I have an app that helps stores migrate orders and create orders from different sources.
In the past, we could use certain sales channels when creating orders through the admin api (ex. online_store or etsy) and that would show up in the Channel area on the order.
Recently, there was an update to this and now it doesn’t seem possible. In fact, every order contains a channel of my app name.
Some customers don’t want this, they want to be able to see orders as if they were “Online store” orders since they may be migrating from a different website or Shopify store.
Reading the documentation, it seems I can set up different channels if I turn the app into a Sales Channel. However, I don’t love this idea. In fact, the documentation around sales channels doesn’t really apply to my app.
Hi @ozzyonfire - you’re right that this changed. As of API version 2026-07, the sourceName field on OrderCreateOrderInput takes “the handle of an order attribution definition configured for your sales channel app” (examples like youtube or channel:amazon-us), not a built-in channel handle such as online_store. If sourceName doesn’t match an approved order attribution definition, Shopify falls back to app-only attribution, which is what you’re seeing.
To attribute orders to a named channel surface at all, the app has to be a sales channel app with order attribution definitions configured for its own channel. The catch for your use case is that those definitions describe your channel’s own selling surfaces, not Shopify’s built-in channels. So even if you converted your migration app to a sales channel app, you’d be attributing orders to your app’s own channel definition, not to Online store. There isn’t a supported way to make an Admin-API-created order appear as an Online store order.
I agree this is not ideal for migration and creation apps, and I’ve flagged it as feedback for the team to consider. For now the realistic options are leaving orders attributed to your app, or, if the merchant needs a specific channel surface, building a sales channel app and attributing to its definitions. If you can share more about the migration scenario, I’m happy to think through alternatives with you - thanks for raising this here!
