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Hourly

Get emailed when Shopify orders stop or run late

You get an email if no orders arrive for longer than usual, or if paid orders pass your dispatch deadline without shipping.

Runs
Hourly
Apps
Gmail, Shopify
AI
Not needed
Access
read_orders; gmail.send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every hour, email me if there's been no Shopify order for 4 hours, or if any paid order has been waiting over 2 days to ship. Only tell me once per problem.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A small tea shop runs on one person. A theme update once broke the cart button on mobile and nobody noticed for a whole day, because there was no error, just no orders. The same week, three orders sat unshipped while the owner was at a trade fair.

An hourly check that notices silence and overdue orders, and emails once per problem, covers both blind spots. The owner can be away from the screen knowing the shop will speak up if it needs them.

What you get out of it

  • Broken checkouts are noticed

    No orders for longer than usual is often the only sign something is broken. An email within hours limits the damage.

  • Dispatch promises are protected

    Paid orders that pass your deadline are flagged so you can ship or contact the customer. Fewer complaints and fewer bad reviews.

  • One email per problem

    Each quiet spell and each late order is reported once. You are not woken by the same alert every hour.

  • Works without a team

    Solo owners get the kind of watch a bigger shop has with staff on shift. The inbox becomes the alarm.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every hour, ClickRuntime checks when the last order came into your Shopify store.

  2. If no order has arrived for longer than your limit, you get one email about it.

  3. It also finds paid orders that have not shipped within your dispatch time.

  4. Each late order is emailed once, with its order number and how long it has waited.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
  • Connect Shopify

What you get

RunsHourly
Get emailed when Shopify orders stop or run latetoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · No Shopify orders latelyNo orders for 4.6 hours. The last was #2291. Check that checkout is working.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Gmail and Shopify steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
no_order_and_late_dispatch_alerts.pyexample
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, notify, state

STORE = "your-store.myshopify.com"

def gql(query, variables=None):
    resp = http.post(f"https://{STORE}/admin/api/2025-07/graphql.json", json={"query": query, "variables": variables or {}},
                     headers={"X-Shopify-Access-Token": credentials.connection("shopify", "store")})
    return resp.raise_for_status() or resp.json()["data"]

QUIET_HOURS, SLA_HOURS = 4, 48

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
    last = gql("{ orders(first: 1, sortKey: CREATED_AT, reverse: true) { nodes { name createdAt } } }")["orders"]["nodes"][0]
    gap = (now - datetime.fromisoformat(last["createdAt"].replace("Z", "+00:00"))).total_seconds() / 3600
    if gap > QUIET_HOURS and state.get("quiet_after") != last["name"]:
        notify.email_me("No Shopify orders lately", f"No orders for {gap:.1f} hours. The last was {last['name']}. Check that checkout is working.")
        state.set("quiet_after", last["name"])
    cutoff = (now - timedelta(hours=SLA_HOURS)).strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")
    late = gql(f'{{ orders(first: 50, query: "financial_status:paid fulfillment_status:unfulfilled created_at:<{cutoff}") {{ nodes {{ name }} }} }}')["orders"]["nodes"]
    told = set(state.get("late") or [])
    new = [o["name"] for o in late if o["name"] not in told]
    if new:
        notify.email_me(f"{len(new)} orders late to ship", "Waiting over 2 days: " + ", ".join(new))
    state.set("late", sorted(told | set(new))[-500:])
    return {"gap_hours": round(gap, 1), "late": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

Will it alert me overnight?
You can set quiet hours when gaps in orders are not reported. Late-dispatch checks can run at any time or only in working hours.
How do I pick the gap?
Look at a normal day and choose a gap that rarely happens. For a shop with an order every hour, four hours without one is worth a look.
Does a late alert repeat if the order still has not shipped?
No. Each late order is reported once. You can ask for a daily reminder of all still-late orders if you prefer.
What permissions does it need?
read_orders; gmail.send. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (hourly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Get emailed when Shopify orders stop or run late” from your assistant

Copy the prompt above, or connect your assistant first. Free plan, no credit card.