Integration guide
Connect Shopmonkey and keep it the system of record
How VehicleDesk connects to the Shopmonkey API with signed webhooks, call budgets, server-side credentials, and clear failure states in production.
- Written by
- VehicleDesk Engineering
- Content updated
- September 17, 2026
Connect through the official provider boundary
VehicleDesk connects server-side to the official Shopmonkey production origin. Provider credentials stay on the server and never reach the marketing site or the browser bundle.
Budget every request
Scheduled and manual sync jobs run on explicit call budgets. Retries count as real HTTP attempts, quota snapshots stay visible, and a job stops before the next request when its budget is spent.
Verify webhook intake
Signed webhook events enter a replay-aware, rate-limited intake path and process asynchronously. VehicleDesk tracks acceptance and the finished downstream import as separate states.
Map records to product work
Customers and vehicles power relationship views. Services, estimates, and repair orders drive active work and recovery. Invoices and payments provide financial context. Appointment requests and the scheduler are VehicleDesk workflows built on that imported relationship record. Missing history shows as a coverage gap.
Confirm readiness at go-live
A shop-side administrator and the VehicleDesk implementation owner confirm credentials, import scope, initial sync, freshness, mapping, duplicate and contact-quality findings, staff roles, and the first workflow the shop runs.
Keep Shopmonkey the system of record
VehicleDesk organizes imported records and its own workflow state. Repair-order edits and invoicing stay in Shopmonkey, and estimate publishing runs through a dedicated write path.
Worked example: a first production sync
Implementation confirms the production origin, stores the provider credential server-side, and runs the initial import on a call budget while quota snapshots stay visible.
Signed webhooks begin arriving for later changes. Intake accepts the events, then the downstream import job records the finished mapping as a separate state.
Sync Health shows freshness and coverage. Anything the configured scope did not return is listed as a coverage gap rather than guessed at.
Checklist: go-live for the Shopmonkey connection
Run this before the shop depends on a daily queue.
- Production origin and server-side credential confirmed
- Initial sync complete with a known freshness timestamp
- Signed-webhook intake accepted and processed
- Import scope, mappings, and coverage gaps reviewed with the shop
- Staff roles and the first workflow the shop will run agreed
Common questions
Does VehicleDesk write repair orders back to Shopmonkey?
No. Repair-order edits and invoicing stay in Shopmonkey. VehicleDesk keeps Shopmonkey as the system of record and runs its own workflow state on the imported records.
What happens when a sync reaches a provider limit?
The job stops before the next request when its call budget is spent and records that state. Retries count as real HTTP attempts, and quota snapshots stay visible in Sync Health.
More guides
Other integration guides
- What data VehicleDesk imports: A plain-language guide to the Shopmonkey records VehicleDesk imports, the workflow data it keeps, how freshness is tracked, and how coverage gaps stay visible.