Automations#
Automations send one of your email templates to the customer automatically when a shipment, return, or claim event happens. Karla evaluates and sends them itself, so you don't need Shopify Flow, an external email tool, or any other integration in between.
In the Karla Portal, go to Notify → Automations.
An automation decides when an email goes out. The email template it points at decides what the email says. If you'd rather send emails from an external tool like Klaviyo or Brevo, use a Notify integration instead — or send templates from your own workflows with the Send Karla email action in Shopify Flow.
Before you start#
- Karla email sending is enabled for your shop. It's a premium add-on — until it's enabled, the page shows a Karla email sending banner with a Premium badge. You can review existing automations, but you can't create, edit, or enable them. Use the Contact us button to get it enabled.
- You have at least one active email template. Automations can only point at active templates; with none, New automation is disabled and the page links you to Create a template first.
- You have the editor role (or above) in the portal.
| Role | What you can do |
|---|---|
| viewer | See your automations |
| editor | Create, edit, enable, and disable automations |
| admin | Everything above, plus delete automations |
Create an automation#
- Click New automation.
- Give it a Name. Names must be unique within your shop.
- Pick a Trigger — the event that fires it (see Triggers below).
- Pick the Email template to send. The list shows your active templates with their language.
- Leave Enabled on to start sending right away, or switch it off to save the automation as a draft.
- Optionally, add Conditions to narrow down when it fires (see Conditions).
- Click Save automation.
The email goes to the customer's email address on the order, and the template's variables are filled in from the event that fired it.
If the same event already sends an email from Klaviyo, Brevo, or another integration, enabling an automation for it sends the customer two emails. Turn off the other tool's flow for that event, or keep only one active.
Triggers#
The Trigger list is grouped into three sections. Each shipment event maps to exactly one trigger — a parcel left with a neighbour fires Delivered to neighbour, not Delivered.
Shipment — events on the shipments you send to customers:
| Stage | Triggers |
|---|---|
| Order | Order placed, Order cancelled |
| On the way | Pre transit, In transit, Out for delivery |
| Delays and damage | Carrier delay, Delayed due to customer request, Damaged |
| Delivery problems | Delivery failed, Delivery failed address issue, Delivery failed forwarded to parcel shop, Delivery second attempt |
| Delivered | Delivered, Delivered to neighbour, Delivered to letterbox, Delivered to parcel shop, Delivered to parcel locker, Picked up |
| Sent back to you | Failed returned, Refused then returned, Not picked up then returned |
Each trigger is one of Karla's shipment event groups — Delivered to
neighbour is shipment_delivered_to_neighbour, and so on. To see which
carrier events belong to which group, look the group up in the
shipment events catalogue.
Returns — events on return shipments the customer sends back to you: In transit, Out for delivery, Carrier delay, Delivery failed, and Delivered. Every delivery-failure and delivery variant of a return maps to the single Delivery failed or Delivered trigger.
Claims — Claim created fires once when a new claim is created.
Conditions#
Conditions are optional. Without any, the table shows Always fires and the automation sends on every matching event. With conditions, all of them must match (up to 20 per automation).
| Field | Available for | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier | Shipment and Returns triggers | Karla's carrier reference, e.g. dhl-germany — the same value as the carrier template variable |
| Destination country | Shipment and Returns triggers | A two-letter country code from the order's delivery address, e.g. DE |
| Claim reason | Claim created | One of the Resolve claim reasons, e.g. Damage |
Each condition uses one of three operators: equals (a single value), is one of, or is not one of (comma-separated lists of up to 50 values).
- If the event has no value for a field — for example, the order has no delivery country — the condition doesn't match and the automation doesn't fire. Nothing errors.
- Changing the trigger removes conditions that don't apply to the new one; the dialog tells you when that happens.
How sending works#
- Every matching automation sends. Automations are independent: if two enabled automations match the same event, the customer gets both emails.
- Each automation sends once per shipment and trigger. Repeated events never resend the same automation's email to the same shipment — including triggers like Carrier delay that can happen more than once.
- Statuses only move forward. Once an automation email has gone out for a status on a shipment, later events with that status don't send again, and an earlier status arriving late (like In transit after Delivered) is skipped. The shipment Carrier delay, Damaged, and Delayed due to customer request triggers are exempt from this rule.
- Old events are skipped. Karla only sends for shipment events that are less than 10 hours old (24 hours for Delivered to parcel shop and Delivered to parcel locker), so a late carrier update never triggers a stale email.
- Claims send once per claim — Claim created only fires when the claim is created.
- Emails use your sender settings. Automation emails go out with the same reply-to address and sender name as every Karla-sent email — and from your own domain if you've set one up.
These rules are tracked separately from Klaviyo, webhooks, and other integrations — an email sent by an integration doesn't stop an automation from sending, and vice versa.
When an automation doesn't send#
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| The automation is disabled | It's ignored. Events that happen while it's off aren't sent later. |
| Its template is inactive or was deleted | The email is skipped. The table shows Unknown template for a deleted one; edit the automation to pick an active template |
| Karla email sending is disabled for your shop | The email is skipped, and the page is locked until sending is re-enabled |
| The order has no valid customer email address | The email is skipped |
Manage your automations#
The Your automations table shows each automation's Name, Trigger, Conditions, Template, and Enabled state. Use the Enabled switch to pause or resume an automation, the pencil to edit it, and the bin to delete it. Deleting is admin-only and can't be undone.
A shop can have up to 50 automations.
Related#
- Email templates — create the templates automations send.
- Email templates reference — the full variable list, and the Shopify Flow action.
- Send from your own domain — the custom sending domain on the enterprise tier.