- the most-asked StagingPro questions,
- the known BigCommerce platform limitations that constrain what StagingPro can migrate,
- the roadmap of upcoming features, and
- recent release notes.
Frequently asked questions
Setup
Q. How do I set up StagingPro on Production and Staging stores? Install StagingPro on Production from the BigCommerce App Marketplace. The app then becomes available on each Sandbox you intend to link. From a whitelisted Sandbox, enter the Production store hash and click Save; approve the connection request from Production. See setup and onboarding for the full flow. Q. What is a staging environment? A near replica of your production storefront for software testing. Code builds and updates require staging environments to ensure quality under production-like conditions before deployment to live. Production is the live customer-facing store. Staging is a sandbox configured to mirror Production. Q. How long does the first-time link from sandbox to production take? The connection request and approval is instant; allow up to 5 minutes for StagingPro to provision the migration platform and create base branches if Git is connected. Q. How do I link Sandbox environments to Production? Contact Helpdesk to ensure your Production and Sandbox environments are linked within your assigned StagingPro tenant. See setup and onboarding Step 3. Q. Can I rename Production? No. Production is a reserved name used internally. All other environment names are user defined. Q. How do I contact support if onboarding hits a snag? Open a ticket at https://helpdesk.vortexiq.ai/portal/en/home or email helpdesk@stagingpro.com (which auto-creates a ticket). Q. The Slack webhook stopped working after a workspace upgrade. Slack occasionally invalidates webhooks during workspace migrations. Recreate the Incoming Webhook in api.slack.com and paste the new URL into StagingPro Settings. Q. Teams webhook URL is rejected on Send Test Message. Confirm the URL is the Workflow URL (modern), not an older Incoming Webhook connector URL. Microsoft is deprecating the older connectors; StagingPro expects the Workflow URL format. Q. Can I add multiple Slack channels? Yes. Add Channel can be repeated to add multiple Slack workspaces or channels. Same for Teams. Q. B2B entities are not appearing on Bulk Content Migration. The B2B Edition panel appears only when both the source and destination stores are on B2B Edition. If a store is B2B but its API token was created without the B2B Edition scope, a “B2B entities can’t be migrated yet” card appears instead, naming the store and the fix (create a new store-level API account with the B2B scope). No separate B2B email/password connection is needed in V2. See B2B, coupons, and data dependencies.Migration mechanics
Q. How do I migrate specific products? Use Selective Content Migration, Products tab. See selective product migration for the field-level mechanics. Q. How do I prevent confidential customer data being migrated to test environments? Tick Anonymise Customer Data in the Order Data Migration section before running the migration. This scrambles PII (Personally Identifiable Information) before it reaches the destination. Q. Can I pause or cancel a data migration? Yes, it is possible to pause/resume and cancel data migration. Q. If the migration fails halfway, do I lose my progress? No. Checkpoint-based resumability means the migration resumes from the last checkpoint when retried. Already-migrated entities are not re-processed. Q. Will third-party app extensions and scripts migrate to the new environment? No. Third-party apps and scripts must be reinstalled and reconfigured on each environment. Q. Do migrated orders keep their statuses? Yes — orders migrate with their statuses as-is, and you can restrict a run to specific order statuses. New increment IDs are assigned by BigCommerce; reference orders by source-SKU rather than ID. To avoid accidental customer emails, disable notifications under Marketing → Transaction Emails on the destination before migrating. Q. What happens to product image filenames with spaces or& characters?
They may fail to transfer — the failure appears in the issue log as a skipped image with the reason. Rename the source image files, then re-run the migration.
Q. Are products without channel assignments migrated?
Yes. On an All-Storefronts run, every product migrates — including ones assigned to no storefront, which stay unassigned on the destination (the migration mirrors the source’s assignments through your storefront mapping). The Selective screen’s Advanced Filters even include a “Not on any storefront” finder to locate them.
Q. Are Shared Modifier Options or Shared Variant Options supported? No.
Q. Can I choose which parts of a product migrate selectively?
Yes. When you start a selective product migration, the Selective Product migration options popup lets you untick any sub-component (images, videos, variants, metafields, reviews, related products, channel assignments, modifiers, and so on — all on by default). The product record itself always migrates, and Brand and Categories are always included because product links can’t exist without them.
Q. What happens when I migrate a selective product that already exists on the destination? The product will get updated in the destination.
