a cross-BOM aggregation. The shape is order-centric, not BOM-centric.

{
  "orderId":   "6234567890123",
  "orderName": "#1042",
  "generatedAt": "2026-01-15T19:22:22.511Z",
  "boms": [
    {
      "bomId":         "BOM-1768434482737-20pcga4xq",
      "bomName":       "Example BOM",
      "bomImageUrl":   "https://...",                // string | null
      "bomProductId":  "15236237230403",             // string | null
      "bomVariantId":  "54072478040387",             // string | null
      "bomSku":        "FG-123",                     // string | null
      "orderQuantity": 2,                            // how many of this BOM the order is for
      "materials": [
        {
          "productId":   "15200000000001",
          "variantId":   "54000000000001",
          "sku":         "#sku-123",                 // empty string if no SKU
          "title":       "Aluminum bar — 6061",      // pre-built display title
          "productName": "Aluminum bar",
          "variantName": "6061 grade",               // string | null
          "specifications": "6061 grade aluminum",   // string | null
          "notes":       "Cut to length",            // string | null
          "quantity":    6                           // already multiplied by orderQuantity
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "totalMaterials": [                                 // de-duplicated aggregation across every BOM on the order
    {
      "variantId":   "54000000000001",
      "productId":   "15200000000001",
      "sku":         "#sku-123",
      "title":       "Aluminum bar — 6061",
      "productName": "Aluminum bar",
      "variantName": "6061 grade",                   // string | null
      "specifications": "6061 grade aluminum",       // string | null
      "notes":       "Cut to length",                // string | null
      "totalQuantity": 6,
      "imageUrl":    "https://...",                  // string | null
      "isVirtual":   false,
      "unitCost":    5.99                            // 0 when "Hide cost and price in order metafields" is on
    }
  ]
}

If no BOM on the order matches a variant, the order metafield is written as {}.

Key consumer-side differences to watch:

• Top level: variant payload has bomId / materialRequirements; order payload has boms[] / totalMaterials[].
• Per-material fields differ: the order’s boms[].materials[] items have title and quantity but no unit, cost, imageUrl, or isEssential — those live on totalMaterials[] instead (as unitCost / imageUrl / isVirtual, no isEssential).
• Naming differs: the variant uses cost; the order’s totalMaterials uses unitCost. The variant uses quantity per unit of finished good; the order’s boms[].materials[].quantity is already multiplied by orderQuantity.
• Cost-hiding behaviour is enforced field-by-field: the field is always present, but set to 0 when the matching “Hide cost…” toggle is on, so consumers don’t need to branch on shape.

Order-detail blocks

Two blocks render in the sidebar of any Shopify admin Order detail page that has the metafield set.

BOM Links

A list of every BOM the order requires, with thumbnails, names, quantities, and a deep-link into the corresponding BOM inside Assemblified.

Material Requirements

A breakdown of the same metafield at the material level — the raw materials and virtual materials needed to fulfil the order, summed across all BOMs on the order.

Why they’re useful: a fulfillment staffer reviewing an order can see exactly what to build and what components it needs without logging into Assemblified. The deep-link on each BOM gets them into Assemblified one click away if they need the full BOM context.

Note

Order-detail blocks need a one-time setup step — see Install and enable below. The other three extensions surface automatically.

Packing-slip print actions

Two entries, both under Shopify’s Print menu:

• BOM Packing Slip — on the order detail page. One order, one slip.
• BOM Packing Slips (Bulk) — on the Orders list, once you have selected orders. Many orders, one PDF.

Either one opens a preview first (“Preparing packing slip”, then “Preview ready”) and then hands the PDF to Shopify’s own Print button. The slip includes the BOM and material breakdown alongside the normal line items.

Why they’re useful: regular Shopify packing slips list the finished goods only. The Assemblified slip adds the components, so the slip a picker pulls off the printer has everything they need — no separate Assemblified printout required.

What the slip shows, and how the bulk version behaves, is configured on Settings → Shopify Printing: Packing Slip Display Options, the Bulk print mode, and a PDF footer of your own.

Product-list admin actions

Two entries surface inside Shopify’s Products list page action menus.

Restock Inventory

A link that opens Assemblified’s restock tool with every material in scope — the same grid you reach from Raw Materials → More actions → Restock inventory. One click from “I’m looking at my product catalog” to “I’m entering what just arrived”.

Why it’s useful: warehouse managers spend most of their time in Shopify Products. This action removes the muscle-memory step of navigating to Assemblified separately.

Dynamic BOM Adjustment

An action in the Products list’s menu that tells Assemblified to pull the latest Shopify inventory back into its own records and then run dynamic adjustmentDynamic adjustmentA per-bill toggle that recalculates the bill's Shopify-displayed quantity after every order: the bottleneck-resource count plus pre-assembled stock. One of three mutually exclusive toggles — switching it on switches only-sell-pre-assembled and maintain inventory level off. Read more → on every BOM that has it enabled. It confirms first — “This will synchronize and update the inventory in Assemblified for all products” — and reports when it is done.

Why it’s useful: when you receive a shipment, you want every dependent BOM to immediately reflect the new buildable count on its finished-good variant. Doing it from the Products page means you confirm the new on-hand quantity and trigger the BOM recalculation in the same flow.

Install and enable

Most extensions surface automatically — the moment Assemblified is installed on the shop, the two print actions and the two product-list actions appear in their respective menus. No configuration needed.

The two order-detail blocks are the exception. Shopify treats them as app blocks that merchants opt into per layout, so there’s a one-time setup step.

1. Open the Shopify admin → Orders. Pick any existing order.

2. Click the “Customize layout” / “Add section” affordance. The exact label depends on your Shopify admin version; in current admin it’s an “Add section” button on the order detail page.

3. Pick the Assemblified blocks. “BOM Links” and “Material Requirements” appear in the picker. Add one or both.

4. Save the layout. The blocks now show on every order detail page where the material_requirements_json metafield is set. Orders without the metafield (e.g. orders placed before you installed Assemblified, or orders that don’t reference any BOM) render the block empty.

Note

The layout setup is per shop, not per order. Once you’ve added the blocks to the order layout, they show on every order without re-doing the setup.

Where to next

Work orders → Shopify sync What a completing work order writes back to Shopify, and when.

Dynamic adjustment What the Dynamic BOM Adjustment action actually triggers — how Assemblified recomputes the buildable quantity on a BOM's finished-good variant.

Reporting (PDFs) The PDF pipeline behind the packing-slip print action — including how to customise the template.