Profile routing

Most stores need only one profile, and every gift card operation uses it.

Some businesses, though, hold separate accounts with their gift card provider for different regions, currencies or sales channels. For those stores, Cardigan can scope profiles so that each transaction is routed to the appropriate one automatically.

Configured by the Cardigan team

Profile scopes aren't something you set up in the Shopify admin - they're configured for your store by the Cardigan team.

If you think your store needs more than one profile in use at once, get in touch and we'll work through your setup with you.

How a profile is selected

When Cardigan needs to perform a gift card operation, it works out which profile to use by checking each of the following in turn. The first match wins:

Location. If the transaction is associated with a Shopify location, Cardigan looks for a profile mapped to that location.
Currency. Otherwise, Cardigan looks for a profile scoped to the currency of the transaction.
Channel. Otherwise, Cardigan looks for a profile scoped to the channel the transaction came from - either your online store or Shopify POS.
Default. If nothing more specific matches, Cardigan uses your default profile.

Because the default profile is the final fallback, your store always needs one. Any transaction that doesn't match a scoped profile will use it.

Seeing how your profiles are scoped

Scoped profiles are labelled in the admin, both in the "Profiles" list and at the top of each profile's detail view. A profile may show badges for:

the currencies it applies to;
the channels it applies to (online store or point of sale);
the Shopify locations it's mapped to.

A profile with no badges other than "Default" is your fallback profile. A profile with no badges at all isn't currently being used for anything.

Examples

A separate provider account per currency

A merchant sells in both Australian and New Zealand dollars, and their provider issues cards separately for each market.

Two profiles are scoped by currency - one to AUD, one to NZD - and one of them is also nominated as the default. A customer checking out in New Zealand dollars has their card checked against the NZD profile; a customer checking out in any other currency falls through to the default.

A separate provider account for retail

A merchant runs their online store on one provider account and their physical stores on another.

One profile is scoped to the pos channel and the other is left as the default. Cards sold and redeemed through Shopify POS use the POS profile, and everything on the online store and in the checkout uses the default.

Different accounts per store location

A merchant operates stores across several regions, each reporting into a different provider account.

Profiles are mapped to the relevant Shopify locations. Because location is checked first, a transaction at a particular store always uses that store's profile regardless of currency or channel - which is why location mapping is the right tool when your provider accounts are organised geographically.