Q. Why does my page not have its embedded images after a selective migration?
WebDAV credentials are missing on either the source or destination. Configure them under Settings, WebDAV on both stores and re-run.
Q. Can I selectively migrate a single coupon code?
Yes. Promotions including coupon codes appear under the Promotions tab. SKU-based references mean the underlying SKUs and category names must exist on the destination for the coupon to function correctly.
Q. The migration shows In Progress for hours. What is happening?
Bulk migrations of large catalogues with images, locales, and complex rules can run for several hours. Check the per-entity detail view, the platform updates progress per entity. If genuinely stuck (no progress over an hour), open a support ticket with the Request ID.
Q. My promotion migrated but the discount is not applying on the destination.
Most likely cause: the promotion’s products, categories, or customer groups were not part of the migration. References are re-pointed through the run’s id-maps — the underlying products and categories are matched by SKU and name, then the promotion’s references are remapped to those matches. Re-run with the referenced entities selected in the same migration.
Q. Can I migrate just B2B Companies without their dependencies?
You can — Companies only auto-includes Roles & Permissions. But select Customer Groups and Price Lists in the same run too: they define the trading relationship, and without them each company is created without its pricing link, which you would then have to assign manually on the destination.
Q. How long does a B2B migration take?
Comparable to standard product migrations of similar size. Expect tens of minutes to a couple of hours depending on company and user count.
Q. Why was my Gift Certificate migration empty?
Gift Certificates must be enabled on the destination store (for its currency). Open BigCommerce, Marketing, Gift Certificates on the destination, ensure Enable Gift Certificates is ticked, then re-run the migration. Also note that fully-redeemed certificates (zero remaining balance) are deliberately skipped — an “empty” result can simply mean the source set was fully redeemed.
Q. Can I include Orders in a Production-to-Sandbox migration?
Yes, but always tick Anonymise Customer Data in the Order Data Migration section to scramble PII. Orders keep their source statuses — disable notifications under Marketing → Transaction Emails on the destination to prevent accidental customer emails.
Theme Deployments
Q. Do I need a GitHub account before installing? Only if you intend to use code deployment. Data migration works without Git connected. You can register for a free GitHub account when you are ready. Q. Can I get only my own deployments notified to me? Not currently. Notifications fire to all configured channels for every event of the enabled types. Use channel-side filtering (Slack or Teams) if per-developer routing matters. Q. Can I create a GitHub account from inside StagingPro? No. You need an existing GitHub account. Sign up free at https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/start-your-journey/creating-an-account-on-github. Q. Why does my preview URL take 5 minutes to come up? The preview server has to provision a temporary instance and install the theme. Larger themes take longer; under-2-minute previews happen for small themes. Q. Why does deploy take 15 to 20 minutes after approval? StagingPro packages the theme bundle and uploads it to BigCommerce, which then installs it to the target channel. The bundle size is the bottleneck. Small themes deploy in 5 to 10 minutes. Q. We have a CI/CD pipeline running custom build actions. How does StagingPro fit? Run your CI/CD before merging into the StagingPro environment branch. As long as the merge commit lands on the StagingPro branch, it will appear on Code Deployment. Pre-merge gate via Jenkins or similar is fully compatible. Q. After installing StagingPro I see autogenerated branches likeProductione347c1. Are they correct?
Yes. These per-channel branches are required for commit tracking. Do not delete or rename them.
Q. Will StagingPro auto-export the theme from BigCommerce to GitHub on first connect?
Yes, provided GitHub is connected and at least one team member has been added on Settings. The theme downloads into the connected branch automatically.
Q. We use a typical develop branch where developers push first. How does that map?
Set up the StagingPro environment branches to match: Production, Staging, UAT. Treat your developer branches as personal branches.
Code flows: developer branch -> Staging -> UAT -> Production via merges. The reverse flow also works as long as no conflicts.
Q. After approval, can the deployment be cancelled?
You can Reject a deployment that is still Awaiting Approval. Once Approved & Deployed, use Rollback to revert.
Q. What if I get an “invitation not received” message during GitHub connection?
Confirm you used the GitHub Apps integration path rather than manual invite. GitHub Apps is OAuth-based, organisation-level, with automatic token rotation and granular permissions, set up in one click. The GitHub App flow handles authorisation directly without the email-invite hop that fails. See GitHub and Bitbucket.
