How Olvio keeps your catalog in sync
Olvio answers shoppers from your Shopify catalog. It imports your products and collections once, then keeps them up to date on its own, so there is no separate product list to maintain. Olvio only has read access to your products and never changes them in Shopify.
Catalog sync works the same way on every plan. Olvio doesn't follow catalog changes while you have no active plan.
The first import
After you choose a plan and approve it in Shopify, Olvio starts importing your catalog in the background the first time you open the Olvio admin. It imports every product, including draft and archived products, along with the collections your products belong to. This import doesn't include variant metafields, so the AI may not see a product's variant metafields until you edit that product in Shopify.
While the import runs, the Dashboard (click Olvio in the app menu) shows a banner:
Setting up your product catalog while the import starts.
Catalog sync in progress while Olvio imports your products. This typically takes 2 to 10 minutes. Large catalogs can take longer.
The Dashboard updates on its own when the import is done, and you can use the rest of the app in the meantime.
Check your catalog status
Once the import is done, the Dashboard shows a Catalog synced badge with the number of products and collections Olvio holds. Next to it, Last change synced shows the last time Olvio updated a single product or collection, for example after you edited one in Shopify or during its nightly check. If Olvio has never updated a single product or collection, you see Last full sync instead, with the time the last full import finished.
The product count includes draft and archived products. Olvio only recommends and searches active products, so when you set a product to draft or archived, the chat stops suggesting it. Olvio doesn't check sales channels, so an active product that you only excluded from your Online Store sales channel can still be suggested. To stop the chat suggesting a product, set it to draft or archived.
The Dashboard can also show one of these banners:
Catalog sync failed: the import ended with an error. The banner shows a short error message and a Retry sync button. If your store had no products yet when Olvio imported your catalog, the import ends this way too: add your products in your Shopify admin, then click Retry sync.
Some products aren't fully indexed: some active products aren't searchable by Olvio yet. Olvio retries them automatically every night, and you can click Resync now to retry them right away.
Olvio imports every product, even if your catalog has more products than your plan includes, and keeps answering questions on all of them. The Dashboard then shows a banner such as You're over the Starter product limit, and on the Plans page, plans that are too small for your catalog are grayed out and can't be selected. Their button reads Catalog too large, or Current plan for the plan and billing cycle you're on. See Compare Starter, Growth, and Scale plans.
What updates automatically
After the first import, Olvio follows your catalog edits in Shopify without you doing anything:
Products: when you create, edit or delete a product, Olvio updates or removes it shortly after you save.
Collections: when you create, edit or delete a collection, Olvio does the same.
Nightly check: every night, Olvio also looks for recently edited products it may have missed and imports their latest version.
To learn what Olvio reads from each product and how the AI uses it, see What sources Olvio reads. To give the AI extra facts about a single product, see Add product-specific notes with the custom.olvio_knowledge metafield.
Other store changes Olvio picks up
Olvio also follows these changes on its own:
Storefront domain: if you change your store's primary domain, Olvio picks up the new domain automatically, usually shortly after you change it, and checks it again every night, so your widget keeps working.
Languages: when you publish, unpublish or remove a language, or change your default language, Olvio updates the languages your widget serves, usually shortly after the change, with a nightly check as a backup. It stays within your plan's language allowance, keeps the languages you picked in Appearance, and only adds languages Olvio can answer in. If you publish a language your widget doesn't serve, the widget still shows on pages in that language but usually answers in your default language. To hide it there, open Appearance, click the Advanced tab, check Hide the widget on languages Olvio doesn’t cover and save. See Multi-language: choose which languages your widget serves.
Time zone: when you change your store's time zone in Shopify, the Dashboard counts days in the new time zone, usually shortly after the change, with a nightly check as a backup.
Plan: when Shopify confirms a plan change, Olvio applies the new plan's limits and features, such as the number of languages your widget serves. See Upgrade or downgrade your plan.
Store pages, blog articles and policies: Olvio re-reads them regularly. See How Olvio reads your store pages, blog articles and policies.
External web pages you added in AI Setup: Olvio re-checks them automatically, normally every night. See Add knowledge files and web pages to Olvio's knowledge base.
When to run a resync yourself
You rarely need to. Click Resync now on the Dashboard when:
You edited many products at once, for example with Shopify's bulk editor or a CSV import. Olvio may not pick up all of those changes automatically.
A product edit still isn't reflected in Olvio's answers a while after you saved it (for a variant metafield, edit and save the product again instead).
Your plan was inactive for a while and you then chose a plan again. Edits you made in Shopify in the meantime may not be imported automatically.
A resync imports your whole catalog again, except variant metafields, and it doesn't remove products you deleted in Shopify. After a resync, the AI may not see a product's variant metafields until you edit that product again. If a deleted product still appears in the chat, contact us (see Contact us and support hours). You can run a resync once per day, counted from the start of the previous sync, including the first automatic import. In between, the button is grayed out and its tooltip tells you when it's available again. After a failed sync, or when some products aren't fully indexed, you can retry right away. See Resync your product catalog.