How to go live
In most cases you will not be able to go live with your Shopware shop under the desired target domain immediately. For example, if an old shop or website is still being operated under the target domain.
In this section, we show you the most important points to bear in mind if you want your shop to go live at a later date.
Adjust manually maintained links
You may have manually maintained links in your test installation that lead to a resource in your shop. If you now change the domain of the shop, you should also adjust the links that lead to this shop.
Links are often used in the following places and should possibly be updated.
Categories:
Categories can be linked directly. Click on the respective category under Articles > Categories and adjust the link in the Link to external page field.
You may also have entered a link in the category text. You can find the category text in the CMS functions section.
Article:
You can also add your own links in the item description. To do this, click on Article > Overview in the backend, select your article and update any links in the description.
Shopping worlds:
You may also have created your own shopping worlds in which your own links have been stored. If so, you should also update these. You can find the shopping worlds in the backend under Marketing > Shopping Worlds. It is best to check all the shopping worlds created there.
Remove demo data
If you have installed the demo data extension for test purposes, you should of course remove this demo data before the go-live. However, deactivating or uninstalling the demo data extension does not remove the demo data again. The demo data must therefore be removed manually.
Folgende Daten werden durch die Demodaten Erweiterung hinzugefügt und sollten wieder entfernt werden:
Categories: Food, Clothing, Leisure & Electrical including the subcategories.
Manufacturer: Shopware Fashion, Shopware Food, Shopware Freetime
Article: All articles of the named manufacturers.
Shopping world: Start page, if this is no longer required.
Properties: When no longer needed, the Clothing, Food, Electronics and Fashion sets can be removed as well as the Properties groups item types, size, material, target group and ingredients.
Check shipping methods
Check whether the currently created shipping methods should also be available in the live system. It is possible that temporary shipping types have been created here for testing purposes, which should now be removed.
If desired, also check in the frontend whether the shipping types are only available under the conditions under which they should be available.
Information on setting up the shipping costs can be found here.
Deactivate sandbox mode of the payment methods
If you have added more payment methods, you will probably have activated the sandbox mode of these payment methods in the test phase in order not to generate real payments for test orders.
In the case of the latest PayPal version, for example, you can find this option in the backend under Customer > Payments > PayPal > Settings > Basic settings. There you can deactivate the sandbox option in the API settings section.
Not every payment method uses the same method to deactivate the sandbox mode. You can find out how to deactivate the sandbox mode in the documentation of the respective provider..
Check the order process
Before you go live, you should carry out at least one complete test order. This is the only way to find out where things might not be running smoothly. It is better to carry out several different orders so that as many different cases as possible can be checked.
Are all the desired payment methods displayed? Are the desired shipping methods available? Does the checkout process work without problems? Is the order confirmation sent properly?
Check email templates and mailers
Before going live, it is important to check your email templates and mailer. To do this, place a test order and check whether you receive the order confirmation without any problems.
If no mail is sent, check your mailer settings.
When your mail arrives, check that all the details are in the mail.
Is the logo shown correctly?
Are the articles displayed correctly?
Are all variables such as name, salutation and address of the customer filled correctly?
Did you give the bank details?
If something still doesn't fit, you'll find all the information you need to make adjustments to the email template here.
Reset number ranges if necessary
During your tests, you will probably have placed orders, created customers and possibly even created invoices. If necessary, you can reset the number ranges to a starting value before the website goes live. You can do this in the backend under Settings > Basic settings > Shop settings > Number ranges.
The respective number range should not be changed after the shop has gone live. On the one hand, the current legal situation requires consecutive invoice numbers, and on the other hand, there may be coordination problems between the programs if an ERP or CRM system are connected.
If you use ERP or CRM systems, it is best to check with the manufacturer before if changing the number ranges is still unproblematic.
Shopware Account licence changes
When creating the Shopware account, it is necessary to enter a licence domain. However, if you are still running an old shop or website on your main domain, you may have temporarily entered a subdomain. For correct licensing, it is necessary to replace this temporary domain with the final licence domain under which the shop will be accessible in the future before the shop goes live.
In your Shopware account at account.shopware.com, click on Shops and then on your corresponding shop domain that you want to change..
In the Shop Information area you will now find the Rename shop domain button (1) to rename your domain.
Note that you can only rename the shop domain once. You need to be sure that the new domain is your final domain.
It is then necessary to change the usage type (2) of the domain to productive environment.
Adapt domain at the hoster
Once you have checked all points and your shop is functioning, the last step is to route the domain of the hosting service to the main directory of your Shopware shop, so that your shop can now be reached over the final domain.
You can find out exactly how to adjust the routing of your domain from your hosting service. As a rule, this can be configured yourself using a corresponding admin interface.