Tutorial
Set up StaffPing in 5 minutes
From install to your first WhatsApp alert — five short steps. No WhatsApp Business setup required on your end, and the free trial is enough to fully test the flow before paying.
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Install StaffPing from the Shopify App Store
Open the Shopify App Store and search for StaffPing, or use the install link below. Click Install and approve the requested permissions. StaffPing opens on its setup guide: you set it up and test it on your own phone before you choose a plan.
Why this matters: StaffPing requests read-only Shopify access to the data its alerts use: orders, draft orders, products, locations, fulfillment orders, customers, and payment disputes. Your team's WhatsApp numbers stay in our systems only for the purpose of delivering alerts, and we follow Shopify's GDPR webhooks for customer and shop data redaction. - 2
Add and verify your WhatsApp number
On the setup guide, click Add recipient. Enter a friendly label (e.g. "Store Manager") and your WhatsApp phone number with the international country code (e.g. +92 300 1234567 or +1 415 555 0100). A 6-digit verification code arrives on WhatsApp from the official StaffPing number; enter it in the app.
Why this matters: Verification confirms the number is real and reachable. StaffPing never sends an alert to an unverified number, which prevents messages going to the wrong person. Before you choose a plan you can add one number; add the rest of your team once your trial starts.Common gotcha: If the verification code doesn't arrive within a minute, the most common cause is a wrong country code or a typo. Double-check the format — the country code is required and StaffPing uses it to route the message to the right region. - 3
See your alert and send yourself a test
Click Set up ping. Pick a style (Compact, Detailed or No payment) and the language of the alert, and the preview shows what your team will receive. Click Send me a test: a sample alert arrives on your WhatsApp, filled with placeholder order data.
Why this matters: You see the real message on a real phone before you pay anything. WhatsApp alerts have strict formatting rules, so it's worth knowing now how much of the order fits on the screen. Before you choose a plan you can send yourself two test alerts. - 4
Start your free trial and go live
Click Start free trial, choose a plan and approve it in Shopify. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial: the monthly fee is waived during the trial, and your first 50 delivered messages are free. Back in StaffPing, your first ping opens with the style you picked; one click creates it, and your team gets an alert for every new order from then on.
Why this matters: The trial starts when you approve the plan, so all 7 days go to receiving real alerts, not to setting up. You can change the first ping's trigger, recipients or style any time from the Pings page. - 5
Add more pings for your team
To alert more people or more events, go to the Pings page and click Create Ping. Pick the trigger event: order created (every new order), order paid (only paid orders; cash on delivery orders are not paid until the cash is collected), order fulfilled (when an order ships), order cancelled, or payment dispute created. Give the ping a clear name like "All paid orders → Warehouse" so future-you knows what it does at a glance. Assign one or more verified recipients. Pick a message style (Compact, Detailed, No payment info, or Order PDF) to control how much of the order each message shows. Optionally add filter rules: order total, product, product SKU, collection, shipping country, payment gateway, financial status, fulfillment status, or branch location. Order tags work on fulfilled and cancelled alerts. Use the Send Test button on the ping's page to send a sample alert to its recipients.
Why this matters: Filter rules are how you avoid alert fatigue. A small store might want every order, but a busier store benefits from filtering, e.g. "alert the warehouse only for orders above $100" or "alert the fulfillment lead only for international shipping". Multiple rules on the same ping combine with AND logic, so you can stack conditions. The style matters just as much: Compact (the default) shows the order number, customer name, payment and fulfillment status, and shipping country, with a button that opens the order, but no line items; Detailed adds the customer's phone, the items, the shipping address, the total, and payment details; No payment info keeps the items and drops the money fields; Order PDF sends a short alert with the whole order attached as a PDF. Teams that pack or cook from the alert should switch away from Compact. Test messages are marked with a Test badge in the Logs page and are never billed against your usage cap.Common gotcha: Pings are independent. If you have two pings that both match an order (e.g. one for all orders, one for high-value orders), both will fire and a recipient assigned to both will receive two messages. Use rules to keep pings non-overlapping, or accept the duplication if multiple teams need the same alert. - 6
Watch the Logs page
Once a real order matches your ping's trigger and rules, you'll see the message appear in the Logs page within seconds. Each row shows status (queued, sent, delivered, failed), recipient, ping name, trigger event, and timestamp. On paid plans, you'll also see a Billed or Free badge that tells you whether Meta charged for that specific message.
Why this matters: The Logs page is your operational source of truth. If a team member claims they didn't receive an alert, the Logs page tells you whether the message was sent, delivered, or failed — and why. You can filter by status, trigger, ping, or billing state to audit costs and reliability over time. Failed messages get a Resend button so you can retry without re-triggering the original order event.Common gotcha: Most failures are permanent (invalid phone, paused template) and Resend won't help — you need to fix the root cause. Transient failures (Meta's #131000 generic error, rate limiting) are retried automatically before a message is marked Failed. If a message still shows Failed, use Resend.
That's it — you're done.
Real order events from this point onward will fire matching pings. You can adjust triggers, recipients, or filters at any time without re-installing or re-verifying. Need a hand? Email us and we'll get back within a day. For deeper questions about pricing, billing, or compliance, see the FAQ.
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