Articles on: Timesact V2

Adding Products

Once you've created your customer experience templates, the next step is to add your products and choose which customer experience template applies to each one. You do all of this on the Products page.


Where to find it


In the app's left menu, click Products. This is where you pick which customer experience template applies to which products, and manage them all in one place.


Step 1 — Add your products


Click Add Products (top right). You'll be asked how you want to choose products, with four options:


  • Specific products — pick individual products yourself, in stock or out of stock. A search window opens, tick the ones you want and click Add.
  • Collection — add a whole Shopify collection at once. Any out-of-stock product in that collection is included automatically. A window opens for you to pick the collection.
  • Upload by CSV — best for large catalogues, or for moving a lot of products over at once. Download the Timesact CSV Import Template, follow the instructions inside it to add or remove products, then upload it. Timesact checks the file and processes it, and an Upload History table shows how each upload went (Success or Partial Success), with a count of what was Added, Removed, Updated, and any Errors.
  • API integration — coming soon.
  • The product also needs to be Active in Shopify for the functionality to appear on the storefront. A Draft or archived product has no live product page, so nothing renders on it until you publish it. See Testing and Troubleshooting.


If you change a product's variants later


Finish setting up a product's variants in Shopify before you add it to Timesact. If you add, remove, or recreate a variant in Shopify after the product is already added here, Shopify can give that variant a new ID, and the customer experience template loses its link to it, so the pre-order button, badge, or message can stop showing on that product (often just on the variant you changed), even though everything looks correct in the app.


If that happens:


  1. In the Timesact app, open Products and find the product.
  2. Remove it from the app.
  3. Add it again (Add Products → Specific products), making sure every variant you want is selected, and re-attach its customer experience template.


This rebuilds the link to the current variants and the functionality renders again. Wherever you can, avoid recreating variants on a product that's live on pre-order. If a product still isn't behaving after you re-add it, reach out to us with the product link and we'll relink it for you.


Can't find a product in the list?


The list mirrors your Shopify catalogue, whatever is under Products in your Shopify admin is what shows here. If a product is missing, create it in Shopify first (both Active and Draft can be added, set it Active when you want it live for shoppers) and make sure it is on the Online Store sales channel, then search for it under Add Products → Specific products. If it is set up this way and still isn't listed, reach out with the product link.
One thing worth knowing if you have already been in Shopify admin: setting a purchase option on the product there does not attach it here. The connection is made in this direction, you attach the product to a customer experience template in the Timesact app and Timesact creates and manages the purchase option on the Shopify side for you.


Step 2 — Choose which customer experience template applies


Once you've picked your products (or a collection), you land on the Assign Customer Experiences screen.


  • At the top, Your selection reminds you what you chose, for example "1 product selected."
  • Under Select Customer Experiences, search by name and tick the customer experience template you want to apply. You can tick more than one, and they'll both apply to the product at the same time (for example Pre-order and Back in Stock together).
  • Each customer experience template you tick opens its own settings:
  • A toggle to confirm the functionality is on (for example Pre-order, Back in Stock).
  • Schedule — a Start Date, the day it goes live for shoppers (set in UTC time), and an optional Enable End Date if you want it to switch off on a certain day.
  • Pre-order quantity — set to Unlimited by default. Switch it off to cap how many pre-orders you'll accept. This cap is per variant, each variant you apply it to gets its own count, not a shared total across the product. See Pre-order Limit.
  • Click Save. Your products now appear in the list with their customer experience template attached.


Scheduling your launch


The Start Date is a date, not a time, the functionality goes live for that whole day rather than at an hour you choose. That date is read in UTC, which is worth a moment's thought if your shoppers are elsewhere in the world, because a UTC date starts at a different local moment for them. A UTC date begins at 4:00 pm the previous day in Los Angeles, and at 8:00 am that same day in Taipei. So if you're in Los Angeles and want the pre-order to open on the morning of the 12th your time, the UTC date you want is the 12th, which has already begun locally on the afternoon of the 11th. If you're unsure, search for "UTC time now" and compare it to your own clock before you set the date.


The End Date is read on the same UTC clock, and it is the day the campaign switches off rather than the last day it runs. So for a product releasing on 4 September, set the End Date to 4 September: pre-orders stay open through the whole of 3 September and close as the 4th begins. Once it passes, the row in your Products list reads Ended, the functionality stops rendering, and your theme's normal button comes back for that variant, Add to Cart if it has stock, Sold Out if it does not. Nothing is deleted, so you can leave the product Ended and re-open it later by setting a new End Date, or remove it from the list if you are finished with it, and keep the customer experience template itself if other products still use it.


If your launch has to land at an exact moment, a midnight drop or the minute a campaign email goes out, don't rely on the schedule for that. Leave the Start Date as today, and in the Timesact app open Products and attach the product to its customer experience template at the moment you want it live. The pre-order button appears on the storefront as soon as the product is attached and saved.


Either way, open the product page in an incognito window once it's live and confirm the button and message show the way you expect. See Testing and Troubleshooting


Step 3 — Manage everything from the list


Back on the Products list, each row shows the Customer Experience it's using, its Start - End date, and Functionality status, a small badge per functionality that tells you whether it's live (for example "Pre-order - Active" or "Back in stock - Active"). A badge under the product name shows how it was added, for example Manual.


From here you can:


  • Swap the customer experience template quickly — open the Customer Experience dropdown on any row and pick a different one, without leaving the list.
  • Filter with the tabs — All, Pre-order, Back in stock, Coming soon, Low stock (and + to add your own tab) to show just one functionality at a time.
  • Filter in more detail — by Functionality, Functionality status, or Customer Experience, with Add filter for more.
  • Search — jump straight to a specific product.
  • Choose your columns — click the columns icon to pick what to show, grouped as:
  • General — Customer Experience, Start - End date, Functionality status, Inventory quantity, Price
  • Pre-order — Pre-order quantity, Pre-order sold
  • Back in Stock — Back in Stock threshold
  • Low Stock — Low Stock Threshold
  • Expand a product — open its variant rows (each size or color). Every variant row has quick links to open it in Shopify, preview it, and edit it.


Learn more


Updated on: 08/11/2026

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