Help · Automations

What an automation is doing

Once an automation is running, its own page says what it has done, and Preview in the editor says what it would do for any one person.

Seeing what one is doing

An automation’s own page — press its row on Automations — reports who entered, who is inside now, who finished, and what each step sent. Anybody who can read your store can read all of it.

A row on the Automations screen opens that automation’s own page — unless it is not applied yet, which opens the editor instead — and that page is where you find out what it is actually doing. Under the name is one line saying what starts it — Starts when an order is fulfilled in your store. Edit the automation opens the editor, and the switch beside the name enables and disables it from here, so you can stop something without opening it up. While it is disabled, a small notice under that line says nothing goes out until you enable it.

It is a report, so anybody who can read your store can read all of it. Enabling the automation is still the one act that asks for more, and a seat that cannot do it is shown no switch at all rather than one that refuses.

A deleted automation still has this page, and it says so. Its badge reads Deleted, there is no switch on it — there is nothing left to enable — and the notice says that nobody is in it and nothing more will be sent from it. That is the whole page: deleting ended every run, so any number under it would be a measurement of something that can no longer happen.

Links that now go to your front page

If a product, collection or page an email links to is deleted or unpublished after the automation is running, nobody misses the email: the link takes people to your store's front page instead. The automation's page then shows Links that now go to your front page, one line per email and link, and your store's owner gets one email the first time it happens for each link. Point the link somewhere else in the editor and apply changes, and the list clears. Put the product back and it clears as soon as Shopify tells us; put a collection or page back and it clears after your store's next daily check, or straight away when you press Refresh under Collections, pages and blog posts in Settings.

Before anybody has entered

An automation nobody has entered yet shows one card: No one has entered yet., and under it the steps it will run, in order — each email by its subject, each wait between them, and each step's status: Draft, Manual or Live. There are no numbers on it, because nothing has happened to count. This is the place to check, before you enable it, that the steps are the ones you meant and the right ones are Live.

Activity

Once somebody has entered, the page leads with four numbers:

• Entered — people who started the automation.
• In progress now — people inside it today, including anybody waiting for your team at a Manual message.
• Finished — people who went all the way through.
• Emails sent — every email it sent (Messages sent when it also sends texts).

A fifth, Left early, appears only when somebody left before the end.

Orders after a click sits beside them when the automation sends email or texts: the orders placed in the period within 5 days of a click in one of its emails, or a tap on a link in one of its texts, with their value under the number. Each email and text step shows its own orders too, and a step that earned none shows 0. An order counts for one email or text only — the last one clicked or tapped — so an order a campaign earned is not counted again here. On All time the card counts every order the automation has earned. Analytics → Campaigns & automations has the other periods. See Analytics for how an order is counted.

Last 30 days and All time choose the period. In the last thirty days, Entered counts people who started in that time and Finished counts people who finished in it — so somebody who started five weeks ago and finished last week is a finish, not an entry. In progress now is always today, whichever you choose. The choice is kept in the page's address, so Back and a shared link keep it.

Under the card, one line appears when somebody was turned away in the last thirty days — 12 turned away in the last 30 days — and see why lists the reasons. It counts people, not attempts: somebody turned away four times is one person, and somebody turned away for two reasons is still one. The window is always thirty days, because these records are kept and would otherwise pile up without end.

A wall of "they checked out without visiting the store first" on an abandoned-checkout automation means the tracking on your storefront is not reporting. That automation only reaches people your site saw before they checked out, which is the whole reason it is defensible, and if that sighting never arrives nobody is entered — quietly, with no error anywhere. If that number is large and the others are small, tell us: the tracking is something we set up with you rather than something to fix on this screen. On a Welcome, a person you know is real can be marked This is a person on their profile, and the bot check never turns them away again. It does not send the welcome they missed: their consent is already on, and people already on your list are not welcomed again.

The steps

Every step, once, top to bottom in the order a person meets them, with what each one did in the period you chose. A split names its paths where they begin, and a step that adds somebody to a list, changes a property or tells your team is drawn in its place with its status.

