Shops
Shops
Shops looks after every WooCommerce and WordPress shop you run, whether a client hosts it or you do: sales and orders, products and stock, pages and menus, payments, shipping and taxes, alerts, mail, backups, copies of a site, plugins and upgrades. The sidebar calls it Shops; the module is maxwoo.
In the sidebar under Commerce → Shops. Needs: Projects.
Sales come from daily figures kept here, not from a copy of the orders, so no customer records live in MaxSuite. Shops does not ship anything: fulfilment is done by MaxFill.
Screens
The Shops page has four tabs.
Shops
Every shop you can see, with whether it answers and when it was last seen. A shop linked through the Max Connector plugin shows as connected. From here you can:
- Connect a shop with its WooCommerce key and secret, and optionally a WordPress user and application password (needed for pages, posts and menus).
- Add a site by link: paste a one-time link code into the Max Connector plugin on the site. No keys are needed. The code works once, for ten minutes.
- Open a shop to see its own tabs (below).
Backups (all shops)
Site backups across every shop: what ran, what is due and what failed.
Mail (all shops)
Every shop's own mail on one screen: who sends it, whether its logins work, today's sent, failed and held mail in the shop's own day, and when MaxSuite last heard from it. A row opens that shop's Mail tab.
Plugins
The plugin library: plugins kept here to put on hosted shops, and on client sites linked with Max Connector 2.7 or later with Install plugins switched on. Keep a plugin adds one by slug, vendor zip or a zip you upload. Install on shops installs, updates, activates or deactivates one on several shops at once. The fleet shows what every shop has against what the library says.
Inside a shop
- Sales: orders, items and revenue per currency over recent days.
- Orders: recent orders with number, status, total and customer. Customer details are masked unless you may see them, and each viewing is recorded. Mark an order a test, or leave a private note; a test order is left out of every total, export and the books.
- Configuration: currency, gateways, shipping zones, tax rates and general settings, as the shop reports them. An admin can turn a payment gateway on or off here.
- Plugins & themes: what the shop has installed, as of the last read. Update what is out of date. On a site linked with Max Connector you can switch a plugin off or on, or remove it (Remove needs the Dangerous switch on, both here and on the site).
- Connection: how the shop is linked: connected or not, reached directly or by check-in, connector version, and which tiers are on. Switch tiers on or off, refresh the link, or disconnect.
- Alerts: what the shop tells you about (new orders, failed payments, forms, updates waiting and more), who gets each alert, which bot sends it, and the buttons on order alerts. Pause, resume, send a test, or send a custom message to everyone on the list. The press log shows who pressed which button.
- Mail: the shop's own outgoing mail: its logins, a test send, the mail log read live from the shop, held mail, and the shop's own mailboxes. You can also take mail over from FluentSMTP or WP Mail SMTP.
- Backups: full site backups: take one now, set a schedule (off, daily, weekly or monthly) and how many to keep on the site and in the bucket, put one back, delete one, or move a site onto another linked site.
- Copies: a group of copies of one site (for example Production and Staging). Push or pull content between them, see what a transfer would change first, and undo one.
- Pictures: the media library. Retouch a picture (trim, square on white, brighten, sharpen, save as WebP, or an AI instruction when an AI connection has the image role) into a new picture beside the original, and optionally put it on a product.
- Operations: Ready to sell?, Payments, Mail checks, Upkeep (WordPress version, upgrade window, upgrades and database backups with Restore), and the allowed WP-CLI commands with Run and History, for shops you host.
Who sees which shops
Administrators see every shop. Anyone else sees a shop when they were added as one of its members, when they are on the shop's project, or when the shop belongs to no project. Customer details also need maxwoo:pii. See Sharing and visibility.
What you can do
Connect a shop
- Choose Connect a shop.
- Give its Name and URL, and say who hosts it: The client or Us. A client-hosted shop has no shell here, so WP-CLI is not available for it.
- For a shop you host, give its domain, machine and directory.
- Give the WooCommerce consumer key and secret, and optionally a WordPress user and application password.
- Save. Check asks the shop what it is and records whether it answers.
Or add a site by link: install Max Connector on the site, then paste the one-time link code. A site added by link only checks in; you can switch it to direct later so its orders and sales are read too.
Check a shop is ready to sell
- Open Operations and choose Check now under Ready to sell?.
- The check fetches the front page, shop page, newest product, cart and checkout, and says whether the shop is ready.
- If a hosted shop's credentials stopped working, Repair credentials makes new ones, proves them, then revokes the old ones.
A nightly shop audit also runs a launch checklist against each shop; its results show in Readiness.
Take payments
- Under Payments, turn on Stripe or PayPal. Their keys come from a secret a person entered under Secrets, and they start in test mode.
