Recipe — Build an order tracking field set

A complete worked example for e-commerce support. By the end you’ll have four conversation custom fields, one Sidekick detection rule populating the order number automatically, and one automation that routes refund-status conversations to the finance team.

What you’ll end up with

Four conversation fields, one section to group them, one Sidekick rule, one automation:

Conversation custom fields → Section "Order Context"
  ├── Order Number             (Text, auto-populated by Sidekick)
  ├── Order Status             (Select: pending / shipped / delivered / refunded)
  ├── Fulfillment Center       (Select: NA / EU / APAC)
  └── Refund Amount            (Number, USD)

Before you start

• Admin permissions on Custom Fields, Sidekick, and Automation Rules
• A Finance team configured in Settings → Teams
• An order number format you can describe — for the Sidekick regex (e.g. orders look like ORD-123456)

Step 1 — Create the section

In Settings → Custom Fields → Conversations:

1. Open Sections → New section.
2. Name: Order Context. Display order: 1 (or wherever you want it in the conversation panel).
3. Save.

Step 2 — Create the four fields

For each, click New field and fill in:

• Order Number — Text — Order Context — No — Key: order_number
• Order Status — Select — Order Context — No — Options: pending, shipped, delivered, refunded. Key: order_status
• Fulfillment Center — Select — Order Context — No — Options: na, eu, apac. Key: fulfillment_center
• Refund Amount — Number — Order Context — No — Key: refund_amount

Save each. The fields appear immediately on every existing conversation.

Step 3 — Wire Sidekick to extract the order number

Most order numbers are mentioned in plain text by the customer (“about my order ORD-123456”). A regex picks them out reliably.

In Settings → Sidekick → Detection rules → New detection rule:

• Name — Extract order number from message body
• Trigger — Message received
• Target entity — Conversation
• Target field — order_number
• Pattern type — Regex
• Pattern — \bORD-\d{6,}\b (adjust to your order number format)
• Skip if field already set — Yes

Save and enable.

Now any inbound message containing ORD-123456 writes that value to the conversation’s order number field automatically.

Step 4 — Route refund-status conversations to Finance

When a conversation’s order_status is set to refunded (manually by an agent, or by an integration), the conversation should bounce to the finance team for verification.

Build a new Automation:

• 1 — Trigger — Custom field updated (on conversation)
• 2 — Condition — conversation.custom_fields.order_status equals refunded
• 3 — Branch — Always
• 4 — Action 1 — Assign conversation → Team: Finance
• 5 — Action 2 — Add tag → Refund Verification
• 6 — Action 3 — Add note → “Auto-routed to Finance after order_status set to refunded.”
• 7 — Throttle — Per conversation, 1 per 24 hours

Save and enable.

Step 5 — Verify the whole flow

Send a test inbound email to a support inbox:

Hi, I’d like to check on order ORD-987654. The shipment seems delayed.

Open the resulting conversation:

• Within a few seconds, Order Number should populate with ORD-987654 (Sidekick).
• The “Order Context” section should be visible in the conversation panel.

Then manually set Order Status to refunded to test the automation:

• Within a few seconds, the conversation should reassign to the Finance team and pick up the Refund Verification tag.
• Manual Executions for the rule should show the run with all three actions succeeding.

Variants

• Multi-region routing. Use the Fulfillment Center field as a condition for region-specific teams: If fulfillment_center = eu → assign Finance EU; Else if = apac → assign Finance APAC; Else → assign Finance NA.
• Auto-tag by status. A second automation: when order_status changes to shipped, add the tag Order Shipped; when delivered, tag Order Delivered. Useful for filterable views.
• Refund-amount thresholds. When refund_amount > 500, additionally ping a Slack channel for high-value refund visibility.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Order number isn’t being extracted. Fix: The regex doesn’t match your actual order format. Open Sidekick activity for a test conversation and check what was attempted. Tighten or loosen the pattern.
• Symptom: Routing automation fires repeatedly. Fix: Throttle scope is wrong (probably global or per-tenant). Switch to per-conversation.
• Symptom: Sidekick overwrites a manually-set order number. Fix: “Skip if field already set” wasn’t enabled on the detection rule. Enable it.

See also

• Auto-populate a custom field with Sidekick
• Use a custom field in an automation
• VIP routing automation recipe — the same routing pattern for built-in customer level