PrestaShop setup guide

Connect PrestaShop to flashtimer

Give flashtimer a key to your shop and your countdown timers follow your cart rules and product discounts: change a rule's end date in PrestaShop and the timer in your emails changes with it. You don't need a developer to connect, and it takes about five minutes.

Open Integrations See the steps

Nothing to install
Pro and up
Reads, never changes
About five minutes

Before you start

What you need

Owner or admin in flashtimer
Connecting an integration is up to your organization's owners and admins, on Pro and up.
An admin login to your back office
One that can open Advanced Parameters → Webservice. If you don't see that menu, ask whoever manages the shop.
PrestaShop 1.7, 8 or 9, on https
Your shop's address has to start with https://, which nearly every shop's does.

Step by step

Connect PrestaShop

First you make a key for flashtimer in your back office (steps 1 and 2), then you paste it into flashtimer (steps 3 and 4). The last three steps are an optional extra that makes changes arrive within seconds; you can do them yourself, without a developer.

In PrestaShop
Step 1: In your back office, turn on the webservice
Sign in to your back office. In the menu on the left open Advanced Parameters and click Webservice.
At the bottom, under Configuration, set Enable PrestaShop's webservice to Yes and click Save. The webservice is your shop's way of letting another service read from it, with a key and only the access you choose.
Then click Add new webservice key at the top right.
your-store.com/admin
In PrestaShop
Step 2: Generate a key and tick what flashtimer may read
Click Generate next to Key, and in Key description type flashtimer. Leave Enable webservice key on Yes.
In the Permissions table, tick the View (GET) box, and only that one, on these six rows: cart_rules, configurations, products, specific_price_rules, specific_prices and stock_availables. The real list is long and alphabetical; the picture shows only the rows to tick.
Only want timers that follow your cart rules? cart_rules and configurations are enough. Copy the key somewhere safe for a minute, then click Save.
your-store.com/admin
What flashtimer does with each permission
cart_rules
Reads your cart rules: their names, dates, whether they are active and how many uses are left. This is what timers follow.
configurations
Reads your shop's time zone, so a rule that ends at midnight ends at midnight where your shop is, not somewhere else.
specific_prices, specific_price_rules
Reads your product discounts and catalog price rules with an end date, so a timer can follow a sale on a product.
products
Reads product names, for the discounts above and for picking a product in Stock Monitor.
stock_availables
Reads how many of a product are left, so Stock Monitor can end a timer when it sells out.
flashtimer only reads: every tick is View (GET). It can never change a rule, a product, a price, an order or your stock.
In flashtimer
Step 3: In flashtimer, paste your shop's address and the key
In flashtimer, go to Settings → Integrations, open the E-commerce tab and click PrestaShop.
In Store URL, type the address your shop opens at, starting with https://, like https://your-store.com. Not the address of the back office. In Webservice Key, paste the key from step 2, then click Connect PrestaShop.
flashtimer tries the address and the key before saving anything. If something isn't right, it says what.
Open Integrations
app.flashtimer.com
In flashtimer
Step 4: Connected: choose what flashtimer does by itself
The dialog shows Connected and your shop's address. From now on flashtimer checks your shop every few minutes, reading rule dates in your shop's own time zone.
Under Automation, tick what you want done for you. Auto-create timers makes a timer for each new cart rule or product discount, Auto-update timers moves a timer's end when you change the dates, and Auto-archive timers puts a timer away when its rule is switched off, deleted or over. Everything is off until you tick it, and your choice is saved as you make it.
Include single-customer vouchers is for the cart rules your shop makes by itself, one per customer: credit slips, loyalty rewards, cart reminders. They get no timer unless you tick it.
That's the connection done. The next three steps are optional.
app.flashtimer.com
In flashtimerOptional
Step 5: For instant updates, download the module
Without anything more, a change in your shop reaches your timers within a few minutes. If you want it within seconds, add flashtimer's small free module, which tells flashtimer the moment a cart rule or a product discount is saved or deleted. It sends only that rule, and nothing about customers or orders.
In the dialog, under Instant updates (optional), click Download the module. You get a file called flashtimer-prestashop-sync.zip. Keep the dialog open: you'll need its two values in step 7.
app.flashtimer.com
In PrestaShopOptional
Step 6: Upload it in the Module Manager
In your back office, open Modules → Module Manager and click Upload a module at the top right. Drop the zip file onto the window that opens, or click select file and choose it.
PrestaShop installs it in a few seconds and says Module installed! Click Configure.
your-store.com/admin
In PrestaShopOptional
Step 7: Paste flashtimer's two values into the module
On the module's Configure page, copy the address from flashtimer's dialog into Webhook URL and the secret into Webhook signing secret (the copy buttons next to each give you the whole value). Set Enabled to Yes and click Save.
To check it, change a cart rule's end date in your shop: the timer that follows it moves within seconds.
your-store.com/admin

