Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
A staging environment is a copy of your live store where you can test theme changes, app installs, price-list updates, and catalogue edits against production-shaped data before any of it touches real customers. Neither Shopify nor BigCommerce ships this capability natively. StagingPro closes the gap for BigCommerce; Vortex Staging closes it for Shopify.
Never use a staging environment for live customer traffic. Staging stores are for testing only. Do not store business-critical or development-essential data on a sandbox; items may need to be cleared between test migrations.
StagingPro (BigCommerce)
Vortex Staging (Shopify)
StagingPro
StagingPro provisions cloud-hosted staging, UAT, and integration environments linked to your production BigCommerce store. On top of those environments it gives you four operational surfaces: bulk content migration, selective content migration, Git-driven code deployment, and a full history and rollback trail.What gets copied
A bulk migration copies your entire catalogue from production into the sandbox in one operation:
- Products (variants, options, modifiers, images, pricing, inventory, metafields, locale data)
- Categories, brands, and promotions
- Customers and orders
- Themes, pages, layouts, and blog posts
- B2B Edition entities (companies, addresses, users, quotes, invoices)
Selective migration lets you move a single product, a specific promotion, a category, or a page template between environments for surgical updates and last-minute content syncs.Setting up StagingPro
Install from the BigCommerce App Marketplace
Open the StagingPro listing at bigcommerce.com/apps/stagingpro, click Install, and grant the requested permissions. Choose your subscription tier on the pricing page that appears — each tier provisions a different number of environments alongside production. Your licence activates immediately. Plan your environments
Before linking anything, decide what environments you need. The recommended naming convention:| Name | Purpose |
|---|
| Production | Your live store — reserved, not editable |
| Staging | Pre-deployment store for smoke tests |
| UAT | User acceptance testing for client sign-off |
| Integration1 / Integration2 | System integration tests for third-party connectors |
https://store-a1b2c3d4e5.mybigcommerce.com/. You need Store Owner access on every store you link. Link your sandbox environments to production
StagingPro is pre-installed on your production store after install. To link each sandbox:
- On the sandbox store, open StagingPro, enter the production store hash, and click Save.
- A connection request appears on the production store. Switch to production, find the request, and click Approve.
- Name the environment and choose one of three options: just connect it, clear the destination catalogue, or run a full copy from production.
- Repeat for each additional sandbox.
Connect your Git repository
StagingPro uses Git as the deploy pipeline for theme code. Connect GitHub or Bitbucket via the settings page. Allow 3–5 minutes after connecting for StagingPro to auto-generate branches per environment and team member.
Configure notifications
Set up at least one notification channel before your first migration. StagingPro supports email (add addresses in Settings → Status Notifications), Microsoft Teams (paste a workflow webhook URL), and Slack (paste an incoming webhook URL).
Run your first test migration
- From the StagingPro home page, open Bulk Content Migration.
- Select Production as the source and a sandbox as the destination.
- Pick a small entity set — a handful of brands, categories, and products — to validate the pipeline end to end.
- Click Start the Migration and watch progress on the History and Rollback tab.
- Confirm the migrated entities appear in the sandbox and that your notification channels received the completion alert.
Testing changes
Once your sandbox has production-shaped data, make your changes there — update a theme, install an app, edit a price list, restructure a category. StagingPro’s History and Rollback tab maintains a full audit trail of every migration and deployment so you can see exactly what changed and when.For theme changes, push your branch through your Git repository. StagingPro generates a preview URL for approval and then deploys to the live store. For data changes, use selective migration to move the tested records from staging into production.Vortex Staging
Vortex Staging gives your Shopify store a real staging environment that mirrors production. Shopify Plus customers get up to nine development stores but no built-in mechanism to clone production into them, no scheduled sync, and no environment-promotion workflow. Vortex Staging fills all three gaps — on every Shopify plan from Basic upward.What gets copied
Vortex Staging covers 20-plus entity types in a bulk migration:
- Products, collections, customers, orders
- Discount codes, gift cards, pages, blogs, files
- Themes, navigation menus, URL redirects, store policies
- Locations, delivery profiles, markets, catalogs, price lists
- Metaobject definitions and metaobjects
Customer PII is automatically anonymised before writing to non-production environments, so your QA team can work against production-scale volumes without seeing real personal data.Setting up Vortex Staging
Install from the Shopify App Store
Install Vortex Staging on each Shopify store you intend to link — production and every sandbox. The app is at apps.shopify.com/vortexiq-staging-1. Approve the API scopes when Shopify prompts (read and write access to products, collections, customers, orders, themes, files, locations, markets, delivery profiles, metaobjects, and store policies). Choose your subscription tier
Three tiers are available:| Tier | Connection slots |
|---|
| Standard | Production plus 2 environments |
| Plus | Production plus 3 environments |
| Premium | Production plus 5 environments |
Link sandbox environments to production
- On the production store, open Vortex Staging and copy the production hash ID shown on the home dashboard.
- On the sandbox store, enter the production hash ID and click Save. An invitation request appears.
- Switch back to production, refresh, and click Approve on the invitation.
- Enter an environment name (for example, Staging) and click OK.
- Repeat for each additional sandbox.
Alternatively, share your store IDs with the Vortex IQ Helpdesk and they can complete the linking within 2–3 working days.Connect GitHub for theme deployments (optional)
If you plan to deploy themes through Vortex Staging, link a GitHub repository under Settings → Connect Repository. Vortex Staging auto-creates branches per environment and per developer. This step is optional if you only need data migration.
Configure notifications
Set up Email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams notifications so the right people are alerted when migrations or theme deployments complete or fail. All three channels are configured in the Notifications section of settings.
Run a first test migration
From the Vortex Staging home, open Bulk Content Migration, select production as the source and a sandbox as the destination, pick a small entity set, and start the migration. Verify the migrated records appear in the sandbox, then check your notification channel for the completion alert.
Testing changes
With production-shaped data in your sandbox, test theme changes, app installs, bulk product edits, and content updates exactly as they will behave on the live store. Migration history logs every request ID, source, destination, start time, end time, status, and per-entity progress with downloadable error logs.For themes, use Vortex Staging’s Theme Deployments tab to approve, deploy, and roll back theme changes. For data, selective migration moves the tested products, themes, or collections to production. If a theme deployment goes wrong, rollback restores the previous version.Bulk migration creates records in an empty destination — it does not update existing records. Use selective migration when you want to update records that already exist on the destination store.
