Workflow triggers

Triggering workflows when fields change

Flow Companion can start Shopify Flow workflows whenever important data on orders, products, product variants, or customers changes. You decide which fields to watch by configuring rules in the app.

Available triggers

Tag change triggers

Use these when you only need to respond to tag mutations. Each trigger returns the list of tags that were added or removed compared to the previous state.

  • Order tags added
  • Order tags removed
  • Product tags added
  • Product tags removed

Field change triggers

Track when business-critical data points differ from their previously indexed values. These triggers emit a structured Field change payload with before/after values so workflows can branch on the exact delta.

  • Order field changed
  • Order fulfillment field changed
  • Product field changed
  • Product variant field changed
  • Customer field changed

How to enable field change tracking

  1. Open the Flow Companion app.
  2. Go to Settings → Triggers.
  3. Use Add rule in the Field change section to choose which fields to monitor for each entity.
  4. Grant the requested Shopify scopes when prompted.

How field changes are tracked

Shopify webhooks report that something changed, but not the exact before/after values. Flow Companion stores the previous value for every tracked field in a dedicated metafield so it can compare the incoming webhook data.

  • When you enable a field rule, the app indexes existing items and fills their current field value in a dedicated metafield. For orders, the initial backfill covers the last 90 days.
  • Disabling a rule stops indexation and future trigger executions.

Suspended rules

If a field rule remains enabled while no workflows use its related triggers, Flow Companion suspends the rule to avoid unnecessary webhook processing. Suspended rules stop monitoring webhooks until you manually resume them or the matching trigger is activated again. Resuming may take time because the app needs to store current field values during indexation.

Workflow payload details

Field-change triggers send a Field change object with:

  • field – the human-readable field name.
  • stringValue – string representation of the previous and current values.
  • Optional numericValue, booleanValue, or moneySetValue when the field type supports them.
  • Order fulfillment triggers also include Changed order fulfillment: id so you can target the affected fulfillment.
  • Product variant triggers also include Changed product variant: id so you can target the affected variant.

Tag-change triggers provide Tags.added and Tags.removed arrays.

Reinstalling Flow Companion

If you uninstall and later reinstall the app:

  • All field rules reset; re-enable the ones you need.
  • Shopify will ask for the required scopes again.
  • Indexation restarts to rebuild stored values, ensuring tracking resumes from the moment you re-enable each rule.

Important considerations

  • In rare cases a trigger may fire twice (for example, if a connection issue prevents the app from seeing Shopify’s acknowledgement). The app retries automatically to ensure the workflow starts.
  • Large stores may take time to finish the initial indexation. You can continue working; status updates appear in the UI and the process runs in the background.