Using TeePublic

How to set up TeePublic with OrbitKit

Jeff Schnitzer avatar
Written by Jeff Schnitzer
Updated over a week ago

Products supported: All
​Title: Max 255 chars
​Description: Max 750 chars
​Tags: Min of 2, Max of 15 (one primary, 14 additional). Each tag max 39 chars.

TeePublic uses Airlock and Satellite Sync. You may wish to read that documentation first.

Setup

Step 1: Create a TeePublic venue

You do this normally using the OrbitKit UI. Visit "Venues & Blueprints" and add a venue.

Step 2: Link the venue to your TeePublic account

This requires the OrbitKit Airlock chrome extension.

  1. Install the extension in your browser

  2. Click on the Airlock chrome extension icon in your browser's title bar

  3. Click "Link"

This links the TeePublic account you are logged into with this particular venue. In order for OrbitKit to publish exhibits to TeePublic, your browser must be logged into teepublic.com using this account.

Step 3: Turn on Satellite Sync

When you turn on Satellite Sync, Airlock with poll periodically for new exhibits to publish or update. When it finds something to do, Airlock will create a new tab to teepublic.com and automate it to perform the appropriate work. You can watch this tab and interact with it - though clicking or typing may interrupt the work.

How Satellite Sync Works

When you link your TeePublic account to a venue, OrbitKit saves the username (but nothing else). When Satellite Sync is enabled, Airlock periodically:

  1. Checks to see if you are logged into teepublic.com, and with what username.

  2. Sends this username to OrbitKit and asks "is there anything to do in my Organization"? If so, open a tab in your browser and start working.

This means Satellite Sync cannot work if you log out of teepublic.com. Please read the Satellite Sync documentation for additional concerns.

Synchronization

OrbitKit synchronizes all product and color choices. Pricing is set by TeePublic, so that isn't configurable. Artwork scale and positioning are special - see below.

Gotchas

  • Your TeePublic account must have a username. Set it on your teepublic Account Settings page.

  • There is no immediate feedback if you create an invalid blueprint. You'll know something went wrong when publishing an exhibit fails.

  • When creating a blueprint in OrbitKit, it may take a while for the image to appear. This processing happens via Satellite Sync.

  • Tag order is important! Your first tag becomes TeePublic's "main tag", then the next 14 are used as the "other tags".

  • For apparel, we use TeePublic's default scale and positioning. This seems to work really well. All other products take scale from the blueprint, then center vertically and horizontally.

  • The rotation setting in the blueprint is ignored.

  • Sometimes TeePublic changes your tags; the published tags will not necessarily be the same ones you ask for.

  • You cannot use TeePublic's bulk uploader while OrbitKit is working. Starting a bulk upload sets a "global" flag on your account that breaks our upload flow. If you want to bulk upload outside of OrbitKit, pause your venue first.

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