Notify the admin team if the order contains multiple fulfillment locations

This article aims to explain the importance of split fulfillment orders and offer a solution to highlight them as early as possible using a combination of Order Tagger and Shopify Flow.

Article quick links

1. Why do orders get split into multiple fulfillment locations?
2. Why do merchants need to highlight split fulfillment orders?
3. How to set-up the Order Tagger workflow
4. Notifying the admin team via email
5. Flow template
6. Need any help?

Why do orders get split into multiple fulfillment locations?

Depending on how your store's fulfillment, inventory and location settings are configured, you may find that Shopify will split an order into multiple fulfillments.

This usually happens when a single location is unable to fulfill the entire order due to low stock of at least one item in the order. If another location has the necessary stock to fulfill the rest of the order, then Shopify will automatically split the order into multiple fulfillments across those locations.

Why do merchants need to highlight split fulfillment orders?

Fulfilling orders can often be a complex process, striking a balance between available stock, the cost and efficiencies of internal logistics and keeping customers happy.

Orders that have split fulfillment locations will usually trigger an internal process for the Merchant to ensure that all items within an order can be brought together as efficiently as possible. This can be done either by:

• transporting stock from one location to another
• placing an order for additional stock with suppliers
• changing the location to one that can fulfill the entire order

The most important factors for Merchants in these situations are:

• Meeting the customer's delivery expectations
• Using the minimum amount of packaging materials
• Minimizing expensive shipping costs

If you're looking to tag your orders based on whether they have been split into multiple fulfillments at different locations, then our  Order has more than one fulfillment location allocated criteria is the one to use.

How to set-up the Order Tagger workflow

To create a workflow using this criteria, click on the Create New Workflow button from the main Workflows view:

Define the trigger to determine at which point you would like the workflow to run, we recommend selecting the trigger when orders are created.

Click the Add criteria to my workflow button:

The Order has more than one fulfillment location allocated criteria can be found within the Fulfillment category in the Select criteria pop-up window:

Click the  Use in your workflow button to select this criteria.

There are no further conditions to select from:

Choose the name of the tag you'd like to see on all orders that match this workflow and enter it into the Tag the order with section. In this example we have used the tag Split Fulfillment:

Click on the  Add fixed tag button.

Saving and naming your workflow

It's worth giving your workflow a name to help you identify it at a later date, so add a workflow name in the New Workflow section, check the summary of your workflow and if happy, either Test your Workflow against an existing order or hit Save Workflow:

Any new order placed containing multiple fulfillment locations will now be tagged with Split Fulfillment.

The Orders List view in the Shopify Admin can now be filtered by the tag Split Fulfillment to highlight all orders that may need attention.

Notifying the admin team via email

As well as filtering the Orders List view in the Shopify Admin, we would also recommend sending an email to the admin team to make them aware of the potential issue with the new order.

To do this, you will need to create a new workflow in Shopify Flow with an action to send an email to the admin team when an order contains the Split Fulfillment tag.

Flow template

Rather than creating this workflow from scratch in Flow, we have a pre-built Flow template ready for you to use: Create a workflow from template

The template summary page will explain the details of the workflow that it will create:

Click on the Create workflow from template button and you can either continue to customise the workflow or hit save and enable the workflow.

That's it! Your Order Tagger workflow and Shopify Flow workflow are now live!

30 seconds after a workflow has been processed by Order Tagger, your Workflow in Shopify Flow will be triggered.