Advanced workflows

The components of Shopify Flow can be used to make powerful automation workflows by linking together multiple conditions and actions. However, some automations are more complex and require advanced workflows. The triggers and actions that are used in advanced workflows function differently than most, such as starting at a specific time and date, repeating actions, and manipulating data.

Review the following for more information on advanced workflows. If you're not sure how best to use these features, then you can explore some examples and templates that make use of these triggers and actions.

Learn more about advanced workflows in Shopify Flow.

On this page

Triggers

Most triggers are activated when a specific action happens in your store or in a third-party app, such as when an order is placed or when a customer verifies their age using an app. When a trigger is activated, some data is automatically imported into the workflow about the event that caused the workflow to start. For example, a workflow that starts with the Order created trigger contains information about that order, including the customer who placed the order.

Instead of starting a workflow because of an event, the Scheduled time trigger starts a workflow at a specific time and date that you specify. As a result, information isn't automatically imported. If you want to create a workflow that takes action on objects in your store, such as customers, products, or orders, then you need to import that information from your store. You can do this by using Get actions.

Actions

Most actions change something in your store or sending a command to an app, such as adding tags to a customer profile or instructing an app to send a push notification to a customer. For example, a workflow that contains the Add customer tags action adds tags to a customer if the workflow is triggered and any conditions you've set are fulfilled.

Instead of changing something in your store or in an app, some actions affect the data in the workflow. The following actions retrieve information from your store so that you can use that data in your workflow:

Instead of changing something in your store or retrieving data, the following actions perform calculations on data that already exists in a workflow:

  • Count - returns the number of entries in a list
  • Sum - adds together the values of entries in a list

Loops

Instead of taking an action, the For each action modifies an action that follows it. In addition to the Then option, which lets you add a condition or another action, For each has the Do this for each item option. This option performs the following action on every entry in the list returned by a Get action.

For example, you create a workflow that includes the Get order data action. You can then use the For each action to add a tag to every order returned by the Get action.

Example of a workflow retrieves a list of orders every week and adds a tag to each retrieved order.

In this section

Ready to start selling with Shopify?Try it free