Hello there!
I´m a full on noob when it comes to any kind of coding, so I was happy to have tutorials about how to integrate services (like shipping companies) with my Shopify. Now since the update to Dev Dashboard I´m quite lost as those old tutorials don´t work for me anymore which is a shame as I urgently need a Backerkit connection and can´t do it.
Now another shipping company made pre-tutorial for me to get things going faster, the issue is that I was able to follow their new tutorial until it says “click distribution” since I don´t have that section in my dev dashboard at all for some reason.
I posted 2 screenshots where it shows it´s just missing. Can someone tell me why?
If Backerkit get´s around and says they maybe rush a tutorial for the connection too and I run into the same problem that be quite unhandy x)
Hi @Therbis! The Distribution section you’re seeing in the tutorial is for Partner accounts creating apps that need to be installed on other merchants’ stores. If you’re creating an app through the Dev Dashboard as a merchant (for your own store), you won’t see that option
When merchants create apps via the Dev Dashboard, the app is automatically scoped to your own store only. There’s no distribution step because the app can’t be distributed elsewhere - it’s already tied to your store. This is different from how Partners create custom apps with distribution options that can be installed on client stores.
Your shipping integration should still work fine. The tutorial you’re following was likely written with Partners in mind, so you can skip the Distribution step entirely. Once you’ve created your app version and configured the scopes/settings the shipping company requires, you should be able to proceed with connecting their service.
Sadly it will still not work though, neither on the shipping app or Backerkit where I also tried to couple. The moment I install the app it will only show “error connecting to Shopify".
When I peaked at Reddit I saw a lot of people struggling with the same issues x.x
Glad that helped clear up the Distribution part @Therbis!
For the “error connecting to Shopify” - this might be a compatibility issue with how the third-party service expects to connect. Dev Dashboard apps work differently from the old custom apps that used to be created in the Shopify admin.
With the old flow, you’d just copy a permanent access token from the app settings. Dev Dashboard apps use client credentials (a Client ID and Client Secret from your app’s Settings page) to generate short-lived tokens that expire every 24 hours.
If the shipping company’s tutorial was written for the old custom app setup, it may be expecting a permanent access token that Dev Dashboard apps don’t provide. The third-party service would need to support the client credentials flow to work with the new approach.
Can you check what the tutorial is asking you to paste into their system - is it asking for an “access token” or for “client ID and client secret”?
I´ll lead this info to the people from Backerkit, maybe it´ll help them get things solved.
For my shipping integration it now finally worked, but they changed their tutorial and some steps there, so it wasn´t an issue from my end it seems! Yay
