How to: import the Gadget API into a Shopify storefront (product quiz) 

When building storefront apps using Liquid, you may need to make requests to a Gadget backend. This guide will show you how to use your Gadget project's direct script tag in the Shopify storefront to embed a product quiz in a store.

Product recommendation quizzes help build engaging sales experiences for online shoppers by allowing them to map their problems or concerns to a product that best meets their needs. For Shopify merchants, this can be an appealing proposition! Merchants can build custom quizzes that present shoppers with a tailored experience, resulting in higher sales conversions and greater satisfaction by matching shoppers with the right products.

Step 1: Fork product quiz app 

Good news, everyone! Instead of building an app from scratch, you are going to fork an existing product quiz app. This app already contains:

• a Shopify connection with the required scopes and data models
• data models for managing quiz data, including questions, answers, and recommended products
• backend logic for cleaning up data when a quiz is deleted
• an embedded frontend for creating and managing quizzes

Click here to fork the app:

Here is a diagram showing an overview of the app's tech stack:

The next step will be installing your quiz app on a Shopify store, but first, let's take a look at the data models and permissions that have been added for you.

Quiz data models 

You need a way to create, serve, and record quiz responses in your app. The recording of responses enables you to track the conversion state mentioned in the intro, effectively making a response to a quiz a snapshot of a session that a shopper has with your quiz.

Here's a diagram to demonstrate what relationships our models will have with each other:

You need some models to capture the structure of the product quiz:

• a quiz has many questions
• each question can have multiple possible answers
• each answer has a recommendedProduct that relates to a product in a Shopify store

This data model allows us to recommend a product for each question answered by a shopper.

You also need a model to capture user responses to the quiz:

• quizResult captures shopper information, such as an email address, and a list of recommended products so follow-up emails can be sent once a quiz is completed
• the shopperSuggestion model links quizResult records to shopifyProduct records

Keeping product recommendations in a separate model means you can update quiz questions and answers while maintaining recommendations for shoppers who took previous versions of the quiz.

Roles and permissions 

Our quiz app has two different sets of users: merchants building the quiz, and shoppers who take the quiz.

This means we need to manage permissions for both of these roles - shoppers interacting with the embedded admin app get the shopify-app-user role, and shoppers on the storefront are unauthenticated.

Permissions have already been set for this app:

• the shopify-app-users role has been granted read and write access to the quiz, question, answer, and recommendedProduct models
• unauthenticated shoppers can read data from the quiz, question, answer, recommendedProduct, and shopifyProduct models
• unauthenticated users also need to be able to save their responses and have been granted permission to create new records of the quizResult and shopperSuggestion models

You can view these permissions by clicking on the accessControl folder and then selecting permissions in the left nav.

Step 2: Connecting to Shopify 

To recommend products to shoppers, we'll need product data in our app that we can map to the results of a product recommendation quiz. Using Gadget's Connections feature, we can connect our app to a Shopify store and pull product data right from the shop.

Because the quiz app was forked, the Shopify connection has already been defined: the read_products API scope and required data models have been selected.

To complete the connection, connect to a Shopify Partners app and install it on a development store:

1. Go to the Shopify Partner dashboard and create a new app
2. Click Create app manually and name your app
3. Copy the Client ID and Client secret back to Gadget. You can + Add App Credentials to the Development environment in Gadget, then click Confirm

4. Copy the App URL and Redirection URL back to the Shopify Partners dashboard. These can be pasted on the Configuration page of your Partners app
5. Go back to the Overview page of your Partners app and click Select store to install on a development store

After following the prompts from Shopify, your app should be successfully installed on the development store!

After installing, Shopify product data will automatically be synced to your Gadget app's database via a code effect added to the Shopify Shop install action. You can find this code snippet in api/models/shopifyShop/actions/install.js.

To view the status of your sync:

6. Navigate to the Plugins page, and click Shop Installs underneath the Shopify connection tile

Once your sync is complete, you can build your first quiz in the shop admin.

Step 3: Making our first Quiz 

Now for the fun part, making a quiz!

After installing the app you will be redirected to the main page for the embedded quiz app in the Shopify admin. Go ahead and create a new quiz - add some questions and answers, and link answers to recommended products.

