What is backdating and how does it work?
Please Note:
Backdating is an additional pay-per-use feature and the cost of each backdating job is based on how many orders need to be processed to complete each job.
Article Quick Links
- Backdating overview
- Why do Merchants backdate their orders?
- Test your workflows before backdating
- Criteria, features and triggers that are incompatible with backdating
- How to backdate your workflows
- Viewing the results of your backdating job
- Why would some workflows cost more to process?
- How long does backdating take?
- Need any further information?
Backdating overview
When you set up a new workflow in Order Tagger, it will apply those workflows to new orders that come into your store. Our backdating service is a popular bolt-on feature to Order Tagger that will help you to run your workflows against the historical orders in your store.
Backdating is available to all Merchants but is a per usage paid service on top of the monthly Order Tagger app fee.
Once you have set up and tested your workflows in Order Tagger, you may wish to backdate your workflows against existing orders in your store. You can select which workflows you would like to include in your backdate and the period of time that you'd like the backdate to cover.
You will be asked to accept a charge based on the number of orders that we calculate are needed to be processed. That number is determined by the date range selected and the type of workflows that you select for your backdating job.
Each backdating job has a fee, however, we do not charge based on how many workflows that you choose to run in your backdate. You can process an unlimited number of workflows against your orders.
For more information on pricing, please read our article that covers how much backdating costs.
Why do Merchants backdate their orders?
Some common reasons for Merchants deciding to use our backdating service are:
- To prioritize, delegate and route existing open orders
- To identify which Sales Channels are performing well for future marketing efforts
- To identify multiple open orders from the same Customer to reduce shipping costs
- To tag open orders with the selected delivery or pick-up date
- To remove old tags based on the current order status
Test your workflows before backdating
We highly recommend that you test your workflows to make sure that they work as you expect them to before backdating all of your orders.
The backdating process costs money to run as it is a resource-intensive process, therefore, you need to make sure that you are happy with how your workflows have been set-up before running a backdate.
We are unable to process refunds due to incorrectly set-up workflows.
Backdating can not be undone!
Backdates can not be undone or rolled-back. Once we have tagged or removed tags from your orders, there is no way to revert your orders back to the way they were before the backdate.
You can test your workflows against existing orders by going into the edit option of each workflow:
On the right hand side of the workflow builder, click on the Test your workflow button:
You can then scroll/page through some of the previous orders in your store or use the search box to find an order that you feel this workflow should match.
Once you have found an order, click on the Test button containing the order number to the right of the order details:
The workflow will then be tested against the order:
Testing the workflow will not apply or remove any tags from the order
Testing the workflow will not apply or remove tags from your orders. It only performs a test to indicate if the workflow would have matched the order or not.
Refine your workflow until you get the desired result.
Criteria, features and triggers that are incompatible with backdating
Some of the criteria, features and triggers used in your workflows are not compatible with backdating.
This is largely due to certain data being dynamic and not being stored in the order data at the time the order was placed. Therefore, running the workflow against the order at a later date would provide inconsistent or unreliable results.
Features such as scheduled tag removals are not compatible with backdating.
We have put together an article on why some criteria, features and triggers are incompatible with backdating. Please take a look at this to ensure that you are aware of which features will and will not work with backdating.
How to backdate your workflows
To begin a backdating job, click on the Backdating tab in the main app navigation:
Click on the Create a backdating job now button:
You will then be presented with a screen containing a notice that you will need to read and accept before proceeding. It confirms that you understand that your workflows should have been tested and that backdating can not be reversed.
You will see a calculation of the cost of the backdating job. This cost assumes that you will backdate all workflows against all orders:
To be able to configure your backdating job, you will need to accept that you have understood the message relating to the limitations of backdating.
Orders in a specific date range
If you'd only like to include orders placed over a certain period of time in your backdating job, select the Orders in a specific date range option and then select the date range:
Specific workflows
If you'd only like to include specific workflows in your backdating job, select the Specific workflows option:
Select each workflow that you wish to include (yours will look different):
Proceed to payment
Whether or not you've selected a specific date range or specific workflows, the next step is to click on the Proceed to payment button:
Paying for your backdating job
You will then be presented with the one-time charge to be approved. If you are happy to proceed, then click on the Approve charge button.
Please Note:
This is a non-refundable purchase. It will be charged to your Shopify account immediately and will appear in your statement of charges from Shopify.
Once the charge has been accepted, the Shopify approve charge screen will refresh and the backdate will begin.
Processing your backdating job
Order Tagger will then begin fetching all of the orders it needs for the backdating job.
Depending on how many orders need to be processed, you may not see any action on the progress bar for some time (could be minutes). The status, however, will be set to processing:
Once all of the orders have been fetched, the backdating job will work through them one by one checking to see if the order qualifies for any of the workflows in the backdating job. If the order qualifies, Order Tagger will apply or remove tags based on the workflows you have set-up.
You will see the progress bar increase as soon as Order Tagger starts to process the workflows against each order:
Once the backdate has finished, the status will say complete:
You will then see a history of your backdating jobs when revisiting the Backdating tab in the main app navigation. It will show you completed and incomplete backdating jobs:
That's it!
Viewing the results of your backdating job
You can view the results of a backdating job, by clicking on the View Job link from the main backdating screen.
It will provide you with a summary of:
- The date range covered by the backdating job
- How many orders were processed
- How many orders had tags added
- How many orders had tags removed
- The workflows that were selected in the backdating job
You can also search the backdating job by order number to see if that order was contained in the backdate and if so, what tags were applied or removed:
Why would some workflows cost more to process?
Some of the criteria available within the workflow builder would require us to read through every order placed in your store. Therefore, even if you have selected a very short date range for your backdating job, if your workflow contains a criteria that requires us to tag orders based on long term performance or customer activity, then we will, unfortunately, need to process every order in your store.
How long does backdating take?
The duration of a backdate all depends on the number of orders that we need to process and the number of workflows that need to be applied to each order. For more information on this, please read our article on how long the backdating process takes?