Hi guys. With the recent transition to WC from AW we had a significant amount of orders that did not get into the queue because the transition triggered our license to be invalid and it deactivated our plugin without any sort of warning or "nag."
Because of this it highlighted a very real concern that there is no way to manually add an order to a workflow if it is ever not triggered except by date which won’t work in this scenario.
We cannot do the date range of the outage because there were several orders that were backordered that fall outside that range and if we do it by date to take them in, it will add back ones that have already been through the queue.
We desperately need a way to go through and manually add orders based on other criteria other than date OR (my preference) would be to go into their order specifically and have the ability to add them to the workflows one by one on the specific woo order page.
Open
Last updated: November 13, 2019
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Note: I’ve responded via help desk.
Dan Bitzer it is me again. So I ran into a snag. There is a bug it appears that is deleting the first 3 characters of the note that we are using as the trigger. Here is the video showing this. https://www.loom.com/share/481944a04ae644ae8993b6021dc31d21
Dan Bitzer: Thank you for your patience, I was buried. I see that as working but all our workflows are actually designed to run for every order (they are review based) so that wouldn’t work unfortunately. Good thought though!
Lauren Goldstein: So I had a bit of a light-bulb moment! There is another approach that should work if you’re using a trigger compatible with the manual triggers tool.
This means the workflow can only ever RUN ONCE for the order
Change the workflow timing from ‘Delayed’ to ‘Scheduled with a variable’.
In the schedule variable field use the new ‘order.date_completed’ variable. E.g. {{ order.date_completed | format: ‘mysql’, modify: ‘+30 days’ }} and be sure to change the modify days parameter to the delay you want. 30 days is just a placeholder.
Save the workflow.
Go to Tools > Manual Orders Trigger.
Run the manual trigger for the dates that were missed.
You probably WILL end up with duplicates in the queue list BUT THAT’S OKAY (my light-bulb moment) because the rule ‘Workflow – Run Count For Order’ rule will prevent the duplicates from actually running in the end.
E.g. if 2 workflows get queued only one will run because the rules will be re-checked before running!
What do you think?
Dan Bitzer: Well shucks. Yeah, all of our workflows that we need to put these orders into are delayed by a few days up to a few weeks. So close!
Lauren Goldstein: Hmmm this is almost possible with the rule "Workflow – Run Count For Order" BUT that won’t count workflows that are in the queue. So my guess is that won’t be suitable for you as it sounds like most of your workflows are still queued, right?
Dan Bitzer: I just had a brilliant idea as I was getting ready for bed but alas it isn’t an option either but what do you think of a "workflow re-run" where you could re-trigger a workflow to go through all orders that are marked complete while filtering out the ones that were already sent it. Does this exist and I missed it? Let me know what you think (again, trying not to do all the work arounds haha!)
Lauren Goldstein: Sounds like a plan! Good luck!
Dan Bitzer: Will do! I am going to tackle this tomorrow with a pot of coffee next to my keyboard. Wish me luck! (may the odds be ever in my favor!)
Lauren Goldstein: Haha I’m glad I could help! Thanks for understanding!
If you’d like me to check the scheduling of your new workflows is correctly set up feel free to send a screenshot via your currently open ticket.
I’d recommend checking the workflow queue date is correct after you trigger the first few orders. You can see that in AutomateWoo > Queue.
Dan Bitzer: You rock my socks! I very much appreciate it! Stuff happens and I know that it won’t happen again so we should be good moving forward once we get past the first new renewal on Woo. Thanks!!
Lauren Goldstein: Hah! Ok I’ve finished the variable and tested it. Just make sure to only use it on orders that are actually "completed" otherwise it the value will be blank.
I’ve generated a ZIP file which is the same as the current version (4.7.3) but with the order.date_completed and order.date_paid variables added. Download: https://cld.wthms.co/mhwY7O+
You’re welcome! Normally, we wouldn’t build ZIP files with new features right away but since we made a mistake I want to do what we can! Apologies for that stuff up!
Dan Bitzer: I hear ya, sometimes I like to believe in miracles 🙂 You can send it over now if it will work with my "update from zip" plugin!
Thank you again for all your help. I honestly wish this never popped up but I am excited for the manual addition should we need it in the future.
Lauren Goldstein: I understand duplicating workflows is not ideal but I think it’s the best option we have right now. I agree the "add to workflow" idea would be amazing in this context but it’s not something we’re able to turn around quickly.
