Test Compatibility
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Shoplift tests rely on templates and themes to deliver different experiences to your visitors. If your theme is missing templates required by your test, a few things could happen:
Pages can display incorrect content
Test data can be compromised
Site visitors can get frustrated
To prevent this, Shoplift disables the selection of themes with missing templates during test creation and will automatically pause tests if it detects configuration issues. These measures ensure the data collected by your test is reliable.
When setting up theme tests, you might see themes in your library disabled for selection, with a tooltip that mentions: "This theme is missing templates that are currently used by your products, collections, and pages."
If you see this message, it means that some of your store's pages (i.e. products, collections, landing pages, or blogs) are "assigned" to a template in your current theme that does not exist in the theme you're previewing. Because the template can't be accessed by the theme you're previewing, visitors on that theme would reach a faulty page instead of the intended templated page. To prevent this, Shoplift disables the selection of themes with missing templates.
For example, let's say Product A is assigned to Template A. If you were to test a theme without Template A, visitors assigned to that theme would reach a faulty page when attempting to view Product A. The templates in your original and variant themes do not need to be the exact same, but they must share the same name so that Shopify can correctly reference them.
For Template Tests: If you're running a test on a specific template (like a product page or collection page) and that template gets removed from your theme, the test will be paused. The test uses the template to display different versions to visitors, so if the template no longer exists, visitors can't access it and the test becomes invalid. A template can be removed from your theme if you delete that template or publish a new theme that doesn't include that template.
For Theme Tests: If you're running a theme test and your live theme is modified to include a new template on pages visitors can access (as opposed to unpublished templates), the test will be paused. Because the new template can't be accessed from the variant theme, visitors on the variant would reach a faulty page, which would upset customers and invalidate your test.
Click "View Details" or "See missing templates" to open a list of the templates that your store configuration requires. Each of these templates needs to be added to the theme indicated in the top left. In the above example, a product template "test-1" needs to be added to the theme "Copy of Timely Demo Theme."
Step 1: Before you can add the missing template, you need to find the theme that has the missing template.
For theme testing, the missing template will be in your live theme and you will need to add it to an unpublished theme.
For template testing, the missing template will be in an unpublished theme and you will need to add it to your live theme. However, if no theme version exists with this template, you will need to create a new template in your live theme with the same name (i.e. the missing template shown above is "test-1").
Step 2: Once you find the theme with the missing template, click "Edit code."
Step 3: In the theme code editor, use the left navigation bar to locate the missing template. Select the missing template, highlight all of the template's code, and copy the code to your clipboard.
Step 4: Find the theme that you need to add the missing template to (i.e. "Copy of Timely Demo Theme). Open the code editor and click "Add a new template." Select the type of template you are missing (i.e. a product template) and provide the name of the missing template (i.e. "test-1"). Be sure the name exactly matches the name of the missing template. Create the template, and replace the entirety of the generated code with the code you copied to your clipboard.
Step 5: Hit "Save", and return to Shoplift. Click "Recheck theme". If you have copied all of the required templates to your unpublished theme, you will now be able to select the theme for a theme test.
Need some help? Reach out to Customer Support, and we'd be happy to assist you.
It’s best to wait until after your test is completed to delete templates or make theme updates. We recommend the following best practices:
Make sure your team is aware of any tests being run
If you’re running a template test, make sure that your live theme and any upcoming theme updates include both templates
If you’re running a theme test, make sure that any updates to your original theme (such as adding a new template) are also made on your variant theme
This feature is experimental, and is opt-in. Prior to enabling it, we advise consulting with your developers. If you have further questions, reach out to help@shoplift.ai.
To prevent template and theme tests from being interrupted by changes in your theme files, Shoplift has created an experimental feature that will automatically backs up and restores required theme files for your active template and theme tests in the event they become unavailable.
If a tested template becomes unavailable during an active template test, Shoplift will automatically restore it from the backup created at the test’s launch to keep the test running uninterrupted.
A common example is when a template test leverages a duplicate template that might not be on your other themes. When a new theme is published, if it doesn't contain the duplicate, then Shoplift will add the required file from a backup taken when the test was launched.
If your template requirements change during an active theme test, such as publishing a new pagebuilder page, Shoplift will automatically migrate all missing template, section, and snippet files from your main theme to the test theme to prevent test interruptions.
Potential risks and limitations
An inherent risk to leveraging this feature is when templates, sections, and snippets are migrated from your main theme to your test theme in order to allow a theme test to run uninterrupted when new file dependencies arise.
If your test theme has existing references to any files that are migrated from your main theme, then your test theme experience could behave in unintended ways, depending on the dependencies and references that exist.
This feature is opt-in and can be enabled in your settings at your discretion. To enable this feature, visit Settings > Preferences. You can then toggle this feature on or off at any time.
Feedback and Support
We are actively refining this feature and plan to release a more stable version in the future. If you encounter any issues or have feedback, please share it with our team at help@shoplift.ai to help us improve.