We can look at records in Gadget and see how our frontend app connects with Gadget through the client and makes API calls against it. If we look at the quiz data by selecting the Data page on the quiz model in the left-hand sidebar, we should see at least one instance of quiz, including its id, title, and body. We can also inspect our other records to see how our pieces work together to create our quiz experience.

When you've got a quiz that you're happy with, note the id of the quiz.

Step 4: Embed your quiz in a Shopify storefront 

Now we need to place our quiz in the storefront so buyers can take it and see the product recommendations.

The installation process will be different depending on whether your store's theme is using Online Store 2.0 or an older version. If your theme is using Online Store 2.0, you need to set up a theme app extension that allows merchants to place the quiz on an existing page via the storefront editor.

If the current theme is not on Online Store 2.0, you need to manually add code files to the theme to embed the quiz.

Option 1: Theme app extension setup 

To set up a theme app extension, you need to make use of a Shopify CLI app. We have a forkable app you can use to get started:

1. Sync your forked app locally using the Gadget CLI
2. Add an empty shopify.app.toml file to the root of your application and run yarn dev to start the Shopify CLI and connect to your existing Partners app and development store
3. Update the direct script tag in extensions/quiz/blocks/quiz-page.liquid to include your app's script tag URL

<script src="https://example-app--development.gadget.appapi/client/web.min.js" defer="defer"></script>

4. Run yarn deploy to deploy your extension to your Partner app
5. Copy the SHOPIFY_THEME_EXTENSION_ID from inside the .env file generated when you deploy
6. Paste SHOPIFY_THEME_EXTENSION_ID into your Gadget app's GADGET_PUBLIC_THEME_EXTENSION_ID environment variable (Settings -> Environment Variables)

You should now be set up and ready to add the quiz theme app extension to the storefront theme.

7. In the embedded admin app used to build the quiz, copy a dash-separated (-) quiz id for the quiz you want to embed (example id: my-product-quiz)
8. Click on the Install tab
9. Select a theme to install the quiz on
10. Click Preview in theme at the bottom of the page
11. Paste your copied quiz id into the Quiz ID field to the right of the theme editor and click Save

Your quiz should now be available in your storefront - try it out!

Option 2: Add Liquid to theme 

Follow these steps to add the quiz to a theme that is not using Online Store 2.0:

1. In the Shopify admin, head to Online Store > Themes and select Edit Code under the Actions menu for the theme you wish to edit

2. Under Sections, create a new section called quiz-page.liquid.
3. Add the following to quiz-page.liquid:

Sections/quiz-page.liquid
liquid
Copy
1{% assign quizSlug = section.settings.quiz_slug %}
2
3<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ 'section-main-page.css' | asset_url }}" media="print" onload="this.media='all'" />
4<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ 'component-rte.css' | asset_url }}" media="print" onload="this.media='all'" />
5
6<!-- Find your direct script tag in the Installing section in your Gadget project's API Reference -->
7<script src="{{ YOUR PROJECT SCRIPT URL }}" defer="defer"></script>
8<script>
9  window.quizSlug = `{{ quizSlug }}`;
10</script>
11
12<script src="{{ 'product-quiz.js' | asset_url }}" defer="defer"></script>
13<noscript>{{ 'section-main-page.css' | asset_url | stylesheet_tag }}</noscript>
14<noscript>{{ 'component-rte.css' | asset_url | stylesheet_tag }}</noscript>
15
16<div class="page-width page-width--narrow">
17  <product-quiz class="quiz">
18    <h1 class="main-page-title page-title h0 product-quiz__title"></h1>
19    <div class="product-quiz__body">
20      <span> </span>
21    </div>
22    <form class="form">
23      <div class="product-quiz__questions" id="questions">
24        <div class="product-quiz__question">
25          <span class="product-quiz__question-answer"> </span>
26        </div>
27      </div>
28      <hr class="product-quiz__submit-hr" />
29      <div class="product-quiz__email-container">
30        <label htmlFor="email">Enter your email to complete quiz</label><br />
31        <input type="email" id="product-quiz__email" name="email" required="required" style="font-size: 16px; height: 32px" /><br />
32        <br />
33      </div>
34      <button name="quiz-submit" type="submit" class="product-quiz__submit button button--secondary">Get my results</button>
35    </form>
36  </product-quiz>
37</div>
38
39{% schema %}
40{
41  "name": "Quiz",
42  "tag": "section",
43  "class": "spaced-section",
44  "settings": [
45    {
46      "id": "quiz_slug",
47      "type": "text",
48      "label": "Enter quiz id"
49    }
50  ]
51}
52{% endschema %}