- Run a test payment. A browser on the shop's machine buys a hidden check product through the real checkout.
- Once a test passed, ask to Go live. This raises an approval naming the shop and gateway; nothing changes until a person approves.
- Back to test switches a live gateway back to its test keys at any time.
Set up alerts
- Open Alerts, choose the events you want and who gets each: people who can see the shop, Telegram rooms, or mailboxes.
- Choose the bot that sends them: MaxSuite's own, or the shop's own bot.
- Choose the buttons on order alerts (processing, on hold, completed, cancel, refund, note). A refund pressed from an alert still asks for confirmation and runs once.
- Send a test. You can pause alerts, copy one shop's set-up to others, or send a custom message to everyone on the list.
Back up and restore a site
- Open Backups and choose Back up now, or set a schedule.
- Backups go to your organisation's bucket, or to MaxSuite storage when the organisation has none.
- Putting a backup back, deleting one, or moving a site onto another always asks a person first.
Work with copies
- In Copies, add a shop already in MaxSuite as a copy and give it a role. The first copy makes the group, with this shop as Production.
- Before a push or pull, look at the preview. A transfer takes a backup of the target first; you can cancel it before its restore begins, or undo it after.
- After a pull, scheduled jobs on the copy (renewals, follow-up mails) are paused and its mail is held until you resume them.
Changing copies, transferring and undoing always ask a person first.
Keep a hosted shop up to date
Under Upkeep, set the upgrade window in the shop's own hours and turn on automatic upgrades. An older WordPress is upgraded inside the window, one shop at a time, and rolled back if the shop is not ready afterwards. Restore puts a shop's database back as a backup had it; what is there now is kept first.
Launch a new shop
An agent or the API can build a new WooCommerce shop on an enrolled fleet machine with Docker, then hand the merchant a one-time way into their own admin account. A failed build can be run again. Shops this instance built can be stopped, restarted or torn down.
Who can do what
| Permission | Label | Lets you |
|---|---|---|
maxwoo:read | View shops and their figures | Open Shops; see sales, orders (masked), products, content, configuration, plugins, alerts, mail log, backups, copies and upgrades. Set your own daily digest. |
maxwoo:write | Change orders, products and prices | Change order status, marks and notes; products, variations, categories, tags, coupons and stock; pages, posts, media and menus; comments and reviews; SEO; alerts; take a site backup; push or pull between copies. |
maxwoo:ops | Run WP-CLI on a shop | Run the allowed WP-CLI commands, call a shop's own MCP tools, take a database backup, roll plugins out, run site actions, update a site, and audit or re-read a shop. |
maxwoo:admin | Refund money, and connect or remove a shop | Refund; connect, link, change and remove shops; members, settings, payments, mail, shipping and taxes; site users; build, restore and move shops; copies; backup schedules; keep plugins; sync to the books on demand. |
maxwoo:pii | See customer details on an order | See customers' names, addresses, emails and phone numbers on orders, and on shop invoices in Invoices. |
Roles and how permissions are granted are explained in People, roles and permissions.
What runs on its own
| Job | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
sync | Every 30 minutes | Probes every shop, refreshes its daily figures, and settles builds, certificates and mail checks still waiting. |
digest | Every hour at minute 5 | Sends each person's daily digest at the hour they chose. |
inventory | Every 15 minutes | Reads what shops have installed. |
ledger-sync | Every hour at minute 37 | Posts each shop's orders and refunds to Books. Nothing is booked twice, and test orders are left out. |
shop-audit | Every day at 02:10 UTC | Runs the launch checklist against each shop, ready for Readiness to read. |
backup-retention | Every day at 04:47 UTC | Removes off-machine database copies older than thirty days, never a shop's newest. |
upgrade-sweep | Every 15 minutes | Finishes upgrades in progress, then starts at most one where the window allows. |
site-links | Every 15 minutes | Finds linked sites that check in and went quiet, and tells you once. |
site-backups | Every 15 minutes | Carries on site backups still running, starts the ones due, and removes those beyond the keep counts. |
alerts-flush | Every minute | Sends grouped summaries when many alerts arrive at once, and alerts left undelivered. |
alerts-retention | Every day at 04:53 UTC | Deletes alert events older than thirty days, with their deliveries. |
mailboxes-sweep | Every hour at minute 17 | Follows up shop mailbox logins still waiting past their day. |
alerts-hooks | Every day at 05:23 UTC | Repairs WooCommerce webhooks for shops connected by keys: switches back on ones WooCommerce turned off, makes missing ones, removes unneeded ones. |
alerts-updates | Every day at 08:17 UTC | Tells you what updates each shop has waiting, only when the list changed or a week passed. |
How it connects
- Orders and refunds post to Books, linked to the shop's entity. A shop with no books has its orders refused until linked.
