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 action
• 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 is gated by its own toggle in Settings → Shopify Integrations, and both are disabled 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

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	Sync All BOM Variant Metafields in settings — one-shot write 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

For when the order metafield is written during work-order completion, see Work orders → Shopify sync.

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. The canonical example file lives at app/assets/productVariantMetafieldSchema.json in the app codebase; keep it in sync when the payload changes.

{
  "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.

Order BOM Links

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

Order 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 action

A new entry appears in the Print menu on the Shopify order detail page: Packing slip with BOM details. Selecting it opens a preview and outputs a PDF that includes the BOM/material breakdown alongside the normal line items.

Why it’s useful: regular Shopify packing slips list the finished goods only. The Assemblified slip adds the components and any per-batch values captured during fulfillment, so the slip a picker pulls off the printer has everything they need — no separate Assemblified printout required.

The slip renders against Assemblified’s templated PDF pipeline, so anything you’ve customised in Work orders → Reporting (PDFs) flows through here as well.

Product-list admin actions

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

Restock — open raw-materials sheet

A Shopify admin link that deep-links straight into Assemblified’s raw-materials spreadsheet view (with the scope set to all materials). One click from “I’m looking at my product catalog” to “I’m editing my component inventory”.

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.

Restocked — trigger dynamic adjustment

A button in the Products list’s action menu that tells Assemblified to pull the latest Shopify inventory back into its own store and then run dynamic adjustmentDynamic adjustmentA per-BOM toggle that recalculates the BOM's Shopify-displayed quantity from current component availability after every order. The displayed quantity is the bottleneck-resource count plus pre-assembled stock — your storefront never sells more than you can build. Read more → on every BOM that has auto-adjust enabled.

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 print action 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. “Order BOM Links” and “Order 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 The write side of the material_requirements_json metafield — how completion turns work-order data into the JSON the order blocks read.

Dynamic adjustment What the Restocked admin 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.