Session brief: Merchant portal operations

A written operations session for the team that will own WardrobeIt after launch. There is no fabricated customer panel and no LMS score. Day-two work is knowledge, recommendation rules, and what to review after the widget is live.

Launch is not the finish. Fashion catalogs move weekly. Policies move when shipping regions change. If portal work has no owner, the assistant will drift toward last season’s truth.

Agenda

1. Portal navigation for the roles who will actually log in.
2. Publishing and updating merchant knowledge so it still matches policy pages.
3. Checking that recommendations still resolve to live SKUs after a drop.
4. Where billing and access questions go.
5. What to do when Shopify and the assistant disagree.

Roles to name in the room

• Catalog quality: variants, images, collections, inventory truth.
• Knowledge: policies, lead times, prohibitions.
• Theme: embed still present after a theme publish.
• Billing contact: invoices and account access, using published pages only.

If both knowledge and catalog sit with “whoever has time,” the assistant will drift. Write names. Small brands can use one name twice; they still need the jobs distinguished so a drop does not skip knowledge.

Portal as the control surface

Use Merchant Portal Guide as the runbook this brief points to. Product overview: Merchant Portal. Knowledge runbook: Merchant Knowledge and Store Help. Recommendation constraints remain catalog-only; see Catalog-Only Recommendations.

A day-two loop you can actually run

After a theme publish or a drop: confirm the widget on one collection and one PDP; ask one policy question and compare to the live page; ask one pairing question and confirm every item is a SKU in stock. That loop is the session’s practical core.

Billing and access without copied prices

Account questions go to Plans, Usage and Billing and Pricing. This session will not recite plan prices. If access fails, Troubleshooting and Contact are the next steps—not a shared password in a merchandising Slack.

When sync is the incident

If recommended variants disagree with Shopify, treat it as a connection or inventory incident before a “prompt” incident. Connect a Shopify Store and Shopify Catalog Sync are the relevant surfaces. Portal rules cannot fix a catalog the assistant is not seeing.

Discussion prompts

• Who can publish knowledge this week?
• What is our pairing rule after the next drop?
• Which policy pages changed in the last quarter without a knowledge update?
• Who confirms embed after the next theme release?

Knowledge and rules as weekly work

Policy pages move. Drops move. If knowledge still describes last season’s lead times, the assistant will sound sure and be wrong. If pairing still includes a sold-out accessory, complete-the-look will embarrass merchandising. The portal is where those facts are supposed to live. A Google Doc that the assistant cannot read is not an operations system.

Write prohibitions: no invented fit, no unauthorized discounts, no restock dates operations cannot keep, no try-on as exact-fit. Those sentences belong in knowledge. Recommendation constraints belong in rules. Catalog-Only Recommendations is the parent boundary.

Failure modes

• No named owner after the person who “set it up” leaves.
• Billing questions answered with remembered prices.
• Theme publishes that drop the embed, blamed on the portal.
• A fabricated customer panel used as proof this session works.

After the session

Schedule the day-two loop on a calendar you will honor. Point new hires at this brief and the Help Center, not at a remembered demo. Related: Getting Started, Store Help and Product Q&A, and Product Updates for capability notes that are not unpublished changelogs.

A ninety-minute working session

Minute 0–20: everyone who will log in actually logs in. Minute 20–40: publish or update one knowledge entry from a live policy page and ask the assistant. Minute 40–60: inspect one pairing rule against a hero PDP. Minute 60–90: write owners for catalog, knowledge, theme embed, and billing contact. If a login fails, the session becomes access work via Troubleshooting and Contact.

Bring five SKUs and two policy URLs. Do not bring a demo catalog you do not sell. Do not bring a slide about unpublished portal features. Capability notes live on Product Updates without fake changelogs.

What “good” looks like the following week

• Knowledge still matches the live shipping or returns page.
• Pairing still resolves to in-stock SKUs after a small inventory change.
• Embed still present after a theme publish.
• Nobody quoted a remembered plan price in Slack.

Companion reading: Guides for catalog, widget, rules, knowledge, and billing; Academy for the launch checklist. Neither issues a certificate.

What to leave out of the working session

Do not spend the hour reconstructing plan prices. Send Pricing and Plans, Usage and Billing. Do not screenshot an internal admin build as if it were a public changelog. Do not invite a fictional customer panel. Operations quality is the proof.

If the day-two loop fails on stock, stop the portal debate and inspect Shopify Catalog Sync. Rules cannot redeem a feed the assistant is not seeing.

End the session with a calendar hold for the day-two loop: widget, one policy question, one pairing question, after the next theme publish or drop. If that hold is not real, the brief was only reading. Owners and Help Center URLs are the takeaway, not a certificate. Getting Started.

Billing questions go to the published pricing and billing help pages, never to remembered package math.