1. Purpose
You built an order automation on one organization, it works, and now you want the same behaviour on another organization you run. This is how you move it across, and what to check once it lands.
2. Scope
Copying an order automation that already exists from one organization to another that you also have access to. Building an automation from scratch is a different job. So is a 3PL pushing its own automations down to client organizations, which works differently and is covered in section 5.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
Whoever owns the automation | Copies the code out of the source organization and rebuilds it on the target |
Organization admin | Confirms the new automation's priority sits sensibly alongside the ones already running |
One person can do the whole thing, as long as that person has Manage Shipping on both organizations. If you can see the automations list but the Create button is missing, that is the permission talking. Ask an admin on that organization to grant it, or hand them the copy step.
4. When you need this
Any time the same rule needs to apply in two places:
One brand selling through two organizations, such as a direct store and a 3PL fulfilled store.
A client who has just been set up on a second organization and wants their existing rules carried over.
You are about to retire one organization and want its automations preserved on the replacement.
You have found yourself rebuilding the same rule by hand for the second or third time.
5. Key concept: an automation belongs to one organization, and there is no copy button
This is the part that catches people out, and it is the whole document in one table.
What you would expect | What actually happens |
|---|---|
A Duplicate or Copy to organization action on the automations list | There is not one. An automation is created against whichever organization you are currently viewing, and nothing in the app reads one organization's automation while writing another's. |
Automations shared between your related organizations | Sharing exists in one direction only, from a 3PL parent down to the client organizations underneath it, and only for automations the parent itself owns. Two organizations that simply belong to the same brand cannot share this way. |
So the move is a copy and paste of the automation's code. That is genuinely the supported route today rather than a workaround, and it takes about two minutes once you know where the code lives.
Where it lives is the Code Editor tab. Every automation has two tabs, Rule Builder and Code Editor, and they are two views of the same thing. The Code Editor always holds the complete automation, which is why you copy from there rather than trying to recreate the visual steps one by one.
6. Before you start
Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
You have Manage Shipping on both organizations | Viewing an automation only needs View Shipping, but creating one needs Manage Shipping. It is common to be able to read the source and not write the target. |
You know what the target organization already runs | Automations run in priority order and a later one can override an earlier one on the same setting. Open the target's automations list and note the priorities before you add to it. |
Anything the automation names by name also exists on the target | If the automation refers to a packaging or a shipping option by its name, that name has to exist on the target organization too. Nothing warns you when it does not. See section 9. |
7. Procedure: copy the automation across
In the source organization, go to Automations and open the automation you want to copy.
Switch to the Code Editor tab.
Click inside the editor, select all of it, and copy.
Switch to the target organization. The automations list lives at /dashboard/your-organization-name/automations, or use the organization switcher and navigate to Automations.
Click Create, then Create Draft Automation. This gives you an empty automation to paste into.
Switch to the Code Editor tab, select all of the placeholder code, and paste over it.
Click the gear icon. Set the Name, and set the Priority so it runs where you want it in the order. Lower numbers run first.
Click Test Function and search for a real order that the automation should act on. Check the result is what you expect.
Save.
8. Verification
Three things tell you it took:
The automation appears in the target organization's automations list, at the priority you set.
Test Function, run against an order that should match, returns the setting you expect. Run it a second time against an order that should not match and confirm you get nothing back. A rule that fires on everything is the easier mistake to miss.
The next real order that matches picks the setting up.
9. Constraints and caveats
Watch out for | What to do |
|---|---|
The Rule Builder tab warns that it cannot show every step visually | Expected, and safe to ignore. What runs is the code, not the visual steps, so the automation behaves exactly as written. You will see this on any automation whose code was written or edited by hand. |
Names are not translated for you | If the code names a packaging or a shipping option, and the target organization has nothing by that name, that part of the automation quietly does nothing. No error, no warning. Check the names before you rely on it. |
Conditions that were true on the source may not be true on the target | A rule written for one organization often carries an assumption from it, such as a country or a sales channel. Read the copy with fresh eyes and ask whether every condition still applies. Section 10 is exactly this trap. |
The two copies do not stay in sync | From the moment you save, they are independent. Editing one does not touch the other, so a later change has to be made in both places. |
10. Worked example
A brand runs two organizations, a direct one and one fulfilled through their 3PL. They had an automation on the direct organization that applied signature on delivery to any order tagged for it, and they wanted the same on the other side.
Observation | Reading |
|---|---|
The automation exists on one organization and there is no way to send it to the other | Normal. Copy the code from the Code Editor tab, as in section 7. |
The existing automations on the target organization sit at priorities 5, 10 and 15 | Set the new one to 20 so it runs last and can override the others rather than being overridden. |
The target organization already has orders carrying the tag the automation looks for | Good sign. The automation will start acting on real orders as soon as it is saved, with nothing else to set up. |
The automation only acts on orders going to Canada, but the target organization ships to the United States as well | This is the trap in section 9. Copied as written, every United States order would be skipped. It was flagged to the customer as their decision rather than changed quietly, because it is a shipping policy question and not a technical one. |
That last row is the habit worth taking from this document. A copied automation carries its original organization's assumptions with it, and the person who wrote it is the right person to confirm those assumptions still hold.