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Staging Environment

  • Updated

If you are subscribed to our Pro+ plan and interested in testing Hive's mAPI (merchant API) before integrating it into your production environment, you can request access to a staging platform.

 

❓ In the staging environment, our team will simulate all standard fulfillment and shipping tasks to mirror the production environment as closely as possible, including restocking, fulfillment, and delivery processes.

 

How to apply for a staging environment

  • If you have been a Pro+ user since the signing of your Contract with Hive, we will get in touch with you, providing the account credentials for a dedicated Hive App Portal, as well as your staging access token.
  • If you plan to subscribe to a Pro+ plan later during your partnership with Hive, you can get in touch with your account manager. You will be introduced to Hive's mAPI and our Customer Support will provide you with your unique credentials once your plan will have been upgraded to Pro+.

What can I do on my staging environment?

Our staging environment includes all the features of the production Hive App, and is identical in look and feel. You will be able to:

  • Send requests to our Staging API endpoint via a REST API Client. Before testing, refer to our API reference at this link.
    • In our staging environment, you can: 
      • Manage your inventory: Add, update, and track product details and inventory levels across warehouses.
      • Manage your orders: Submit, retrieve, and update orders in real-time.
      • Check your shipments: Access fulfillment and delivery statuses with detailed updates.
      • Manage returns and restocking shipments: Automate restocking and monitor returns to minimize downtime.
  • Activate webhooks for orders, shipments, returns and restocking shipments status changes and check their payload.
    • Ask our Customer Support Team if you wish to activate webhooks, and refer to our Webhook documentation, at this link.
  • Familiarize with the Hive App features, look, and feel.

 

Getting started

The production domain for the HIVE API is https://app.hive.app/, the staging domain is https://staging.app.hive.app/

After integrating the staging environment in your ERP or custom business system, you can start testing the Hive mAPI. If you wish to use an online REST API client, we suggest using Postman. Find out more at this link. 

POST your inventory. You can send your Shop products to Hive by POSTing a request to the dedicated staging endpoint: https://staging.app.hive.app/merchant_api/v2/skus/. Find out how on our API documentation.

  • POST a limited selection of products. This will make it easier and faster for our team to complete the following steps. 
  • Be mindful to specify the boolean value (true, false) batch_tracking_enabled if you wish to enable batch tracking for one or more products you intend to POST.

Map your Shop products to Hive products. Open the Hive App, go to Inventory, click on the alert banner ("Map them now.") and proceed to map your Shop products to their respective Hive products. You can find our extended documentation on mapping here.

Check your POSTed Inventory. Place a GET request to https://staging.app.hive.app/merchant_api/v2/skus/, and your entire Hive Inventory will be returned as the response payload. Check out our Inventory API documentation to learn how to manage your Inventory via the Hive mAPI. 

 

Announce a restocking shipment. You can announce your first testing restocking shipment by POSTing a request to the dedicated staging endpoint: https://staging.app.hive.app/merchant_api/v2/restocking_shipments/ .

  • Announce a limited selection of products, with at least 200 units per product. The products you announce must be already mapped in the Hive App.
  • Send a GET request to the same endpoint to make sure that your previous action was successful. You will retrieve the list of all restocking shipments present in your staging environment.
  • Inform our Customer Support Team. We will virtually restock your announced products, and set you ready for testing inventory, orders, shipments, and returns. Wait for our Team's confirmation before proceeding with the following steps.

 

POST your first order

You are all set to POST your first test order via your API client. Our documentation explains the request body structure and required properties. For our staging environment, the dedicated endpoint is: https://staging.app.hive.app/merchant_api/v2/orders. 

  • After POSTing your order, place a GET request to the same endpoint. The response payload should include the order details.
  • Then, contact the Customer Support Team. Inform the Team about this order, including the Order ID. We will identify the order and virtually move it through all stages of fulfillment, delivery, and return. 

Check out the mAPI and Webhooks response payloads

Try to place requests to check, send, modify and delete information from Hive. We suggest POSTing more orders, getting in touch with our Customer Support Team. Our Team will guide you through all the necessary steps to take during testing. 

For example, you can ask us to simulate:

  1. Restocking
  2. Order fulfillment
  3. Shipment delivery
  4. Return handling and restocking

Move from staging to production

After testing, align with Hive technical support about your intention to introduce the Hive mAPI to your public, live e-commerce platform. Send a ticket to our Customer Support Team via the Hive App and communicate your decision. We will provide you with the mAPI bearer token.

If you wish to use Webhooks in your production environment, remember to share the URL at which we should point the Webhooks payloads.

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