Once connected

What you can do next

Make a timer from a cart rule or a discount
Pro and up
On the Timers page, open the arrow next to New timer and under Import choose PrestaShop. Pick a cart rule, a discounted product or a catalog price rule and click Create timer: it counts down to that end date. A timer you make this way tells you when the date changes and offers to Sync.
Let new rules become timers by themselves
Pro and up
With Auto-create timers on, every new cart rule and dated product discount gets a timer within a few minutes (within seconds with the module), and with Auto-update and Auto-archive on it follows the rule from then on without you. A rule that starts later gets a timer that counts down to its start.
End a timer when a product sells out
Business
Open a timer, go to Automations and add a Stock Monitor: pick a product and the stock level at which the timer should end. For a product with combinations, flashtimer counts all of them together.

Manage

Manage the connection

Disconnect: In Settings → Integrations → PrestaShop, click Disconnect. Your timers stay and keep counting down; they stop following your shop. To take the key away too, delete it under Advanced Parameters → Webservice, and switch the module's Enabled to No if you installed it.
Replace the key, or add a permission: To add a permission, edit the key in your back office and tick the row: there is nothing to do in flashtimer. To replace the key, make a new one and connect again in flashtimer with your shop's address and the new key. Your Automation choices and the module's secret are kept.
Connect another shop: An organization connects one shop at a time. Connect with the other shop's address and key: timers that followed the old shop are let go of, so they never follow a rule from the wrong shop.
New secret for the module: Click Regenerate next to the secret in flashtimer's dialog, then paste the new one into the module's Configure page in your shop.

Troubleshooting

If something doesn't work

Most problems show a message on flashtimer's Integrations page. Here's what each one means and what to do.

“The webservice is switched off in this store.”: Do step 1: under Advanced Parameters → Webservice, set Enable PrestaShop's webservice to Yes and save, then connect again.
“PrestaShop refused this webservice key.”: Copy the key again from Advanced Parameters → Webservice (all 32 characters, with no space before or after) and check that its Enabled switch is green.
“This webservice key isn't allowed to read …”: The message names a row from step 2. Edit the key in your back office, tick View (GET) on that row and save. Nothing to do in flashtimer: it works on the next try.
“There is no PrestaShop webservice at this address.”: The Store URL isn't your shop's own address. Use the one your shop opens at for customers, like https://your-store.com, not the back office's. If it is right, turn on Friendly URL under Shop Parameters → Traffic & SEO.
“Your store redirects to …”: Your shop lives at a slightly different address, usually with or without www. Connect again with the address the message names.
“Something in front of your store … blocked flashtimer with HTTP 403.”: A firewall or bot protection stopped flashtimer before it reached your shop. Ask whoever runs it to allow requests to /api/.
“Rule dates are read as UTC.”: The key isn't allowed to read your shop's time zone. Tick View (GET) on configurations for the key and reload flashtimer's page: the notice goes by itself.
I changed a rule's date and my timer didn't move: A timer you made yourself from a rule, or linked by hand, doesn't change on its own: open it and click Sync to the new date. Timers that flashtimer created through Auto-create follow the rule themselves, as long as Auto-update timers is ticked.
My new cart rule didn't become a timer: Check that Auto-create timers is ticked, that the rule's Status is on, that it has uses left and that its end date hasn't passed. A rule limited to a single customer gets no timer unless Include single-customer vouchers is ticked. Then give it a few minutes: flashtimer checks on a schedule unless the module is installed.

Still stuck? Contact support.

Questions

Answered before you ask.