Profiles

Cardigan uses a concept called "Profiles" to define which external gift card provider to connect with, the API credentials to use when doing so, and how Cardigan should behave for cards issued and redeemed through that provider.

You can create as many profiles per store as you need. One of them is nominated as your default profile, which is the profile Cardigan uses for gift card operations unless something more specific applies.

This means you can keep a profile pointing at your provider's staging credentials while you're getting set up, then create a separate production profile and make it the default when you're ready to go live.

Creating a profile

From the Cardigan dashboard inside the Shopify admin, select "Profiles" from the left-hand side menu.

Click "Add new profile", select the gift card provider you want to create a profile for, and then "Add profile".

You'll be able to give your profile a name (this is just used internally for your reference), and enter the API credentials supplied by your gift card provider.

Testing credentials

It's a good idea to test your API credentials before saving, just to make sure everything's working - you can do that by clicking "Test credentials" after entering your details.

Once you've run a successful credential test, click "Save" and your profile will be created.

Setting a default profile

A newly created profile isn't used for anything until you make it your default. This prevents a half-configured profile being used by customers before you're ready.

To set a default, open the profile by clicking on it in the "Profiles" list, then choose "Set profile as default" at the bottom of the page and confirm.

Any profile that was previously the default is replaced, and gift card functionality immediately begins using the new one.

Deleting a profile

If you want to remove a profile entirely, open it and click "Delete profile" at the bottom of the page.

Deleting a profile can't be undone, so in most cases you'll want to simply set a different profile as your default instead. The records of cards already issued and redeemed through a deleted profile are retained.

Checking a card against a profile

The profile detail view includes a balance check tool, which performs a live balance lookup against that specific profile's credentials.

This is useful when you want to confirm a profile is working correctly, or to check a card against a staging profile without affecting your live setup. See Balance check for more on looking up cards from the admin.

Configuration options

In addition to the profile name and the credentials used to connect to your provider, each profile exposes configuration options specific to the provider in use. These are documented on each provider's own page - see the Providers section.

One option appears across most providers:

Refund behaviour

Specifies Cardigan's behaviour when a refund is created in the Shopify admin against a gift card that was redeemed using this profile. Available options are:

• Take no action (default): no action is taken by Cardigan;
• Issue new: a new digital gift card is issued and delivered to the customer owning the refunded order;
• Refund to original: the refunded amount is returned to the original gift card used for the purchase.

While taking no action is the default setting, in general we recommend issuing a new digital gift card on refund. Not only does this help with auditing gift card history for a particular customer, it also avoids issues in situations where the customer holding the gift card has lost or discarded their original gift card details.

Some providers have limitations on which behaviours are available depending on your external account setup, and some don't expose the setting at all, so be sure to read through the provider-specific documentation when selecting the appropriate behaviour for your setup.

Using more than one profile at once

Most stores only need a single default profile.

If your business uses different provider accounts for different regions, currencies or sales channels, Cardigan can route each transaction to the appropriate profile automatically - see Profile routing.