4. Replace "YOUR DIRECT SCRIPT TAG URL HERE" with your Gadget app's script tag so we can use the client

<script src="https://example-app--development.gadget.appapi/client/web.min.js" defer="defer"></script>

5. Under Templates, select “Add a new template” and add a template called page.quiz.json. This requires you to select the page template type.
6. Add the following to page.quiz.json:

Templates/page.quiz.json
json
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1{
2  "sections": {
3    "main": {
4      "type": "quiz-page",
5      "settings": {}
6    }
7  },
8  "order": ["main"]
9}

7. Under Assets in the sidebar, select Add a new asset and create a new JavaScript file called product-quiz.js
8. Add the following to product-quiz.js:

Assets/product-quiz.js
JavaScript
Copy
1// initialize an API client object
2const api = new Gadget();
3
4// query Gadget for the recommended products based on quiz answers, using a JS query
5async function fetchRecommendedProducts(answerIds) {
6  const queryIdFilter = answerIds.map((answerId) => {
7    return { id: { equals: answerId } };
8  });
9
10  const recommendedProducts = await api.answer.findMany({
11    filter: {
12      OR: queryIdFilter,
13    },
14    select: {
15      recommendedProduct: {
16        id: true,
17        productSuggestion: {
18          id: true,
19          title: true,
20          body: true,
21          handle: true,
22          images: {
23            edges: {
24              node: {
25                source: true,
26              },
27            },
28          },
29        },
30      },
31    },
32  });
33
34  return recommendedProducts;
35}
36
37// fetch the quiz questions and answers to be presented to shoppers, using a GraphQL query
38async function fetchQuiz(quizSlug) {
39  const quiz = api.quiz.findFirst({
40    filter: {
41      slug: { equals: quizSlug },
42    },
43    select: {
44      title: true,
45      body: true,
46      questions: {
47        edges: {
48          node: {
49            id: true,
50            text: true,
51            answers: {
52              edges: {
53                node: {
54                  id: true,
55                  text: true,
56                },
57              },
58            },
59          },
60        },
61      },
62    },
63  });
64
65  window.quizId = quiz.id; // save the quiz ID for later use
66
67  return quiz;
68}
69
70// save the shopper's email and recommended productions to Gadget (for follow-up emails!)
71async function saveSelections(email, recommendedProducts) {
72  const productsQuery = recommendedProducts.map((rp) => {
73    return {
74      create: {
75        product: {
76          _link: rp.recommendedProduct.productSuggestion.id,
77        },
78      },
79    };
80  });
81  await api.quizResult.create({
82    quiz: {
83      _link: window.quizId,
84    },
85    email: email,
86    shopperSuggestions: [...productsQuery],
87  });
88}
89
90async function onSubmitHandler(evt) {
91  evt.preventDefault();
92
93  const email = document.getElementById("product-quiz__email").value;
94
95  const submitButton = this.querySelector(".product-quiz__submit");
96  submitButton.classList.add("disabled");
97
98  const recommendedProducts = await fetchRecommendedProducts(selectedAnswers);
99
100  // save email and recommendations to Gadget for follow-up emails
101  await saveSelections(email, recommendedProducts);
102
103  // display recommendations
104  let recommendedProductHTML =
105    "<div><h2>Based on your selections, we recommend the following products</h2><div style='display: flex; overflow: auto'>";
106
107  recommendedProducts.forEach((result) => {
108    const { recommendedProduct } = result;
109    const imgUrl =
110      recommendedProduct.productSuggestion.images?.edges?.[0]?.node?.source;
111    const productLink = recommendedProduct.productSuggestion.handle;
112    recommendedProductHTML +=
113      `<span style="padding: 8px 16px; margin-left: 10px; border: black 1px solid; align-items: center; display: flex; flex-direction: column"><h3>${recommendedProduct.productSuggestion.title}</h3><a class="button" href="/products/${productLink}">Check it out</a>` +
114      `<br/><img src=${imgUrl} width="200px" /><br /></span>`;
115  });
116
117  recommendedProductHTML += "</div></div>";
118  document.getElementById("questions").innerHTML = recommendedProductHTML;
119
