The Export Create Page is where you configure and start new export jobs in Altera. This page provides a comprehensive interface for selecting data types, choosing specific fields, applying filters, and configuring export options like file format, scheduling, and remote delivery.

You can access this page by clicking New export from your Altera home page, or by cloning an existing export job.

The top section displays all available data types you can export from your Shopify store.

How to select data types:

After selecting data types, configuration cards appear for each selected type. Each card includes:

Field groups organize related fields together to make configuration easier. Each data type has its own set of field groups (e.g., Products has General, Variants, Images/Media, Collections, Metafields, SEO, and more).

Selecting fields:

You have two options for selecting which fields to include in your export:

When you click on a selected field group, a modal appears showing all available fields in that group. You can:

Tips:

Apply filters to export only specific records that match your criteria:

Common filter use cases:

Located in the right sidebar, this section controls the output file settings:

Choose how you want your exported data formatted:

Matrixify Compatible:

Other:

When to use each format:

Customize the name of your exported file:

You can use the following placeholders in the file name:

Example Filenames:

Notes:

Control whether the exported file URL is publicly accessible:

When to use Public:

Security note: Public URLs include a random identifier that's difficult to guess, but anyone who has the URL can download the file.

The Advanced Options section (collapsed by default) provides additional formatting controls for your export. These settings apply globally to all data types in your export.

Controls how date and time fields are formatted in the exported file:

When to use different formats:

Controls how phone numbers are normalized in the export:

When to use different formats:

Controls how phone number cells are formatted for spreadsheet compatibility:

Why this matters: Excel and other spreadsheet applications often try to interpret phone numbers as numeric values, which can strip leading zeros or convert them to scientific notation. The apostrophe prefix tells Excel to treat the value as text, preserving the exact formatting.

Configure your export to run automatically on a recurring schedule:

When scheduling is enabled, configure:

Use cases for scheduling:

Note: Scheduled jobs are only available on paid plans. The number of scheduled jobs allowed depends on your plan tier.

When you create a recurring export, the field groups and columns you select are fixed for the lifetime of that export. This behavior ensures consistency in your export files:

The field columns you configure when creating the export will remain the same for all future runs. If we add new fields to the app later (for example, adding a new variant field to Altera's field configuration), those new fields will not automatically appear in your existing recurring export. To include new fields, you would need to create a new export with the updated configuration.

The exception to this rule is metafield columns. Metafield columns are dynamically generated each time the export runs, based on:

Metafield columns always appear at the end of your export file, which means they can change from one export run to another as you add or remove metafield definitions or unstructured metafields in your store.

If you need to ensure that all columns (including metafields) appear in exactly the same order every time, contact us to set up a data transformation. Data transformations can be configured to run automatically after each export to ensure the columns match exactly, including maintaining a consistent order for metafield columns across all export runs.

Import scheduling: Imports also support scheduling, but with different options depending on the source:

Send your export directly to a remote FTP or SFTP server instead of (or in addition to) storing it in Altera:

Benefits:

Options:

See our FTP/SFTP export guide for setup instructions.

Apply custom data transformation recipes to modify your exported data automatically. Transformations are not self-service - our team will work with you to build custom transformations tailored to your specific needs.

What transformations can do:

How it works:

Note: Transformations are not available for Google Shopping Feed exports.

See our Data Transformations documentation for more information.

When you configure an export, Altera displays the equivalent CLI command that you can use to create the same export from your terminal. This feature helps you:

When the CLI command appears:

The CLI command widget is displayed when:

Using the CLI command:

The command automatically includes:

Example:

If you configure an export for products with general and media fields, filtered by active status, the CLI command might look like:

If you also configured non-default formatting options, they'll be included:

Availability:

The CLI tool, including import and export commands, is available on the Developer and Pro plans only. The Community plan does not include CLI access.

Learn more in our CLI documentation.

Save your export settings to reuse them later:

Benefits:

Load a previously saved configuration: