How to use OrderBadger v1.1 for WooCommerce

1. Getting started

OrderBadger installs as a standard WooCommerce plugin. Once activated, you'll find it under WooCommerce → OrderBadger in your WordPress admin menu. The plugin is organised into three tabs: Inbox (your task queue), Build (badge and rule setup), and Settings (connection and configuration).

Requirements

• WordPress 5.6 or higher
• WooCommerce 5.0 or higher (HPOS compatible)
• PHP 7.4 or higher

Initial setup

2. The Build tab

Build is where you set up everything - badges, rules, and automation. It's designed as a single workflow so you can go from zero to live badges in minutes. The Build tab is organised into these sections:

1. Starter Rules - 27 pre-built rule templates organised by vertical (General, Customer, Shipping, Apparel, Food, Digital, Advanced), plus 10 guides and links to 150 knowledge base articles. The fastest way to get started.
2. Badge Builder - Create a new badge and author a rule in plain English or Logic Mode. Set label, colour, level, and optional advanced settings.
3. Your Rules - View all compiled rules with their linked badges. Enable, disable, or delete rules.
4. Preview / Test - Test your rules against recent orders before going live.
5. Badge Library - Advanced badge management - edit interactive settings, response options, SLA, and assignment config.
6. Plan / Usage - See your active rule count, free tier quota, and subscription status.

3. Starter rules

Starter rules are ready-made templates that create both a badge and a rule in one click. They're the fastest way to get value from OrderBadger - most stores can be up and running with useful badges in under five minutes.

Browsing starter rules

Open the Build tab. The Starter Rules section shows 27 templates as compact cards in a tile grid. Use the pill filters at the top to browse by category:

• All - View all 27 templates
• Recommended - A curated selection of the most popular rules (shown by default)
• General, Customer, Shipping, Apparel, Food, Digital, Advanced - Filter by vertical
• Guides - 10 how-to guides covering common order management challenges (opens on orderbadger.com)

Use the search box to find templates by keyword. Search matches across template names, descriptions, conditions, and related knowledge base articles.

Knowledge base links

Each starter rule card has a small (?) help icon in the top-right corner. Clicking it opens the corresponding article in the OrderBadger Knowledge Base, which contains detailed setup guidance, example rules, frequently asked questions, and recommended actions for all 150+ rule templates.

How starter rules work

Available template categories

Category	Example templates
General	High Value Order, First-Time Customer, Repeat Customer, International, Heavy Discount, Coupon Used, Cash on Delivery
Customer	Guest Checkout, VIP Customer, Lapsed Customer, Win-Back Customer, Refund History, Frequent Recent Buyer, New Account
Shipping	After-Hours Order, Weekend Order, Free Shipping, Repeat Destination
Apparel	Multi-Item Order, Contains Sale Items
Food	Heavy Order, Contains Backordered Item
Digital	Mixed Physical & Digital Order
Advanced	Low Stock Warning, New Product for Customer, Single-SKU Reorder, VIP Trying Discounted Item

4. Creating badges

Before writing custom rules, you'll want to create the badges those rules will apply. Think of badges as the visual labels your team sees on orders - the rules decide when each badge appears. (If you used a starter rule, the badge was created for you automatically.)

Navigate to the Build tab

Go to WooCommerce → OrderBadger → Build. The Badge Builder section lets you create a new badge and rule in one flow. For editing existing badges, scroll down to the Badge Library.

Create a new badge

Each badge has three core properties:

• Label - The text that appears on the badge (e.g. "High Value", "Age Restricted", "Fragile")
• Colour - Choose from 8 colours to visually distinguish badge types at a glance
• Level - Either Order (badge applies to the whole order) or Item (badge applies to individual line items)

Advanced settings

Expand the Advanced section on any badge card to configure additional properties introduced in v1.1:

• Severity - Choose from Info, Warning, or Critical. Severity affects how the badge is displayed in the Badge Inbox and can be used to filter and prioritise tasks.
• Interactive - Enable the interactive checkbox to turn this badge into a task that requires a structured response (e.g. Pass or Fail). See Interactive badges for details.
• Assignment - Set to Unassigned (default) or Assign to role. When assigned to a role, badge tasks in the Inbox can be claimed by users with that WordPress role. See Ownership and claiming.
• SLA - Enable a service-level agreement with a duration in minutes and a scope (from created or from claimed). Badges exceeding the SLA duration appear as Overdue in the Inbox. See Snooze and SLA.

Available colours

Free tier

The free plan includes unlimited badges - both visual and interactive. Create as many as you need, with no restrictions. Badges can also be pinned manually to any order at no cost. The free tier limit of 3 applies only to active automated rules (see section 9). Assignment, SLA, audit trail, and digest notifications are available on the Pro plan.

5. Writing rules in plain English

This is what makes OrderBadger different. Instead of building rules with complex dropdown menus and condition pickers, you describe what you need the way you'd explain it to a colleague. OrderBadger's AI compiles your plain-English description into evaluation logic automatically.

How it works

Navigate to WooCommerce → OrderBadger → Build and scroll to the Badge Builder. The Automated (plain English) mode is selected by default.

Example rules

Here are some plain English rules that work well. OrderBadger v1.1 understands over 40 order fields including customer history, shipping context, and time:

• "Flag any order containing a product in the Spirits category"
• "Mark orders over £1,000 as high value"
• "Badge orders shipping to the United States, Canada, or Australia"
• "Flag orders where the customer has placed more than 10 previous paid orders"
• "Mark orders from customers who haven't ordered in over 6 months"
• "Flag orders where the customer has had 3 or more refunds"
• "Badge orders placed outside business hours"
• "Flag orders that are nearly depleting stock on any item"
• "Mark orders containing both physical and digital items"
• "Flag high-value orders from guest checkout customers"

6. Logic mode rules

If you prefer a structured approach, OrderBadger also offers Logic Mode - a condition builder that lets you define rules using dropdowns and fields. No AI, no natural language - just deterministic conditions that compile directly.

When to use Logic Mode

• You want precise, guaranteed-exact conditions
• Your rule is simple enough to express as field + operator + value
• You prefer structured inputs over writing descriptions

How it works

Toggle to Logic mode in the Badge Builder on the Build tab. The interface switches to a condition builder where you define rules as rows of conditions, all combined with AND logic (i.e. "when ALL conditions match").

Available fields

Field	Operators	Example
Order Total	greater than, less than, equals, not equal	Order Total > 500
Item Count	greater than, less than, equals, not equal	Item Count > 10
Shipping Country	equals, not equal	Shipping Country = US
Payment Method	equals, not equal	Payment Method = bacs
Product Category	contains, not contains	Category contains Alcohol
Customer Order Count	greater than, less than, equals, not equal	Order Count = 1 (new customer)

Logic mode rules skip the confidence-scoring step entirely. You build your conditions, select your badges, and save - the rule compiles immediately and deterministically.

Plain English vs Logic Mode

Feature	Plain English	Logic Mode
Input method	Natural language text	Dropdowns and value fields
Confidence scoring	Yes (80% threshold)	Not needed
Best for	Complex, nuanced rules	Simple, precise conditions
Combines conditions	Described naturally	AND logic (all must match)

7. Expanded order fields

OrderBadger v1.1 dramatically expands the data available for rule evaluation. Instead of just order totals and shipping countries, you can now write rules that reference customer purchase history, item-level details, shipping context, and time of order. Over 40 derived fields are available across five namespaces.

Customer history fields

These fields let you write rules based on who the customer is and what they've done before:

• Previous paid order count - How many completed orders the customer has placed before this one
• Lifetime spend - Total net spend from prior paid orders
• Days since last order - How long since the customer last bought something
• Average order value - The customer's typical basket size
• Refund count - How many prior orders had refunds
• Cancelled order count - Prior cancellations
• Account age - Days since the WooCommerce account was created
• Guest checkout - Whether the order was placed without a registered account
• Recent activity - Orders in the last 30 or 365 days
• Reactivated customer - True when a customer returns after 180+ days of inactivity

Order composition fields

• Total quantity, distinct products, distinct categories - What's in the basket
• Total weight, max item weight - Shipping weight calculations
• Contains backorder / sale / virtual / physical items - Item type flags
• Discount percentage, coupon count - Promotional analysis
• Single SKU order - Detects single-product orders
• Mixed physical and digital - Split-fulfilment detection

Item-level fields

These fields evaluate per line item, enabling rules like "flag if the customer has never bought this product before":

• Customer's previous purchases of this SKU - Repeat vs. first-time purchases
• Days since customer last bought this item
• Stock remaining after order - Low-stock detection
• Is backordered - Per-item backorder status
• Line discount percentage

Shipping and time fields

• International order - Shipping country differs from store base country
• Shipping zone - WooCommerce zone ID and name
• Free shipping, method count - Shipping method analysis
• Order hour and day of week - Time-based rules (e.g. out-of-hours orders)
• Business hours flag - Whether the order was placed during configurable business hours

8. Testing and previewing rules

OrderBadger gives you multiple ways to verify your rules before they go live, so you never deploy a rule that doesn't do what you expect.