120  submitButton.classList.add("hidden");
121  this.querySelector(".product-quiz__submit-hr").classList.add("hidden");
122  this.querySelector(".product-quiz__email-container").classList.add("hidden");
123}
124
125let selectedAnswers = [];
126function selectAnswer(answerId, answerText) {
127  selectedAnswers.push(answerId);
128  let elId = event.srcElement.id;
129  let parent = document.getElementById(elId).parentNode;
130  parent.innerHTML = "<h3><b>" + decodeURI(answerText) + "</b> selected</h3>";
131}
132
133document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () {
134  var quizSlug = window.quizSlug;
135
136  fetchQuiz(quizSlug).then(async (quiz) => {
137    window.quizId = quiz.id;
138    const questions = quiz.questions.edges;
139
140    if (!customElements.get("product-quiz")) {
141      customElements.define(
142        "product-quiz",
143        class ProductQuiz extends HTMLElement {
144          constructor() {
145            super();
146            this.form = this.querySelector("form");
147            this.heading = this.querySelector(".product-quiz__title");
148            this.heading.innerHTML = quiz.title;
149            this.body = this.querySelector(".product-quiz__body span");
150            this.body.innerHTML = quiz.body;
151            this.questions = this.querySelector(".product-quiz__questions");
152
153            const questionContainer = this.querySelector(".product-quiz__question");
154            const answerContainer = this.querySelector(
155              ".product-quiz__question-answer"
156            );
157
158            const renderedQuestions = questions.forEach((question, i) => {
159              const clonedDiv = questionContainer.cloneNode(true);
160              clonedDiv.id = "question_" + i;
161              clonedDiv.insertAdjacentHTML(
162                "beforeend",
163                "<hr /><div><h3>" +
164                  question.node.text +
165                  `</h3></div><div class='product-quiz__answers_${i}'></div>`
166              );
167              this.questions.appendChild(clonedDiv);
168
169              const answers = question.node.answers.edges;
170              answers.forEach((answer, j) => {
171                const clonedSpan = answerContainer.cloneNode(true);
172                clonedSpan.id = "answer_" + i + "_" + j;
173                clonedSpan.insertAdjacentHTML(
174                  "beforeend",
175                  `<span><button class="button answer" id="${
176                    clonedSpan.id
177                  }" onClick=(selectAnswer(${answer.node.id},"${encodeURIComponent(
178                    answer.node.text
179                  )}"))>${answer.node.text}</button></span>`
180                );
181                this.querySelector(`.product-quiz__answers_${i}`).appendChild(
182                  clonedSpan
183                );
184              });
185            });
186
187            this.form.addEventListener("submit", onSubmitHandler);
188          }
189        }
190      );
191    }
192  });
193});

Make sure to save changes for each file!

We're ready to test our quiz!

9. Head over to the Pages section of the Shopify admin (Online Store -> Pages)
10. Add a new page for your quiz using the quiz theme template

Now you can go back to your theme editor and search for the quiz page to preview your quiz right in the storefront.

11. In the embedded admin app used to build the quiz, copy a dash-separated (-) quiz id for the quiz you want to embed (example id: my-product-quiz)
12. Paste your copied quiz id into the Quiz ID field to the right of the theme editor and click Save

Your quiz should now be available in your storefront - try it out!

Conclusion 

Today, we learned how Gadget and Shopify can work together to create engaging buying experiences for shoppers. This collaboration also offers an easy-to-use platform for building your app in less time. You can expand your app by using the product id to quickly create a shopping cart on the frontend using Javascript, resulting in a faster buying experience. When deploying to Production, remember to update the script tag in your liquid file to match the Production Gadget environment.

Want to know more about building effortless, expressive apps with Gadget? Check out our Guides and get building today!

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