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Triggering flows based on customer and order conditions

Relevant to: Shopify Checkout Integration Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

The Trigger node ensures that your flows apply only to specific customers or orders, enabling you to provide a personalized experience. 

This guide explains how to leverage conditions in the Trigger node for specific flows, along with use cases and considerations.

Platform:

  • Shopify Checkout Integration
  • Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

Before you start

  • This article does not apply to Automate flows. See Understanding the Trigger node for Automate flows to learn more about the Automate Trigger node.
  • Consider the conditions you want to configure for the flow to prevent a large portion of/all orders from entering the flow. Using the number of subscription orders processed or the streak count for subscription orders conditions to target customers at specific parts of their journey ensures that the incentives do not apply to every single processed order. See inherent risks for additional information.

How it works

By default, all flows execute based on the trigger set on the Trigger node in the flow’s canvas. Each flow uses a different trigger in the trigger node to trigger the flow on specific orders:

  • Surprise and Delight: After the order is processed
  • Rewards After the order is processed
  • Upcoming Order Cross-Sell: After the order is processed
  • Cancellation Prevention: After the customer starts the cancellation process
  • Failed Payment Recovery: After a charge fails

Surprise and Delight, Rewards, and Upcoming Order Cross-Sell flows let you set trigger conditions to ensure your flows apply only to specific customers/orders. Trigger conditions specify which processed orders the flows should apply to. The trigger conditions use the conditions available in the Conditional Branch node, giving you complete control over the flow.

Recharge requires setting at least one trigger condition when building a flow. This ensures the flow applies only to specific orders, rather than triggering on every order.

Tip: See use cases for instructions on triggering a flow on every order.

Recharge offers multiple trigger conditions to use, allowing you to be granular about the customers you let into the flow. See the available conditions for a detailed list of possible trigger conditions.

While some of these options were previously available as flow and trigger filters, Recharge has rolled them into the trigger conditions, which a customer must meet for their order to enter the flow.

You can get granular with your trigger conditions using AND or OR logic. You can use up to 10 OR logic blocks within a trigger node and 5 AND logic blocks within an OR block:

  • Use AND logic to ensure all of the specified conditions are met before the flow triggers
  • Use OR logic to ensure any of the specified conditions are met before the flow triggers

Available conditions

Available trigger conditions vary by flow type. The Trigger node only displays the conditions available for that flow.

Note: Each condition has a variety of operators you can choose from, allowing you to get specific using the equals or does not equal to operators, or target a range of customers with the greater than and less than operators.

Number of subscription orders processed vs. streak count for subscription orders

Both the number of subscription orders processed and the streak count for subscription orders conditions refer to the number of orders a customer has made across all of their subscriptions. The conditions are different, however, in how the flow handles customers who have cancelled and then reactivated their subscriptions. If all subscriptions belonging to a customer are cancelled by either the customer or an admin at any time:

  • The streak count for subscription orders resets to 1 on the next fulfilled recurring order
  • The number of subscription orders processed remains unaffected and does not reset

The example below outlines the difference between the two conditions: 

Step in the customer journey:

Checkout order processed

Recurring order #1 processed

Customer cancels all subscriptions

Customer reactivates their subscription, Recurring order #2 processed

Recurring order #3 processed

Number of subscription orders processed:

 1 2 2 3 4

Streak count for subscription orders:

 1 2 0 1 2
Tip: Use the number of subscription orders processed condition for flow that refer to a customer's entire history with your store, or the streak count for subscription orders condition to reflect the customer's current and continuous journey.

Use cases

The possibilities are nearly endless when it comes to the updated trigger conditions. Check out some of the most popular triggers other merchants are using, and how they’ve configured their conditions:

Use case

Flow trigger configuration
Offer customers subscribed to a specific product a free gift on their fifth order

Set the trigger conditions as follows when creating a Surprise and Delight offering:

Condition 1:

  • Line Item
  • Variant
  • Contains
  • Select product

AND

Condition 2:

  • Customer
  • Number of subscription orders processed
  • Equals
  • 4
Provide American customers the option to buy a product at a discounted price for BFCM

Set the trigger conditions as follows when creating an Upcoming Order Cross-sell offering:

Condition:

  • Shipping address
  • Country
  • Equals
  • United States
Note: You can set a start and end date in your flow settings to determine when customers will enter the flow. Keep in mind that even after the set date, pending offers are still available for customers who have entered the flow.

Trigger a flow for every processed order

Warning: Offering a flow to every customer is considered extremely high-risk and is not recommended for all flow, as every single customer will enter the flow each time their order is processed.

Set the following trigger conditions when building any flow to trigger the flow on every processed order:

Condition:

  • Customer
  • Number of subscription orders processed
  • Is greater than or equal to
  • 1

Or you could use:

Condition:

  • Customer
  • Active Subscriptions
  • Equals
  • 1
Tip: Use the flow limit setting when creating a flow that applies to all orders to avoid situations where multiple customers receive the incentive, or where individual customers receive the incentive numerous times. See flow settings for additional details

Inherent risks

The trigger node provides additional flexibility; however, there are considerations to ensure the flow triggers as expected.

Warning: It is extremely risky to use the number of subscription orders processed condition or streak count for subscription orders condition if you are setting the operators to is greater than one. All orders satisfy these conditions, and the flow will apply to every order that Recharge processes. This is not recommended unless you have flow run count limits set to prevent customers from receiving the incentive multiple times. See flow settings for additional details.

By default, the trigger node for Surprise and Delight, Rewards, an Legacy Upcoming order Cross-sell flows is set to trigger  a flow on orders immediately after they are processed. To prevent customers from entering the flow after every order, use the number of subscription orders processed or the streak count for subscription orders condition. These conditions target a specific point in the customer’s journey.

For example, if you wanted the flow to apply to a customer’s fourth order overall, you would need to create a condition that targets the customer’s streak count using the following conditions configuration:

  • Customer
  • Streak count for subscription orders
  • Equals
  • 3

With this condition set, the flow only targets customers that have a streak count of three and applies the incentive to the customer's fourth order. While you can set values to allow flows to process on every order, it is risky and not recommended.

Note: Recharge provides a warning directly in the merchant portal if the flow does not include the number of subscription orders processed or streak count conditions, or if they are used in a way that would affect all of your processed orders.
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