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Catalog Sync

Catalog Sync

Spectre maintains a shared bowling catalog (balls, bags, shoes, accessories) and syncs it into your store so you don't have to add those products yourself. The sync runs automatically during your onboarding wizard and produces a stocked, ready-to-sell catalog within minutes.

How the sync works

The catalog sync pulls products and their variations directly from the Spectre bowling database into your WooCommerce products table. It runs as a background job and writes a progress record so you can see where it is.

Each product is imported with:

  • Title, description, and images
  • Pricing
  • Barcode in the _global_unique_id and _upc postmeta fields
  • Variations (for variable products like balls available in multiple weights)
  • Category and tag assignments

After the sync finishes, the WooCommerce product lookup table is rebuilt so search, filtering, and reports are fast on day one.

When it runs

  • During onboarding. Step 2 of the onboarding wizard kicks the sync off automatically.
  • After onboarding. Spectre re-runs the sync periodically to pick up new products, price changes, and image updates.

You do not normally have to trigger the sync manually — it's a managed background process.

Watching progress

Sync progress is stored in the spectrepos_sync_progress site option and updates as the job runs. The progress record includes:

  • status — idle, running, finished, or error
  • current / total — items processed so far
  • created / updated / skipped — counters by action
  • step — which phase the job is in
  • message — the most recent status line

The onboarding wizard reads this same record and shows you a progress bar during step 2.

Sync history

The last 20 sync runs are recorded in the spectrepos_sync_history site option, with the date and a summary of what changed (created, updated, skipped, reassigned, total). Your administrator can look back through this to see when changes landed and how many products each run touched.

What if a product is missing

If a product you expected from the bowling catalog is missing, the most likely reasons are:

  • The sync hasn't run since the product was added upstream.
  • The product was created or updated in your store with the same barcode and Spectre skipped it to avoid overwriting your edit.

Wait for the next sync, or contact Spectre support and we'll re-run the import for the specific items you need.

What if a sync errors out

If the sync status shows error, the message field has the most recent error line. The job is safe to re-run — Spectre's import is idempotent (the same barcode won't be imported twice as a duplicate). Contact support if errors persist across runs.

Stock tracking

If you opted in to stock tracking during onboarding, the bowling catalog is bulk-enabled for stock management after the first sync. If you opted out, products are still imported but stock is not tracked — you can turn it on later per-product under Products → (edit) → Inventory (see Managing Products).

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