Each email step shows Sent, Delivered, Opened and Clicked, with a small percentage beside all but the first — Delivered as a share of what was sent, Opened and Clicked as a share of what was delivered. Three more appear only when they are not zero, in brown: Bounced, Marked spam and Not sent. A text message step shows what was sent and delivered; texts have no opens. A step nothing was sent from in the period says so in a sentence rather than a row of zeros.

Sent is everything that left: what was delivered, what bounced, what was marked spam, and what is still on its way. Tests you send yourself are counted nowhere here. In the last thirty days it is the email written in that time and whatever became of it — its opens and clicks count whenever they happened.

Delivered shows a dash rather than a zero until something has come back. Your email provider confirms each message separately, and a zero nobody has confirmed is not a zero — it is a question with no answer yet.

Opens are the one number to read loosely. The i beside Opened says why:

Some email programs — Apple Mail most of all — open messages automatically to protect the reader’s privacy. Those count here, so this number is higher than the number of people who really looked. Clicks are not affected.

Not sent is email that reached the moment of sending and was stopped there. A line under the steps gives the total, and see why lists the reasons in the same words the Not sent page uses.

The people sitting out a wait are counted on the wait — Wait 2 days · 23 waiting. Somebody whose next step is due is counted on that step. Applying a change that took a step out does not throw away the people standing at it: until they are moved onto what you applied, a line under the steps says how many are waiting on a step the last applied changes removed. A line that stays is the sign the changes did not finish applying, and the page says that above.

A step you have since removed keeps what it sent. Those emails were sent, so a line under the steps still counts them.

Two things are deliberately not counted:

• Unsubscribes. Nothing ties somebody's change of mind to the email that prompted it. A number worked out from a time window would be a guess dressed as a fact, so there is none.
• People who skipped a step. A step somebody did not match is not a message. A draft step says it is a draft, and a send filter says who its email is for. A message whose discount code can't be used any more is skipped too, and never sent: a code already used, expired, withdrawn, replaced by a later code from the same form or deleted in Shopify, or one whose discount was deleted. The automation carries on to its next step.

If the page could not count the email in time — a store with years of it behind one automation can take a while — it says so, and still draws the steps. The automation itself is unaffected.

Held is not lost

Held lists the people whose next email is waiting on a rule of your own rather than on the automation: your store’s frequency limit, the hours you send in, or the days you send on. These people are still getting it. Each of those clears by itself, and nothing here is dropped. There are two exceptions. A text that has waited seven days with no set time to go out, such as one waiting on a discount rollout (below), is then recorded as not sent. And a person who waits seven days for an email's discount — one deleted, ended or not set up so it can be given — skips that email and carries on with the rest of the automation; the skip shows under Not sent as Discount could not be given.

Marketing email from an automation also waits while campaign email is paused to protect the shared sending account (the Sending reputation help page explains when that happens). Those people show as held too, and their email goes out on its own once campaign email starts again. Order emails never wait for it.

An automation that starts on Received a discount code and shows that code in its email or text also waits while the code's discount is in a rollout in Shopify. While the rollout runs, a shopper outside the test is told at checkout that the code isn't available. A rollout that is scheduled but has not started yet counts too, because it can start before the code is used. Those people show as held, and the message goes out with the code by itself once the rollout ends. A text waits up to seven days; after that it is recorded as not sent. A code that can't be used any more is not held: that message is skipped (see People who skipped a step above).

During your free trial, once its 500 emails are used, automation emails wait for your subscription to start — order emails included — and every automation text waits for it from the start of the trial. With no plan, nothing sends. Those people show as held, with a Start your subscription or Choose a plan button above the list, and their messages go out on their own once the subscription starts. The Plans and billing help page explains the trial.

They are also counted in the waiting numbers above, because somebody held is somebody still waiting at a step. So do not add the two together — held is a note about some of the people already counted, not a second group.

When changes are still being applied

Applying a change that moved or removed steps has to move the people already inside onto the new version, and while that is happening this page says so and says how many have moved so far. It cannot say how many are left, because that is not something it counts — what it can tell you is that the move is running and how far it has got. Nothing goes out from the automation to those people until it finishes. Changes that only added steps stop nobody, and the page says that instead: people carry on and meet the new steps when they reach them. The editor says the same thing while you are working in it.

