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Manufacturing workflows rarely involve single actions. Processing a batch of wholesale orders might require tagging, routing, notifying multiple teams, and updating records. Traditionally, building these multi-step processes meant either manual work or custom development.
Shopify Sidekick helps manage this complexity in two ways: it can guide you through multi-step tasks directly in your admin (planning steps and creating to-do lists), and it can generate Shopify Flow automations that handle recurring workflows automatically. This combination gives B2B manufacturers a practical path to scaling operations without coding.
This guide explores how Sidekick handles complex manufacturing scenarios, what it does well, and where you'll need to refine its output.
Sidekick operates within your Shopify admin, helping you accomplish tasks through conversation. For complex operations, it uses several approaches.
When you describe a multi-step goal, Sidekick can break it down into actionable steps and create to-do lists to track progress. This helps you:
Sidekick can navigate you to the right places in your Shopify admin. Tell it what you want to do, and it can take you to the relevant settings, pages, or tools. This saves time when you're not sure where a particular feature lives.
Sidekick never makes changes without your approval. It presents options for you to review and approve before executing. This is particularly important for complex operations where you want to verify the approach before committing.
For recurring workflows, Sidekick's strongest capability is generating Shopify Flow automations. Describe what you want to automate in plain language, and Sidekick creates the workflow structure with triggers, conditions, and actions.
Shopify Flow is where Sidekick adds the most value for manufacturing workflows. Instead of building automations manually, describe what you need and let Sidekick generate the initial structure.
Sidekick generates workflow structures based on your description, but it doesn't know your specific business rules. Always:
Think of Sidekick as generating a solid starting point that you'll customize for your specific requirements.
Processing orders in batches based on criteria is one of Sidekick's strongest use cases. Manufacturing operations often need to route, tag, or handle orders differently based on their characteristics.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "Create a workflow that tags orders with more than 10 line items as 'bulk-order' and sends a Slack notification to #wholesale-team."
What Sidekick generates:
Refine further:
> "Also add a condition that the order total must be over $2,500."
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When an order is created, if it contains products tagged 'custom-fabrication', tag the order 'engineering-queue' and email engineering@company.com. If it contains products tagged 'stock-item', tag it 'warehouse-queue' and email warehouse@company.com."
What Sidekick generates:
A workflow with branching logic that routes orders based on product characteristics.
Review carefully: Complex branching logic may need manual adjustment. Verify that the conditions correctly identify each scenario and that orders can't fall through without proper handling.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "Every day at 6pm, send an email to operations@company.com summarizing orders tagged 'bulk-order' from today."
What Sidekick generates:
This gives your team a daily digest of bulk orders requiring attention.
For more on order workflow automation, see How B2B Manufacturers Can Automate Complex Order Workflows with Shopify Sidekick.
While Sidekick doesn't directly generate quotes, it can help automate workflows around your quoting process where those steps are represented in Shopify Flow.
If your quoting process uses Shopify draft orders, Sidekick can help automate notifications and routing:
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When a draft order is created with a total over $10,000, send an email to sales-manager@company.com with the draft order details for approval."
What Sidekick generates:
Describe to Sidekick:
> "Send a Slack reminder to #sales if a draft order tagged 'pending-approval' hasn't been updated in 3 days."
This keeps quotes from going stale without manual tracking.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When a draft order is tagged 'approved', send an email to the customer with payment instructions and notify fulfillment@company.com to prepare for the order."
For more on quote workflows, see RFQ Popups and Direct Sales Contact on B2B Shopify.
Manufacturing B2B often requires order review before fulfillment, especially for high-value or complex orders.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "Create a workflow that tags orders for review if any of these conditions are true: order total over $5,000, customer's first order, or order contains products tagged 'special-order'. Send an email to reviews@company.com listing which conditions triggered the review."
What Sidekick generates:
A workflow with multiple OR conditions and a notification that explains why the order was flagged.
Review carefully: Verify that all conditions are correctly implemented and that the email template includes the information your team needs.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "If an order tagged 'needs-review' hasn't had the tag removed within 24 hours, send an escalation email to sales-director@company.com."
This ensures flagged orders don't sit unattended.
For comprehensive order review guidance, see How to Set Up B2B Order Review Workflows in Shopify.
Sidekick can help automate customer-related workflows that support your B2B operations.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When a customer is created with the tag 'wholesale-pending', send an email to onboarding@company.com with the customer details, and add the customer to a to-do list for credit review."
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When an order is created and the customer has placed more than 5 orders in the last 90 days, add the tag 'frequent-buyer' to the customer."
What Sidekick generates:
These tags can then drive pricing, marketing, or service level decisions.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When a customer who has the tag 'key-account' hasn't placed an order in 60 days, send a Slack message to #account-management with the customer name."
This proactive alert helps account managers stay on top of important relationships.
For more on customer segmentation, see Target Industrial Buyers Smarter: Segment Manufacturing Customers by Product Category.
While Sidekick can't directly execute inventory transfers, it can help you build alert workflows that trigger when inventory conditions are met.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When inventory for a product tagged 'critical-component' drops below 25 units, send an email to purchasing@company.com with the product name and current quantity."
What Sidekick generates:
Describe to Sidekick:
> "Every Monday at 8am, send an email to inventory@company.com summarizing products with fewer than 50 units in stock."
This creates a weekly low-stock report without manual checking.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When inventory drops below the reorder point stored in product metafield 'reorder_level', tag the product 'reorder-needed' and notify purchasing."
Note: This requires that you've set up metafields to store reorder points. Sidekick can reference metafields in conditions if they exist.
Coordinate fulfillment activities across teams with automated notifications and routing.
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When an order is created with shipping method containing 'freight', tag it 'freight-shipment' and send a Slack message to #shipping with the order number and destination."
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When an order contains products tagged 'hazmat', add order tag 'hazmat-shipping', send email to compliance@company.com, and add order note 'Requires hazmat documentation'."
Describe to Sidekick:
> "When an order contains products from multiple vendors, tag it 'split-fulfillment' and notify warehouse@company.com."
This identifies orders that may ship from multiple locations.
For fulfillment routing strategies, see Order Routing Logic in Shopify.
Complex workflows often require multiple iterations to get right.
After Sidekick creates a workflow, you can ask for modifications:
> "Add another condition that excludes orders tagged 'test-order'."
> "Change the notification from email to Slack."
> "Add an action that also creates a task in our project system." (Note: This requires the relevant app integration.)
Click Apply changes after Sidekick updates the workflow, or Discard changes if you want to try a different approach.
Always test workflows before turning them on:
After activation:
Sidekick generates workflows based on your descriptions, but it doesn't know your specific business rules. Complex logic often needs manual refinement. Always review generated workflows before activating.
Sidekick can only generate workflows using actions available in Shopify Flow. Some manufacturing operations (like creating inventory transfers or generating specific document types) may not have corresponding Flow actions. Check what's possible in Flow before assuming Sidekick can automate it.
Some workflows require app integrations (Slack notifications, project management tools, ERP connections). Ensure the relevant apps are installed and connected before generating workflows that depend on them.
Begin with a single workflow that addresses a clear pain point:
Sidekick makes it faster to build the initial workflow structure, but the real value comes from thoughtfully applying it to your specific operations and refining based on how it performs in practice.
For guidance on choosing between Sidekick/Flow and more advanced automation tools, see Conditional Logic Automations: When to Use n8n vs Shopify Flow.
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