04Channels & organization
Disconnect, reconnect and remove a channel
What each exit keeps, what's lost and who can do it.
A channel has three exits and they don't weigh the same. Pausing makes Koalab stop writing to it for a while. Disconnecting switches it off but keeps its settings. Removing deletes the channel and its links (what ties each product in your catalog to its listing there) and can't be undone. Everything except pausing is done by an admin or the owner.
Before disconnecting, see if pausing is enough
If you only want Koalab to stop writing to the channel for a while, use “Pause channel” in its settings: the connection and the settings stay. While it lasts, your listings stay on sale and Koalab only lowers its stock when you sell on another channel. When you resume, it sends what changed during the pause. The emergency pause tutorial tells the story. Disconnecting is for a channel you stop using.
Disconnecting: what happens to what's published
In the channel's settings, top right, is “Disconnect”. To confirm you type what appears in bold: your store's address, with its https:// on WooCommerce, or the name if it's a marketplace. Listings stay live but frozen: price and stock stay as they are today and can sell without Koalab knowing. The confirmation also says how many photos that channel brought will be deleted 30 days later; the ones you uploaded in Koalab stay, and if you reconnect before then none are deleted. If you don't want to keep selling there, first set its stock to zero with “Quick actions” → “Zero the inventory”, or close the listings on the channel.
Mock-up: the confirmation to disconnect an independent channel with its own catalog If it's independent, decide about its catalog
An independent channel has its own products, outside the shared catalog. If it has any, the confirmation asks what to do with them: “Move them to the shared catalog”, which keeps their price and stock; “Delete them”, which can't be undone; or “Decide later”, which leaves them in Products marked as without a channel. If that channel works in another currency, the first option becomes “Move them to the shared catalog without prices”: they come in with no price and zero inventory, and aren't published until you price them. With another currency, “Decide later” comes selected.
The disconnected channels archive
At the foot of Channels, “Disconnected channels” appears, folded, only if you have any. Open it and you'll see each switched-off channel with “Reconnect” and “Remove”. It's the only place they're recovered from or removed for good.
Mock-up: the “Disconnected channels” section unfolded Reconnect or remove
“Reconnect” brings it back with its settings intact, without confirmation. It takes a plan slot, like a new channel: with the plan full, it can't. “Remove” asks you to type the channel's name: it deletes the channel and its link with each product published there, but doesn't touch your catalog's products, and says from what date the photos it brought are deleted. Listings stay on the channel, but Koalab no longer updates them. There's no going back. An independent channel with products of its own can't be removed until you decide what happens to them.
If it stopped responding, reauthorize
When a channel stops giving Koalab permission, because it expired or you withdrew it, don't disconnect it: reauthorize it from its settings. On Mercado Libre, Tiendanube and Shopify, “Reauthorize” is in the “General” tab (on Mercado Libre, also in the notice at the top). On WooCommerce, the notice offers “Reauthorize with WooCommerce”, and “General”, “Reauthorize from WooCommerce” or “Enter keys manually”. It isn't the “Reconnect” in “Disconnected channels”: that one is for a switched-off channel. If the channel rejects access twice in a row, the admins and the owner get an email, just one until it works again.
Details worth knowing
- Connecting from scratch an account you have disconnected doesn't recover it: it creates a new channel, without the old one's settings. To come back with what you had, use “Reconnect” in the archive.
- “Reconnect” doesn't ask for keys again: it uses the ones it had saved. If they expired while it was off, then it's time for “Reauthorize”.
- Disconnecting, reconnecting, removing and reauthorizing need the admin or owner role. Pausing and resuming can also be done by a member, but not by a viewer.