If the move could not finish, the page says so, and what to do about it is to apply changes again. Until somebody does, the people still inside carry on running the version they were already on — which can still contain a step you removed.

Seeing it as one person

Preview sits in the editor's header. Press it and search for anybody in your store, and the map answers for them: whether they would enter and why not, which path they would take, and what would happen at each step.

A strip across the top of the editor says who you are previewing and the one thing to know about all of it:

Nothing is sent — this is what would happen if Maya started it now.

It is a question, asked of the same checks a real send would go through, and it writes nothing down. Stop previewing, at the end of the strip, puts everything back as it was, including where you were on the map. Press the person's name in the strip, or Try another profile, to ask about somebody else.

You can preview before you enable. A disabled automation is answered as if it were enabled, and every draft step as if it were enabled — emails, texts, team alerts, splits, list steps, property steps and waits — so you can see who would get in and what each person would get before anything goes live. The strip says so, for a disabled automation and a paused one alike:

Nothing is sent. The automation is off, so this shows what would happen once it’s enabled.

The preview reads the automation as it is in the editor. If it is on but you have changes you have not applied yet, the strip says Your changes aren’t applied yet, so this shows what would happen once they are.

An automation that is on can still have draft steps — a new split, say, or an email you have not enabled yet. When one of them is on the person’s path, the card with their path says so:

Draft steps are shown as if they were enabled — until they are, they are skipped.

A draft email on their path reads Once it’s enabled, Maya gets this — but only when the email would actually reach them. Anybody the email would not reach still gets the real reason under the draft mark: they unsubscribed, their address must never be mailed, their identity was never confirmed, and so on. Every other draft step says what it would do, like any other step — the Draft badge on its card is the reminder. A draft split sends them down the path they match, and a draft list step whose list has been archived stops them there, just as it will once it is on. If you open a draft step while you preview, its panel says the same thing: the preview treats it as enabled, and until you enable it, it is skipped.

Everything else is the real rule — the start, who it is for, whether they have been through it already, which path a split sends them down, each email's own rule, and every reason an email would not be sent.

It offers everybody, including people who have unsubscribed, people whose address must never be mailed and people whose identity was never confirmed — because "why is this person not getting my welcome email" is exactly the question this answers, and a search that hid them would hide the answer.

Their path. The map zooms to the steps that person would reach and rings each one. Every other card fades, and keeps a dashed edge with its name struck through, so a step that is not theirs cannot be mistaken for a quieter one of theirs; a step they would not reach says Not on their path, draft or not. At a split, the path they take is labeled with their name — Maya goes here, or They go here when the profile has no first name. A card at the top right lists the whole path: first whether they would enter and what starts it, then each step on their path and what it would do — Enters — Placed Order, then Step 1: Wait 2 hours, then Step 2: Not sent: no marketing consent.

What happens at each step. Each card on their path says, in a word or two:

• An email would be sent, would not be sent and why, or is held until a time. Held means your store’s frequency limit — that person had an email too recently — and the time is on your store’s clock, counted as if they started right now. A Manual email says it waits for someone to send it. A draft email is answered as if it were enabled (see above). While your store can’t send email yet, every email says so, and so does the card with their path: Your store can’t send email yet — nobody is sent anything until it can.
• Add to list or Remove from list says they would be added or taken off, or that they are already on it or not on it. A list that has been archived says they would stop there.
• Update property says what it would set or clear.
• A team alert says how many team members it would email, or that it would email nobody because no one it names is on the team.
• A text message says only On their path. The preview does not ask the text checks yet, so it promises neither a send nor a refusal.

Somebody who would not enter sees the whole map faded, and the card with their path says why:

Doesn’t enter: has been through it already

Editing is paused while you preview. The tray, every +, every … and dragging are gone, and a step's settings can be read but not changed, so what you are looking at cannot shift under the answer. Stop previewing to carry on building.