- Saved versions of each order feed Invoices and the profit report in Books.
- Orders are things a cost can be allocated to in Bills.
- Payment keys, mail logins and backup buckets come from named secrets a person enters.
- Alerts go out through Telegram bots and mailboxes set up in Comms.
- Catalogue can export a WooCommerce import feed; there is no direct link.
- Shipping orders to customers is done in MaxFill.
For agents
Over MCP the tools are named maxwoo__list and so on (API keys and MCP access). Marks: read-only; approval = destructive or spends money, so it follows your approval rules and refunds always ask a person; always asks = a person must say yes every time. Going live with a gateway raises its own approval. Many tools act on the shop itself and count as outside acts. Shop text written by customers is treated as outside content, never instructions.
Connect and link
list,report,link,refreshLink,siteJob,connectorStage— read-onlyaddSite,connectShop,setCredentials,linkCode,linkDirect,setLinkTiers,updateStore,connectMcp,promoteConnector,repairCredentialsdisconnectSite,removeStore— approvalmembersread-only,addMember,removeMemberapproval
Health, readiness and reports
checkReady,readiness,sales,trend,stockAlerts— read-onlyhealth,syncAll,refresh,auditShop,rescansetDigest(your own digest),sendDigest,ledgerSync
Orders
orders,order,orderMark,testOrders— read-onlysetOrderStatus("refunded" is refused),addOrderNote,setOrderMarkrefund— approval (spends money; always goes to a person)
Products and stock
products,variations,categories,tags— read-onlycreateProduct,updateProduct,adjustStock,createVariation,updateVariation,createCategory,updateCategory,createTag,updateTag,createCoupondeleteProduct,deleteVariation,deleteCategory,deleteTag,bulkReprice— approval
Payments, shipping, taxes and shop settings
config,settings,gateways,shipping,taxes— read-onlysetSetting,setGateway,checkPayment,goLive(asks a person),goTestcreateShippingZone,updateShippingZone,addShippingMethod,setShippingMethod,createTax,updateTaxdeleteShippingZone,removeShippingMethod,deleteTax— approvalmailread-only,setMail,checkMail,setCheckMailbox(the shop's WooCommerce mail check)
Pages, media, menus and pictures
content,contentList,contentItem,media,menus,menuLocations,retouchOptions— read-onlycreateContent,updateContent,publishContent,uploadMedia,setLogo,saveMenu,retouchdeleteContent,deleteMedia,deleteMenu— approval
Users, comments, reviews, themes and SEO
users,comments,reviews,themes,seo,siteSettings— read-onlycreateUser,setUserRole(never administrator),moderateComment,replyComment,moderateReview,setSeo,setSiteSettings
Alerts
alerts,alertCatalogue,alertLog,alertPlaces,alertButtons,alertPresses— read-onlysetAlerts,setAlertButtons,pauseAlerts,resumeAlerts,testAlerts,sayToShop,copyAlerts,setShopBot
Site mail and shop mailboxes
siteMail,siteMailLog,siteMailOverview,siteMailDomainCheck— read-onlysetSiteMail,setSiteMailLogin,testSiteMail,resendSiteMail,sendHeldSiteMailToMe,takeOverSiteMail,switchOffOldMailPlugin,switchOnOldMailPluginmakeShopMailboxes,newShopMailboxPassword,recordShopMailboxDnsdeleteSiteMailRows,clearOldMailLogins,removeShopMailbox— approval
Site backups
siteBackups,backupStatus,backupSchedule— read-onlybackupSite,cancelSiteBackup,setBackupSchedulerestoreSiteBackup,deleteSiteBackup,moveSite— always asks
Copies and transfers
copies,transferPreview,transferStatus,heldMail— read-onlycancelTransferaddCopy,setCopyRole,removeCopy,setCopySettings,resumeCopyJobs— always askstransfer,undoTransfer— always asks
Plugins and updates
plugins,inventory,storeExtensions,pluginRuns,siteUpdates,upgrades— read-onlyaddPlugin,updateSiteeditPlugin,removePlugin,applyPlugin— approval
Hosting, database backups and upgrades (shops you host)
machines,backupCopies— read-onlyprovision,rebuild,handover,backup,setBackupDestination,setMaintenanceWindowclearBackupDestination— always asksrestore,lifecycle— approval
WP-CLI, site actions and the shop's own MCP
cliVerbs,cliResult,mcpTools,siteActions,siteRead— read-onlysiteWriterunCli,mcpCall,siteDestructive— approval