What is an automation, and how is it built
Automation is the heart of ShopMagic. Our whole plugin is based on different types of automations.
ShopMagic is not limiting the number of automations, which you can create. Feel free to create as many of them, as you need.
Each automation has to have at least two elements, Event and Action. Another part of automation is Filter, however, it is not mandatory to add one. There are also Placeholders, which you can use to automate your work even more.
Event
The event is the first part of the automation. It is basically a trigger or starting point of automation which says, “If this (event of your choice) happens, trigger automation”.
Events are selectable from the dropdown menu. Some of the most popular Events are New Order, Order Pending, and Order Completed. These are equivalents of WooCommerce order statuses. ShopMagic has Events for all of the order statuses. When applicable, events have an option to recheck the order status before run. If this option is enabled, ShopMagic will, once again, check the automation right before triggering it, to ensure that the order status did not change meanwhile.
Remember that you can also use custom order statuses in your automations.
Filter
Filter is second, but also an optional step in the automation. If you don't add a Filter to your automation, it will be global automation, triggered for all applicable Events. One of the most popular Filters is Order - Items, which allows you to create an automation for products selected in this filter.
Action
The final part of the automation. Numerous types of Actions are available for free and PRO ShopMagic users. Send email is widely used, and the most popular. It is basically an email, with additional possibilities. Here’s a brief explanation of every available field.
- Description. It’s for your reference only. Thanks to the properly named description, you will be able to easily distinguish one Action from the other.
- To. Here you can set an email recipient. The easiest way to do this is with a placeholder
{{ customer.email }}, which will dynamically assign a recipient. - BCC. Useful if you want to send a hidden email copy to yourself or any other email address.
- Subject. Email subject. This field supports placeholders.
- Heading. Email heading. You can also use placeholders here.
- Template. The WooCommerce email template is set by default. You can also choose not to use any template, and start from scratch.
- Message. Write your email here. Choose from a visual and text editor. This field also supports media files, available in your WordPress library. To take full advantage of the Message, we highly recommend using placeholders within.
- Unsubscribe field. Adds unsubscribe link to the message footer.
Placeholders
Placeholders are a very useful feature, created to speed up your work. If you use them, there's no need to manually write data, as placeholders will dynamically assign it for you. For example, placeholder {{ customer.name }} will be automatically changed into the customer's name from the WordPress account, i.e. John Smith. Learn more about placeholders →
How to create your first automation?
To create your first automation, [please follow this simple guide for beginners →]()