Shopify Order Fulfillment: Solving the 'In Progress' Filter Gap

Hey everyone! As a Shopify expert who spends a lot of time digging into the community forums, I often come across discussions that hit home for so many store owners. One topic that recently caught my eye, and frankly, resonated with my own experience, was about a very specific challenge in managing order fulfillment statuses. It's about that tricky "In progress" status and how it impacts your ability to get a clear picture of what truly needs to be packed.

The original post, kicked off by StorySparks, highlighted a common frustration: trying to create a saved view in Shopify Orders for work that hasn't started yet. You'd think filtering for "Unfulfilled" would do the trick, right? But here's the rub: "Unfulfilled" often includes orders that are already marked "In progress." And to make matters more challenging, Shopify's existing filters don't let you explicitly exclude "In progress" from your views. You can exclude "Fulfilled," "Partially fulfilled," "Scheduled," "On hold," or "Declined," but not "In progress." Talk about a headache when you're trying to create a precise pick list!

The Core Problem: "Unfulfilled" Isn't Always What It Seems

Shawn-Z, another helpful voice in the thread, perfectly articulated why this is a "hole" in the system. He pointed out that "Unfulfilled" in the admin is a broader category than just "nobody has started packing." So, if a packer has begun work on an order and it moves to "In progress," it still falls under the "Unfulfilled" umbrella, cluttering up your view of truly untouched orders.

Imagine this: You're running a busy store, and you want to generate a daily pick list for all orders that are genuinely waiting to be processed from scratch. If your list includes items that are already being worked on, it leads to inefficiencies, potential double-work, and general confusion in your fulfillment center. This isn't just about a minor annoyance; it can directly impact your team's productivity and your customers' experience.

The Ideal Solution (and the Community's Wish)

Both StorySparks and Shawn-Z agree that the ideal solution would be for Shopify to add "In progress" as a first-class filter value. This would allow merchants to easily create a saved view that says something like "Fulfillment status is Unfulfilled AND Fulfillment status is not In progress." That would be clean, simple, and incredibly effective for managing workflows.

Until Shopify implements this much-needed feature (and I encourage everyone to upvote that feature request in the community!), we need a reliable workaround. Thankfully, the community discussion offered a solid approach.

The Practical Workaround: Tags and Shopify Flow

Shawn-Z's suggestion is a robust workaround that many of you can implement right now: using order tags, ideally automated with Shopify Flow. The basic idea is to tag an order as "packing-started" (or whatever makes sense for your team) when it moves to "In progress." Then, you can filter your orders to show only those that are "Unfulfilled" AND "tag is not packing-started."

How to Implement the Workaround with Shopify Flow

If you're on a Shopify plan that includes Flow (like Advanced Shopify or Plus), this becomes a powerful automation tool. Shopify Flow allows you to automate tasks based on events in your store, making this workaround truly hands-off once set up.

Here's a step-by-step guide to setting this up:

1. Access Shopify Flow: From your Shopify admin, go to Apps and open Shopify Flow. If you don't have it installed, you might need to add it from the Shopify App Store.
2. Create a New Workflow: Click on Create workflow.
3. Set the Trigger: Choose the trigger "Fulfillment order moved to in progress". This is the crucial event that tells Flow when someone starts working on an order.
4. Add a Condition (Optional but Recommended): While not strictly necessary if you're only tagging when fulfillment starts, you could add a condition like "Fulfillment order status is equal to In progress" to be extra precise.
5. Add an Action: Choose "Add order tags". Input a tag like packing-started (or in-progress-fulfillment, whatever you prefer).
6. Create a Second Workflow (Crucial for Accuracy!): You'll need another workflow to remove this tag once the order is actually fulfilled. Otherwise, fulfilled orders will keep the "packing-started" tag, and your filters will get messy later.
   • Trigger: Choose "Fulfillment order fulfilled".
   • Action: Choose "Remove order tags". Input the same tag you added (e.g., packing-started).
7. Activate Workflows: Make sure both workflows are turned on.

Creating Your Saved Order View

Once your Flow is active and has had a chance to tag some orders, you can create your custom view:

1. Go to Orders in your Shopify admin.
2. Click on the filter icon (the funnel).
3. Add a filter for "Fulfillment status" and select "is Unfulfilled".
4. Add another filter for "Tag" and select "is not packing-started" (or your chosen tag).
5. Click "Save view" and give it a clear name like "New Orders - Not Started" or "Ready to Pick."

This saved view will now give you a clean, accurate list of orders that are genuinely waiting for fulfillment to begin. As Shawn-Z noted, this is far more reliable and scalable than a one-off "export + spreadsheet sorting" for daily operations.

It's a bit of a workaround, yes, but it solves a real operational problem and ensures your team isn't wasting time on orders already in progress. Plus, it's a great example of how leveraging Shopify's built-in tools like Flow can help bridge gaps and make your fulfillment process much smoother. Keep an eye on those community feature requests, and in the meantime, happy tagging and flowing!