Use this article to plan configuration, phase 2 of your Ingrid Promise implementation: what gets configured, what you bring, what Ingrid does, and which Ingrid environment to configure in.
This article is for retailers configuring Ingrid Promise, especially the person who will become your Ingrid administrator. Ingrid Promise configuration is joint work: you bring the delivery logic, Ingrid configures it with you and coaches your team to run it afterward. Configuration is the bulk of most Ingrid implementations: most of go-live is configuration, not code.
What happens during Ingrid Promise configuration
Ingrid runs an introduction workshop covering the Ingrid Merchant Platform and the fundamentals, then supports your initial configuration. By the end of the configuration phase, your own team should be able to administer the Ingrid Promise setup without Ingrid. All Ingrid Promise configuration happens in the Ingrid Merchant Platform.
What gets configured in Ingrid Promise
These are the building blocks of an Ingrid Promise setup, roughly in the order you build them:
Warehouses: where you ship from, including addresses and coordinates
Cut-off times: the time of day after which Ingrid adds another day to the delivery promise
Regions: the geographies each delivery offering applies to, by country or postal code
Carrier products: the carrier services you offer
Delivery categories: what shoppers actually see and choose between
Shipping prices, and price rules where you want the price to vary by cart value or contents
Translations: so delivery options read correctly in every market you sell in
Preselection order: which delivery option is selected by default, per market
Two companion articles worth having open during Ingrid Promise configuration:
Promise: configuration walkthrough: the screen-by-screen build.
Delivery setup patterns: which setup shape fits your business, before you start clicking.
What you bring to Ingrid Promise configuration
Your delivery logic: the delivery offerings, prices and rules you agreed during scoping
The people who will own the configuration: the Ingrid administrator trains during this phase, so name them before configuration starts rather than after
What Ingrid does during Ingrid Promise configuration
Runs the Ingrid Merchant Platform introduction workshop
Configures the initial Ingrid Promise setup with you
Reviews any customization you want beyond the standard configuration
Coaches your team so they can make changes themselves afterward
Where to configure Ingrid Promise: production or staging
First, a point that often causes confusion: "Ingrid production" means your Ingrid environment, not your live website. Ingrid production is a brand-new instance with nothing running through it. During the build, Ingrid production connects to your staging site; your live site only connects at go-live.
The usual default is to configure Ingrid Promise in production. Changes are held as drafts until you publish them, so nothing reaches shoppers before you are ready. Then, before go-live, Ingrid replicates your configuration into staging, so from launch onward you have a configured staging environment to test future changes in. The two Ingrid environments do not sync, so this is a deliberate copy rather than something that happens by itself.
The direction can also reverse. If something Ingrid production needs is not yet in place (most often carrier credentials), Ingrid starts in staging, moves to production once the missing piece arrives, and the final copy runs from staging to production instead.
Which way round your Ingrid Promise configuration runs is agreed together during scoping. It varies from project to project, so treat the above as the common default rather than a fixed rule.
What Ingrid Promise configuration produces
At the end of the configuration phase, you have:
Your delivery strategy reflected in a working Ingrid Promise configuration
An Ingrid Checkout widget that looks and behaves the way your business requires
A configured staging environment to test future changes in
A team that can administer the Ingrid Promise configuration without depending on Ingrid