Data Freshness & Refresh Metrics
How Synplex keeps data current
Synplex uses two mechanisms to stay in sync with your Shopify store automatically — you don't need to trigger either of these manually:
| Mechanism | What it does | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify webhooks | Receives real-time push notifications from Shopify whenever a product, variant, inventory level, or order changes | Instant — within seconds of the change in Shopify |
| Daily reconciliation | Full re-read of all Shopify data to catch anything webhooks may have missed | Once per day, overnight |
| Webhooks cover the vast majority of cases. The daily reconciliation is a safety net. |
What webhooks don't update
Webhooks keep your Shopify-sourced fields current in real time — stock levels, product titles, variant data, order history.
They do not re-run Synplex's metric computations. The following fields are pre-computed and update on a daily schedule, not on every webhook:
| Computed field | What it represents |
|---|---|
| Reorder date | The date you need to place an order to avoid a stockout |
| Stockout date | Projected date stock hits zero based on current demand |
| Coverage date | How long current stock + incoming stock will last |
| Recommended order qty | Units to order to reach your target coverage |
| Stock assessment | Healthy / Running Low / Out of Stock / Overstocked / Dead Stock |
| Demand anomaly score | Whether recent sales are spiking or dropping vs. historical average |
| ABC/XYZ classification | Revenue and demand variability classifications |
| These metrics are recalculated every day automatically. On a typical day this is sufficient — the numbers reflect last night's computation against current forecasts and stock levels. |
When to use Refresh Metrics
Use it when you need the computed metrics above to reflect right now, not last night's run. Common situations:
- You just changed a supplier's lead time and want to see the updated reorder date immediately
- You changed the Running Low or Overstock threshold in Settings and want to see updated stock assessments now
- You received a PO shipment and want to see the updated recommended order qty before placing the next order
- A variant's data looks inconsistent and you want to rule out a stale computation
You do not need to refresh metrics for routine browsing. The daily run handles normal operations.
How to refresh metrics for a variant
- Go to Inventory Report and click the variant you want to update
- On the variant detail page, click Refresh metrics in the top-right secondary actions
- The button shows a loading spinner while the computation runs — typically a few seconds
- When complete, a "Metrics refreshed" confirmation appears and the page data reloads automatically
What Refresh Metrics recalculates
| Recalculated ✅ | Preserved ✅ |
|---|---|
| Reorder date | ABC classification |
| Stockout date | XYZ classification |
| Coverage date | ABC/XYZ combined score |
| Recommended order qty | |
| Stock gap days | |
| Incoming stock | |
| Stock assessment | |
| Demand anomaly score | |
| Inventory array (per-location rollup) | |
| Daily sales rate | |
| Why ABC/XYZ is not recalculated: ABC classification is based on a variant's share of total store revenue — it requires ranking every variant against every other variant simultaneously. This can't be done meaningfully for a single variant in isolation. ABC/XYZ updates overnight with the daily run when all variants are processed together. |
If data still looks wrong after refreshing
Refresh Metrics recalculates using whatever data is currently in Synplex's database. If the underlying Shopify data (stock levels, sales history) looks wrong, the issue is upstream of the metric computation.
Check:
- Does the stock level match what Shopify shows? If not, there may be a webhook delivery issue — contact support.
- Is the sales history up to date? Sales data is imported during the initial setup and updated daily. Very recent orders (last few hours) may not yet be reflected in demand forecasts.
- Did you just make a settings change? Allow a few seconds after saving before refreshing metrics.
Contact support at support@synplex.dev with the product SKU and a description of the discrepancy if the problem persists.
Related
- How Synplex Syncs with Shopify — webhook architecture and daily reconciliation in detail
- Onboarding Wizard → Background processing — the initial data pipeline
- Settings Overview — changing thresholds that affect metric calculations