Starting a workflow from another workflow

The application provides new actions to start workflows that begin with custom triggers.

Actions for starting a single workflow

Action that starts a custom workflow and is independent of data from previous steps:

Start custom workflow — runs workflows that use the Custom trigger triggered trigger.

Actions that start custom workflows for the selected customer, order, or product in the current workflow:

Start custom customer workflow — runs workflows that use the Customer: custom trigger triggered trigger.
Start custom order workflow — runs workflows that use the Order: custom trigger triggered trigger.
Start custom product workflow — runs workflows that use the Product: custom trigger triggered trigger.
Start custom company workflow — runs workflows that use the Company: custom trigger triggered trigger.

Scheduling workflow start

All single-workflow actions support an optional Start time or delay parameter that allows you to schedule the workflow to start at a future time instead of immediately.

Accepted formats:

ISO 8601 date — e.g., 2025-03-15T10:00:00Z or 2025-03-15T10:00:00+02:00. If no timezone is specified, UTC is assumed.
Delay in seconds — e.g., 60 seconds or 1 second.

If the field is empty, the workflow starts immediately.

Example

To start a workflow 30 minutes after the action is triggered:

Set Start time or delay to 1800 seconds

To start a workflow at a specific time:

Set Start time or delay to 2025-06-01T09:00:00Z

Example

Add the Start custom order workflow action. Fill in the Trigger specifier field with a value that describes the purpose of the workflow you want to start: Start workflow from another workflow – action

Create another workflow that starts with the Order: custom trigger triggered trigger. Immediately after the trigger, add a condition on the Specifier field so the value equals the one passed from the previous workflow. Add the rest of the logic after the condition. Start workflow from another workflow – trigger

This configures one workflow to start another workflow while passing the current order.

Warning! If you have multiple custom workflows, combine them into one to reduce the load on Shopify Flow. Learn more here.

Actions for batch-starting workflows

There are also actions that start workflows for multiple items at once — by query or by metaobject reference. Learn more.

Additional considerations

It is important to know that these actions only start workflows but do not wait for their completion. If you want to perform a subsequent action after the started custom workflow completes, you need to add this action to the end of the started custom workflow.

Infinite loop detection

The app includes loop detection to prevent infinite recursive workflows. If a workflow is triggered more than 10 times with the same object and the same Specifier within 30 minutes, the loop detection will activate and the workflow will terminate with an error.