Overview

On April 12, 2023 we released a new feature called Automations. Automations allow you to build simple but powerful workflows. Automations subsumes the Hold Engine functionality. For all new accounts / organizations created after this date, Automation feature will be enabled by default and Hold Engine will not be added.

 

In this Article

 

Introduction

The automation engine is a simple If This Than That way of controlling the flow and is accessible from the left menu. Automations allow you to build custom workflows easily. 

 

🚨Within your profile settings, you will see "Automation Key" under "API". This is expected behavior when the automation is added to your org.

 

Value

Every business has unique workflow needs. Hold an order for review if the order is greater than $10,000. Or Cancel an order if it has certain tags. Or reject a line item if the SKU matches a certain value. 

Automations make it easy to build such workflows without having to write any code. Simply create a rule, pick your criteria, and add your actions. Watch the magic!

Concepts

Automations consists of two parts.

 

Trigger

The trigger is the entry point for a rule to be executed. For e.g. a new order ingested in Pipe17 is a "New Order" trigger.

A trigger can have as many rules created by the user as necessary. The rules are executed from top to bottom until the filter matches, when a rule is executed then no other rule will run for that item. If no rule is executed then the default rule will be executed.

Available triggers:

  • New order: The rules will execute when Pipe17 ingests a new order.
  • Updated order: The rules will execute when an order is updated.
  • Updated shipment: The rules will execute when a shipping request is created or updated.

Note: A trigger based on the update of an entity won't be re-triggered due to a change made via the Automations Engine.

 

Automation Rule

Rule is the IFTTT definition. It consists of the conditions that qualify for this rule to run and actions to be performed on the entity for which it was triggered, for e.g. Order entity. 

The rule's body is divided into 3 parts:

  1. General, when you can input a name, a small description of how that rule works, and enable/disable the rule.
  2. The filter, where you can select for which sources that rule will run and, from the selected sources, which one of the items this rule will execute. Not that, when a rule is executed no other rules will be executed for that item, so make sure to make the filters as specific as necessary to not match items that are meant to be executed by other rules.
  3. The actions, or what will happen to the matched items.

Filter

Filters are based on two entities.

  1. Source Integration
  2. Order
  3. Status (excluding new orders)

Source Integration

From each automation rule, you can select one or more order sources for which the rule applies. Default is Don't filter by integration. It means orders from all integration are eligible for this rule. 

You can select one or more order source from the given pick list. 

 

Entity Filter 

Another kind of filter condition you can set is based on the entity content. A filter will look like this, first select "Simple" on the "additional filters"  select and start applying the filter you want for the rule. The fields available will be different depending on which entity you're filtering.

If the rule filter passes, the Actions are executed in the order they are added. 

 

Actions

The available actions will vary depending on the selected trigger but they all have in common the fact that they are updating the entities that were matched on the filter.

When multiple rules are filtered this means that all the actions of all rules matching will be applied until the status of that entity has changed following the execution sequence below.

 

Execution Sequence

All automation rules within a trigger will execute one after the other as long as the status of the entity matches the trigger. 

If you have multiple automation rules for the "New Order" trigger, the engine will execute the first rule. If the rule changes the status of the order to cancel, hold, or archive, the remaining rules will not execute as the status of the order is not new anymore.

On the other hand, if the first rule does not change the status because the filter criteria do not match, the next rule will be executed. 

When there are multiple rules, the execution order depends on the order of the rule in the list. The first rule is evaluated, and executed. Then the second rule is executed as long as the order status is still New. Here is how you can rearrange the order of execution. 

 

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Default Rule

For "New Order" rules, there is a default 10-minute "Hold Action" rule for all orders from all order sources added to all organizations. The default rule is the last one to execute in the sequence. 

You can change the default action and its configuration but you won't be able to change the filters of the default rule since it should match all new orders that were not updated by any other rule.

 

Create a New Rule

Click the "New Rule" button in the trigger section of your choice. You will see the following window. By default all rules are Disabled. This is done to make sure you do not accidentally enable a partially edited rule. It can impact your order flow. 

  1. Give it a Name
  2. We recommend you also add a Description
  3. Select your Order Source
  4. Add your filter
  5. Add your Actions
  6. Save

 

Example(s)

1. Here is an example of an automation rule. This rule will cancel orders from Shopify with tag "test" or "example".

 

2. Hold all Shopify orders for 30 minutes. Use the date/time when order was ingested in Pipe17. Post hold, send it for fulfillment. 

 

3. Hold all Amazon orders for 60 minutes. Use the date/time when order was created in the selling channel. Post hold, send it for fulfillment. 

 

 

Create a New Rule with Pippen (experimental)

Pippen is an AI assistant that is designed to help you with tasks across the App.
It can help you create new Rules from the explanation you give it. If you see a "New Rule using Pippen AI" button that means that you can use it to create a new rule, it's not available to all rules yet.

When you click on it you'll be prompted to what rule you want to create, in this example let's hold all orders coming from Shopify for some minutes using the prompt "Hold all Shopify orders for 35 minutes".

 

Pippen will return a rule in which you can continue interacting with Pippen to modify with prompts like "Only if the order has a test tag" or you can dismiss Pippen on the top right corner and finish editing manually.

 

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