Held changes and approval

Everstock sometimes holds a change instead of writing it right away, either because you asked it to or because the size of the change looks unusual enough to check first. A held change is never lost. It stays in the run so you can see exactly what it would have done, then you decide whether to let it through.

There are two separate things on this page. Approval is your choice, per connection, and it is off unless you turn it on. The automatic checks further down are not a choice: they run on every connection either way, because they exist to catch a broken feed before it reaches your store.

You always approve from a run you can read. Approve and sync lives on the page of a preview or a held run, next to the changes it would write, never on a button you can press without seeing them.

Hold changes for my approval

By default a connection applies what it finds: its first real sync writes, and so does every sync after it. If you would rather look before anything is written, tick Hold changes for my approval on the connection, in Sync scope & schedule or in the create wizard. Its details line says what it covers: new products, prices and product details wait for you to approve them from a preview, and stock always syncs.

While it is on, the connection's next real sync is held whole, the same way a run is held when a feed reports too many zeros at once. Nothing is written, but every change the run would have made is still listed in its audit table, badged Planned.

To approve:

1. Open the connection and click Preview in the banner at the top. Everstock runs a preview, which writes nothing.
2. When it finishes, click Review preview in the same banner (or open the preview from the run list).
3. Read the planned changes, then click Approve and sync on that preview's page.

That queues one real sync, and once it finishes successfully the connection no longer waits. If the sync fails for an unrelated reason, nothing is approved and the banner stays.

While a connection is waiting for an approval, Everstock does not run its schedule or catch up missed scheduled syncs, so History does not fill up with the same held run. The schedule starts on its own after the approved sync succeeds. Sync now still works, and its run is held the same way until you approve.

Turning the setting on later has the same effect from that moment: the connection's next real sync waits. Turning it off again releases everything at once. The connection stops waiting, every field that was waiting stops waiting too, and the page confirms it with "Changes now apply automatically". You have chosen to let changes through, so nothing is left to approve. The automatic checks below keep running.

Turning on a field, while approval is on

Stock syncs from the day you create a connection. Price, title, description, vendor, product type and tags are different: each has its own checkbox in Sync scope & schedule, and each is off until you turn it on.

On a connection with Hold changes for my approval on, the moment you turn one of those checkboxes on, that one field waits for your approval. Its next real sync holds only that field, badged Planned, while stock and everything else you already sync keep writing normally. Open that run, or run Preview, then click Approve and sync on the run's page to let the field through. From then on it syncs like any other field you have enabled. Turning the checkbox back off before you approve clears the hold, since there is nothing left to approve.

On a connection without that setting, turning a field on does not make it wait: the next sync writes it. A field that was already on before you turned approval on does not wait either. Only a field you switch from off to on while approval is on waits.

If something changed, review again

Approval only covers what you saw. Approve and sync approves exactly the fields and the connection listed on the page you clicked it from, and only when that page is a preview or held run made after you turned them on. If a field was turned off and on again, or a setting changed after that run, Everstock does not approve it and says "Something changed, review again." Run a new preview and approve from that one.

When a field is held automatically

These checks are not the approval setting, and turning approval off does not turn them off. They run on every connection, because a feed that has gone wrong should not reach your store on any plan or any setting. Even a field you approved long ago can still be held on a single run, when the change it is about to make looks unusual. Three checks run on every field that can overwrite existing data: price, title, description, vendor, product type and tags.

• A field that would change on one in five or more of the matched products, and on at least 10 of them, is held. A single ordinary batch of edits from your supplier rarely touches that many products at once.
• Price is also checked for size, not just count. When one in five or more of the price changes move by more than half in either direction, and at least 10 prices move that much, price is held. And when at least three prices change and the typical change is about tenfold larger or tenfold smaller, price is held whatever the share, because that pattern almost always means a decimal point or a currency moved to the wrong column.
• Description is checked for sudden shrinkage. When one in five or more of its changes cut the text down to a fifth of its previous length or less, and at least 10 descriptions shrink that way, description is held, since that usually means the feed sent a short placeholder instead of the real copy.

Products a run is about to create are never counted in these checks. Because every count check needs at least 10 products or prices, a catalogue with fewer than 10 matched products is never held for how many items change; only the tenfold price check can hold it, and only when at least three prices move together.

Sync anyway

A run held for one of the checks above shows a warning banner naming the field, the reason in plain words, and how many products or price changes were involved, for example "Price would change by more than 50% on 34 of 120 price changes." Click Sync anyway to write it for this one run only. When the same run also has changes waiting for your approval, Sync anyway sits on each held field's own line instead. Every other field in the run is unaffected, and the check runs again on the next sync. Sync anyway never approves a field, and never approves a connection that is waiting for approval.

The zero-stock Sync anyway on a held run is the same: it confirms the zeros for that run. On a connection that is waiting for approval it can also approve the connection from that held run, but it never approves a field.

Allow frequent changes

If a field is held for how many items change on a connection where that is normal for your catalogue, for example a supplier who renames half its listings every week, click Allow frequent changes on that field's line. Future runs will not hold it for that reason alone. Price keeps its size check regardless, because a tenfold jump is a sign of a broken feed however often price normally moves on that connection, and description keeps its shrink check for the same reason.

What you see on the connection and the run

A connection with something waiting for approval shows a banner in its header, for example "Price changes are waiting for your approval", with Preview and, once there is a run to read, Review preview or Review held run. A run with held fields but everything else written successfully is badged Success with a warning notice, not Held. Only a run held in full, such as a sync on a connection waiting for approval, one over a plan limit, or one stopped by the zero-stock check described in Run a sync and read the result, is badged Held.

Open the run to see each held field listed with its own plain-language reason and count, with Approve and sync or Sync anyway in the banner. Approving a field or a whole connection only takes effect once that sync finishes successfully; if it fails for an unrelated reason, nothing is approved and you will see the same banner next time.

Need help? Visit the support page or email hello@usenormalize.com.