Shopify

The Freedam app for Shopify connects your digital asset management library to the Shopify admin. From a product page, your team opens Freedam, chooses images, and the app adds them to the product's media. Freedam then records every product that uses each image, removes images whose rights end, and offers each new version to the shop.

What it does

The app adds two entry points to the Shopify admin: its own product pages under Apps, and a Freedam images block on the product page, which lists the product's Freedam images with their state and has an Add from Freedam button.

Open Freedam opens the Freedam Picker in a new browser tab, ready for the product:

The search is filled in with the product's SKU, so the picker opens on that product's images.
Images, with the current ones selected. The picker offers the library's images, and the images already on the product are selected.
Several images at once. Choose up to 50 images and insert them in one step.
The channel's product format. Choose the shop's product format, square, portrait (4:5) or the original ratio, cropped around each asset's focus point.

The app downloads each image at full resolution, up to 4096 pixels wide, and adds it to the end of the product's images, with its alt text from Freedam. Each person signs in with their own Freedam account and sees the assets their access allows.

One file per image in Shopify

The app uploads one file to Shopify for each asset and format. Every product that uses the image shares that file, so the same photo on twenty products is stored once in Content > Files.

On the product's page in the app, each Freedam image has its own actions:

Make main image moves it to the first position.
Replace swaps it for another image from Freedam, at the same position.
Replace with Freedam swaps a photo the merchant uploaded for an image from Freedam. The merchant's file stays in Shopify.
Remove from product takes it off the product, and Open in Freedam opens the asset in your workspace.

Every product that uses an image

Each placement is a usage in Freedam. The asset's Publishing and usages tab lists the products that show it, with the product's title and the address of its page in the online store, so the brand team sees where every image is used before changing or archiving it.

The app follows the changes made in Shopify:

Renamed products update the usage label, and the page address follows the product's handle.
Drafts and archived products are marked as such, without an address until the product is online again.
Deleted products and images removed in the Shopify admin remove their usages.
Duplicated products are detected and get usages of their own.

Usage rights follow the asset

The app checks the state of each image in Freedam every day:

Rights expire or no longer cover the channel. The app removes the image from every product that shows it, keeps its position, and records the removal on the usage. When the rights are renewed, the app puts the image back where it was. Don't restore keeps a removed image off one product.
Rights expire within 14 days. The block and the app's home page show Rights expire on with the date, so the team can renew the licence or prepare a replacement.
Assets moved to the trash or excluded from the channel. The app shows an alert on the product and on its home page, and the team decides whether to remove the image.

The home page of the app gathers removed images and alerts, and an activity log lists every addition, change and removal with its reason.

New versions

When an asset gets a new version in Freedam, the product page in the app and the block show New version available, with the number of products that use the file. Update puts the new version on one product, at the same position; Update all products does it for every product that uses the file. The team chooses when a new crop reaches the shop.

Alt text from Freedam

Each image arrives with the alt text written in Freedam, or its title when it has none. When the alt text changes in Freedam, the app updates it in Shopify on every product that uses the file. A text that someone edited in Shopify is kept as it is. Use a separate copy for this product gives one product its own file, with an alt text of its own.

In each person's language

The app and the block follow the language of the Shopify admin for each staff member: English, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese or Simplified Chinese. The picker opens in the same language.

Setting it up

In Freedam, an administrator opens Administration → Publishing → Picker integrations and clicks Connect Shopify. Freedam creates the publication channel, the picker profile and the integration for the shop, in the product format and rights territory you choose.
The administrator clicks Request the Shopify app. The Freedam team creates the app for your workspace and sends its installation link.
The store owner opens the link in the Shopify admin, reviews the access the app asks for (products and files) and installs it.
On a product page, add the Freedam images block from the page's blocks and pin it, so that it stays on product pages.

Good to know

Business plan. The app uses the Freedam Picker and a publication channel, both part of the Business plan.
Every Shopify plan. The app installs on any Shopify plan, in the shop's own Shopify admin.
Your own app. Each shop gets an app created for its Freedam workspace, linked to that workspace only.
Step-by-step setup of the integration, the app and the product page block is in the Shopify app guide.

Publishing to a website instead? The WordPress plugin adds the same library to the WordPress media library, and the Freedam Picker brings it to any web app.

Shopify is a trademark of Shopify Inc.