Rollback and History
Q. I approved a GitHub commit by mistake. How do I undo? Go to Code Deployments tab. Click Rollback on the deployment row. The previous theme version redeploys (15 to 20 minutes for the bundle to land). See history and rollback. Q. Are store data/system IDs migrated as-is? No. BigCommerce assigns new increment/system IDs in the destination. Always reference products by SKU rather than ID, since SKUs are preserved.Multi-storefront and channels
Q. How does multi-storefront migration work? Bulk and Selective migration both work with multi-storefront setups. Migrations run between two different stores (a store can never migrate onto itself); the storefront dropdowns show every channel on the selected source and destination stores, and the storefront mapping (Edit mapping, available from every tab) decides which source storefront’s data lands on which destination storefront. Picking “All Storefronts” migrates everything through the saved mapping; storefronts outside the mapping are never touched. Q. I migrated a product with locale and metafields, but the product data is not displaying correctly on the destination storefront page. Why? To successfully migrate locale and metafield data, the destination storefront must have the same language configured as the source storefront. If the languages don’t match, locale-specific content and related metafield information may not migrate correctly.Notifications and team
Q. Can I limit notifications to events that affect me? Not currently per-user. Notifications fire to all configured channels for every event of the enabled types. Filter at the Slack or Teams side if needed. Q. Can I restrict an external agency from changing Production? Yes. Use BigCommerce user permissions plus GitHub Change Permission to give the agency Staging and UAT access only, retaining Production for your team.Known issues and platform constraints
Products
- Shared Modifier and Variant Options are not yet supported. BigCommerce is working on the relevant APIs (no confirmed ETA). Regular modifier and variant options migrate fine, including display styles (swatch colours, dropdown/radio widget types, display order).
- Image-based option swatches cannot migrate (BigCommerce has no API for them); colour swatches migrate fully, and affected options are flagged for a manual re-pick.
- High Variant Count Products (very high counts) may return 500 errors and require BigCommerce engineering intervention.
- A source API token missing the Inventory permission is only detected when the Inventory Locations phase runs (reported as a skip naming the fix), not before the run starts; ensure the source token has the scope if you’re migrating inventory.
Orders
- Order IDs are incremental in BigCommerce; migrated orders get new numbers.
- Destination orders cannot be deleted, so repeat migrations grow the order count.
- Orders migrate with statuses as-is. Recommended: disable customer order notifications in BigCommerce Marketing, Transaction Emails before migrating.
- Shipment records (tracking numbers, shipped-item breakdowns) are not migrated for any order; shipping addresses — including multiple destinations — and their shipping method are.
- The source order’s payment-method label is copied; if BigCommerce rejects it, the order lands without one. Live payment gateways and transactions never migrate.
Pages and categories
- Blog posts and blog-post redirects migrate, and the store’s built-in Blog page is handled. What remains a BigCommerce constraint: a new page of type “blog” cannot be created via the API, so a custom blog-index page missing on the destination must be created in the control panel.
- URL conflicts, pages and categories sharing the same URL can show “The URL is duplicate” errors. Pages that already exist at a slightly different URL (for example a trailing slash) are matched and updated rather than failing; genuine Category↔Page URL clashes still need unique URL values.
- Right after a heavy re-migration, category pages can look empty while BigCommerce rebuilds its search index — the data is there; give it time. Recommended practice: clean the destination and run fresh rather than repairing on top.
Themes and images
- Themes activate per storefront: the targeted storefront switches automatically (verified by read-back) and other storefronts are restored to their original themes. A manual “apply in Storefront → My Themes” step is only needed when a safety rule refused an unsafe switch — the run detail names it.
- BigCommerce caps a store at ~20 themes; each migration uploads a new copy (never deleting anything), so clean superseded copies manually.
- Product image filenames with spaces or ampersand (
&) characters may fail to transfer (reported in the issue log).
Other limitations
BigCommerce API rate limits
BigCommerce applies quota-based rate limits refreshed every 30 seconds:
StagingPro automatically handles rate limiting with circuit-breaker logic and exponential backoff so migrations pause and resume without data loss.
Roadmap
Items planned, subject to change based on customer feedback and BigCommerce API availability.Data migration enhancements
Recent release notes
A condensed timeline of fixes and features.Support
Open a ticket at https://helpdesk.vortexiq.ai/portal/en/home, email helpdesk@stagingpro.com, or call StagingPro Support at +44 20 4547 9292. For escalations gather:- Source store hash and destination store hash.
- Request ID of the migration in question.
- Started at and Completed at timestamps.
- Error messages from the per-entity detail view.
- Screenshots if applicable.