Split Order Shipments Digest Notifications

Overview

Split orders occur when a customer’s order is divided into multiple shipments because of various reasons, such as items being in different warehouses or back ordered products. This can lead to multiple and frequent email notifications to customers as soon as the status of any of the items in the order is updated, communicating the trajectory of the shipment at key delivery checkpoints.

The Split order shipments digest is an extension of AfterShip’s All split order shipments delivered notifications flow that allows businesses to consolidate updates regarding all shipments in a split order into a single, regularly scheduled email or SMS, rather than sending multiple notifications for each individual shipment.

In simple terms, instead of receiving frequent notifications for each shipment as it is processed, customers will receive a summary update at scheduled intervals (e.g., hourly, daily). This digest will include all relevant updates for their split orders.

Important note

This flow is only applicable for orders with multiple shipments. If the order contains just one shipment, no email will be triggered. In this case, the user should use the standard shipment status update flow to send notifications.

What you’ll learn

In this article, we will show you:

Split order shipments digest notifications triggers

The split order shipments digest notifications will trigger when the shipments that are part of a split order are updated to specific checkpoints/statuses during the defined digest period.

During a predefined digest period, which is a specific timeframe set by the merchant, certain shipment status updates—like when a package is marked as delivered or in transit —will trigger digest notifications to the customer.

For example, a merchant might choose to notify customers every hour when their order status changes to delivered and provide in transit updates once a day. This approach helps keep customers informed about their orders without overwhelming them with constant emails, consolidating updates into a single digest email.

Set up split order shipments digest notification flow

1. Log in to your AfterShip Tracking admin dashboard
2. Go to Notifications > Flows
3. Navigate to Split order summary section. Select Split order shipments updated (digest) flow and click Edit

Or,

4. If you want to create a new event.
5. Click Create flow.
6. Navigate to the Split order summary section click Create for Split order shipments updated (digest) flow.

Split order shipments digest notifications flow editor

In the flow editor, you can edit the following sections:

1. Flow name : In this section, you can enter a suitable name for the flow.
2. Logic : This section consists of 3 blocks:

A. Trigger split : Trigger splits are the conditions that are highly related to the Trigger event and will split into Yes and No paths.
B. Conditional split : Conditional splits are the general conditions and will split into Yes and No paths. Learn more conditional and trigger split filters and definitions.
C. Random split (A/B test) : In this block, you can randomly split your recipients into two groups (A and B) so that you can send different notifications.

3. Timing : This section consists of
   
   A. Time delay : Set the waiting period between the previous step and the next step in the flow. Configuration options for the Time delay include—X minutes, X hours, and X days.

4. Actions : In this section, you have Send email and Send SMS blocks. You can decide how you want to notify your customers or your organization’s members. You can also choose to send notifications with different content to your customers and your organization’s members separately. To customize the general settings, messaging, and style of your email template, check out this guide.

5. Flow trigger : On the right-hand side, you’ll see a Trigger event for which you can customize the settings. In case you want to send precise updates to specific customers, use the filters given in the trigger field.

A. Trigger settings : In this section, you can select how frequently you want the system to check for new updates for a specific status. If any shipments have been updated to one of the statuses you select, the flow is triggered.

B. Trigger filters : In this section, you can add additional filters to determine what triggers this flow.

Trigger filters and trigger split conditions supported.

C. Flow filters : This filter applies to the entire flow and is checked before every step. Customers must meet these filter conditions to stay in the flow.

6. Once all the settings are done. Click on the Enabled under the Status.
7. Click Save on the top right corner of the dashboard.

In case you need any further assistance, feel free to reach out to our support team.

Customize email content

1. To customize the content of the flow email, click the {...} icon directly on the email block on the preview window and click Edit.
2. Select how you would like to create/edit email content from the dropdown menu at the top of the email editor.

• Easy email editor
• Drag-and-drop email editor
• HTML editor

For a complete guide on email messaging and customization, refer to this article .

Special email sections for split order shipments digest notifications

Apart from the standard sections that each notification hosts to provide relevant order information to customers, there are certain pre-built sections specific to each split order summary flow that are supported to provide additional information to customers once the shipments in a split order are updated to a specific status.

These pre-built sections are only available in drag-and-drop and easy email editor for customization in each flow.

Let’s look at each one of those sections in detail.

SMS notifications

While we currently do not include details about which specific shipment has been updated in our SMS notifications, merchants can inform their customers that there is an update regarding their split order. This message can encourage customers to visit the tracking page for more information on the status of their shipments.

To customize the content of the flow email, click the {...} icon directly on the SMS block on the preview window and click Edit .

Additional considerations

• When using split order shipment digest notifications in conjunction with general shipment status updates, please ensure that split order shipments marked with the trigger filter Order contains multiple shipments are excluded from the general updates. This will help prevent customers from receiving duplicate notifications.

• We only track the status change of a shipment from the previous trigger to the current one. For example, if the status was Info received at the last trigger, changed to In transit, and then reverted back to Info received before the current trigger, we consider the shipment's status unchanged for this trigger.

Updated on: 01/02/2025