I’m working on the variable now! I can get you a pre-release version in the next hour or so but that will require a manual re-install of the plugin from ZIP file. The alternative will be waiting for our 4.8 release next week.
Dan Bitzer: Ha! Yes, it appears so! I see your reply and was really hoping not to have to duplicate all three of our workflows. It is such a pain in the tush since we have to do that and go order by order to see which ones we not added to AW during the transition.
I was really hoping for another solution since this is already taking hours of our time and that will compound it. I really think the action of "add to workflow" would be a game changer so maybe I will go add it 🙂
If you could prioritize the order date completed variable that could be really helpful to help with this snafu and by the time we get done it will probably be aligned with that update. Thoughts?
Lauren Goldstein: Looks like we were typing at the same time! Sorry, I broke up my response in to 2 parts. Could you have a look at my comment just above?
Dan Bitzer: Thank you for your reply! Forgive me if I am getting tangled up. This all sounds good in theory, but the execution seems to be the missing piece.
What I am bumping up against (and why I am so desperate for this functionality) is that we cannot have two triggers and we have three workflows that are triggered by "completed" order. So as far as I can tell even with the new variable (which I think is very smart since all our workflows are based around the completed date) there’s no way to get these orders into a workflow that is existing already.
Help me better understand how the order date completed variable would solve this. The main (and biggest issue) I am trying to solve is getting them into existing workflows so I am really curious.
It’s almost like an action "add to workflow" would be the hail Mary here. If there was an action to do that (there isn’t currently) then I could create a separate workflow just for this hiccup, based on the note trigger, and then select the workflows to add the orders to. Does that make sense?
I really have wracked my brain for any and all ways to make this happen so I appreciate you letting me "think out loud!"
Lauren
Lauren Goldstein: Regarding your second question:
> order notes trigger won’t work either as there is no way to add them to the workflows that already exist because you cannot have multiple triggers for a workflow
That’s correct my suggestion would be to duplicate your workflow and then change the trigger to ‘Order Note Added’.
You can use this plugin to quickly duplicate workflows: https://en-au.wordpress.org/plugins/duplicate-post/
Here’s a screenshot of the order note workflow I’d suggest using: https://cld.wthms.co/U2a8uw
Once that workflow is set up all you need to do is add a private note to each order and include a unique code in the note like: %WORKFLOW-123%
I realize this is a workaround but I hope that will help!
Lauren Goldstein: Ok I’ll try to assist. I have been working with the support team on your current ticket about this issue but since your questions may be relevant to other customers I’ll answer here and let the team know.
> What I mean is since all our workflows are related around when an order is marked complete does a workflow to add them honor that date or does it base it on the date the person was added to the work flow?
If you’re using the ‘Delayed’ timing option it will be based on the date the person is added to the workflow. I imagine this isn’t what you want, however…
If you wanted to make it based on the order created date you can use the ‘Schedule with a variable’ option like this: https://cld.wthms.co/Y3QDte
We don’t have an order.date_completed variable but I’ve just added an idea for this: https://automatewoo.canny.io/admin/board/automatewoo/p/add-variables-orderdatepaid-and-orderdatecompleted
If this variable will solve things for you I am prepared to prioritize it for this week.
With that variable you could schedule the workflow with a variable like:
{{ order.date_completed | format: ‘mysql’, modify: ‘+30 days’ }}
You would just need to change the number of days as you desired.
Dan Bitzer Apologies for the multiple threads but it looks like this order notes trigger won’t work either as there is no way to add them to the workflows that already exist because you cannot have multiple triggers for a workflow. Unless I am missing something, essentially we are sunk with dozens of orders that we can never get into a workflow because we cannot manually add them on the orders page.
p.s. also to that same point the order date work flow will probably impact the whole delay flow of the workflow I am trying to get it into, correct? What I mean is since all our workflows are related around when an order is marked complete does a workflow to add them honor that date or does it base it on the date the person was added to the work flow?
Dan Bitzer: Hi Dan! That is GREAT NEWS! We definitely have a huge pain point with this since the move to Woo. I must confess I do not 100% understand how to utilize the order note trigger in this case. Also, should I add my comment to the other post? Thanks so much!
Thanks for the suggestion Lauren Goldstein! I like this idea.
We’re currently working on a ‘Manual workflows’ feature that is similar. https://automatewoo.canny.io/automatewoo/p/manual-workflows
At the moment, I’d recommend using the order note trigger manually trigger specific workflows but stay tuned for improved manual triggering in the next few months!