Help guides › Guide 1
Getting started
Catalyn reads your products, checks each one against your standards, and only changes your store when you approve an update. This guide takes you from install to your first plan. The Dashboard shows the same steps as a checklist, so you can tick them off as you go.
1Install Catalyn
- Find Catalyn in the Shopify App Store and choose Install.
- Review the permissions and approve them. Catalyn asks for access to your products and to publishing them to your sales channels. It never asks for customer or order data. A few features, such as translations and markets, ask for extra permission the first time you use them.
- Catalyn opens inside your Shopify admin. You'll find it under Apps afterwards.
2Let the free scan finish
As soon as Catalyn opens, it imports your catalog from Shopify and checks every product. The Dashboard shows "Checking every product against your requirements…" while it works. Most catalogs take a few minutes.
Nothing in your store changes. The scan only reads your products. It's free for catalogs of up to 10,000 products, and Catalyn keeps up to date with edits you make in Shopify automatically.
If the Dashboard shows Import your catalog to see how ready it is instead, choose Import catalog to start the scan yourself.
3Read your Dashboard
When the scan finishes, the Dashboard shows:
- Readiness scores: how many products are Ready to sell, how many have blockers (problems that must be fixed before a product can go live), and how many are already Live with issues.
- Channel cards: how many products have what Google Shopping and AI shopping assistants need, such as a valid barcode, a category and big enough images.
- Products by stage: Draft, Enrichment, Review, Ready, Live and Archived. Your active products start as Live and your drafts as Enrichment, so nothing is unpublished.
- Top issues: the problems affecting the most products. Select one to see every product it affects.
A Needs your attention banner appears at the top when something waits for you, such as updates to approve or a supplier feed that has paused.
4Check your quality rules
Catalyn sets up quality rules from your own product types: a set of universal checks for every product, plus starter profiles for categories such as apparel, footwear, home, beauty, electronics and food.
- Go to Settings › Quality rules.
- Under Category profiles, check the Products column to see which products each profile covers.
- Products with no matching profile only get the universal checks. Assign them to a profile in bulk from the Products page.
You can change any rule later. Guide 6 covers quality rules in detail.
5Choose a plan
The scan, Dashboard and fix lists are free. To fix products, import supplier files and publish updates, you need a plan.
- Go to Settings › Plan.
- Pick the plan that fits your number of products. Both include a 7-day free trial.
- Approve the charge in Shopify. Billing runs through your Shopify invoice.
You can change or cancel your plan at any time on the same page. Cancelling returns you to the free scan and nothing is deleted.
6Import your first supplier file
The last item on the checklist is your first supplier file. Use a real price list from one of your suppliers, or choose Try a sample supplier file on the Imports page. The sample has four outdoor products that import as drafts, so you can delete them afterwards.
Common questions
- Will Catalyn change my products straight away? No. Every change to a live product is an update you preview and approve first, and you can undo it afterwards.
- What if someone edits a product directly in Shopify? Catalyn notices and flags it as changed directly in Shopify, so nothing is overwritten without you knowing.
- Can my team use it? Yes. Anyone with access to the app in Shopify can use Catalyn. The store owner can restrict approvals to named staff in Settings.