Creating Your First Sync Profile

Created by Stacey Kim, Modified on Tue, 17 Feb at 11:35 PM by Stacey Kim

A sync profile tells Alterify where your data lives, which fields to update, and how to match products. You can create one in under 3 minutes.

Open the Profile Creator

From the dashboard, click the Get Started button. This opens a panel titled Create a new profile.

Section 1: Connect to Your Data Source

Profile Name — Give your profile a descriptive name (e.g., "Daily Inventory Update" or "Supplier Price Feed"). Max 50 characters.

Source Type — Choose where your data comes from:

Source Type	When to Use
File Upload	You have a CSV or Excel file on your computer. Best for testing or one-off imports.
File Download Link (URL)	Your file is hosted at a URL (supplier portal, Google Sheets export link, etc.). Alterify fetches the latest version on each sync.
FTP	Your supplier drops files on an FTP server.
SFTP	Same as FTP, but over a secure connection.
Implicit FTPS / Explicit FTPS	FTP with TLS encryption. Use whichever your supplier specifies.

For File Upload: Drag and drop your file or click to browse. Accepted formats: .csv, .txt, .xlsx, .xls (max 30 MB).

For URL: Paste the full download URL (e.g., https://supplier.com/feeds/inventory.csv).

For FTP/SFTP: Enter the Host (e.g., ftp.supplier.com:21), File path (e.g., /feeds/inventory.csv), Username, and Password.

Section 2: Adjust File Settings

Select the File extension that matches your file: .csv, .txt, .xlsx, or .xls.

Section 3: Map Your Data

This is where you tell Alterify how to match rows in your file to products in your BigCommerce store, and which fields to update.

Match products by — Choose the identifier column:

SKU — Match by product SKU (most common).
UPC/EAN (Barcode) — Match by barcode.

Column name — Type the exact column header from your file that contains the SKU or barcode (e.g., sku, product_sku, item_code).

Add fields to sync — Click + Add Field to add each field you want to update:

Field	What It Updates
Product Title	The product name in your store
Quantity	Inventory / stock level
Price	Regular product price
Sale Price	Discounted / sale price

For each field, select the field type and type the matching column name from your file.

Example: If your CSV has a column called qty_on_hand with inventory counts, add a field with type Quantity and column name qty_on_hand.

Save and Run

Click Create to save your profile. Back on the dashboard, click the Start button next to your profile to trigger your first sync. You'll see the status progress through:

Queuing — Your sync is in the queue.
Preparing — Your file is being processed.
Matching — Finding matching products by SKU or barcode.
Updating — Applying changes to your BigCommerce store (shows progress %).

Once complete, click View Logs to see exactly how many products were updated or skipped.

Next Steps

Set up a schedule to run this profile automatically