Automatic preview on save

When you save a new rule, it's automatically tested against your last 10 orders. You'll see a results table showing which orders matched the rule and which didn't. This gives you immediate feedback before activating anything.

Test a single order

On any order's detail page, the OrderBadger Badges metabox includes a Test Rules section. Click it to evaluate every rule - active and inactive - against that specific order. Each rule shows whether it matched, didn't match, or encountered an error.

Preview across recent orders

The Build tab includes a Preview / Test section that tests all your current rules against recent orders in a summary table. This is useful for spot-checking after making changes to multiple rules.

9. Managing active rules

OrderBadger uses a factset system to manage which rules are active for evaluation. This gives you precise control over what's running and the ability to roll back if needed.

Activating a rule

Newly saved rules start as drafts. After reviewing the test results, click Activate Rule to commit the badge and add it to your active ruleset. This triggers an attestation that locks the rule into an immutable factset. If you dismiss instead, the draft badge and rule are deleted.

Enabling and disabling rules

The Build tab's Your Rules section shows all your rules in a table. Each rule has a checkbox to enable or disable it. After toggling the rules you want, click Apply Changes to re-attest and update your active factset.

What is a factset?

A factset is a signed, versioned snapshot of your active rules. Every time you change which rules are enabled, a new factset is created. This means:

• Immutability - Once attested, a factset can't be modified. Your audit trail is permanent.
• Rollback - You can reactivate a previous factset if you need to undo changes.
• Traceability - Every order evaluation records which factset was used, so you always know exactly which rules were in effect.

Free tier limits

The free plan allows up to 3 active automated rules. You can create more rules in a pending state and swap them in and out as needed. Badge definitions (both visual and interactive), manual badge pinning, and the Badge Inbox are unlimited on all plans. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited active rules, the audit trail, assignment and SLA, and digest notifications.

10. Badges on your orders

Once your rules are active, badges appear automatically on your WooCommerce orders. No extra steps, no manual checking - your team sees the right information the moment they open the orders list.

Order list view

OrderBadger adds a Badges column to your WooCommerce orders list, right next to the order status. Each order displays its matched badges as colour-coded pills. This works with both the modern HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) and legacy post-based WooCommerce setups.

The order list also includes Badge and Severity filter dropdowns, letting you quickly narrow down orders to those carrying a specific badge or a particular severity level.

Order detail view

When you open an individual order, the OrderBadger Badges metabox appears in the sidebar. It shows:

• Actions Required - Unanswered interactive badges that need a response (Pass or Fail). This section appears above Applied Badges when there are outstanding tasks.
• Applied Badges - All badges matched by active rules. Answered interactive badges display a coloured border (green for pass, red for fail) and a response icon.
• Manually pinned badges - Any badges added by hand (see section 8)
• Last evaluated - When the order was last checked against your rules

When are orders evaluated?

By default, orders are evaluated when they reach the Processing status (i.e. when payment is confirmed). You can change this trigger in Settings. You can also manually re-evaluate any order from its detail page at any time.

11. Manual badge pinning

Sometimes your team needs to add a badge that no rule would catch - a customer called with special instructions, or a product has a one-off issue. OrderBadger supports manual badge pinning for exactly these cases.

How to pin a badge

Open any order's detail page and find the OrderBadger Badges metabox. Below the auto-applied badges, you'll see checkboxes for all your badge definitions. Tick the ones you want to add and they'll be pinned immediately.

How it works

• Manual badges are stored separately from auto-evaluated badges
• They persist regardless of rule changes - they won't disappear if you update your rules
• Both manual and auto-evaluated badges display together on the order
• You can remove a manual badge at any time by unticking its checkbox

12. Badge Inbox

The Badge Inbox is the operational home for working badge tasks. It provides a single view of all badge instances across all orders, with powerful filters to help your team focus on what matters right now.

Accessing the Inbox

The Inbox is the first tab you'll see when you open WooCommerce → OrderBadger, provided you have at least one active rule configured. The plugin progressively shows the most relevant tab - if no rules exist yet, it opens on Settings instead.

Filters

Use the filter bar at the top of the Inbox to narrow down the list:

• Badge - Show only instances of a specific badge
• State - Filter by Unanswered, Answered, or Applied (non-interactive badges)
• Severity - Filter by Info, Warning, or Critical
• Ownership - Show Mine (claimed by you), Unclaimed, or All
• SLA - Show only Overdue badges that have exceeded their SLA duration
• Include snoozed - Toggle to show or hide badges that have been temporarily snoozed

What each row shows

Each row in the Inbox represents a single badge instance on a specific order. The columns are:

• Badge - The colour-coded badge pill
• Severity - Info, Warning, or Critical
• State - Unanswered, Answered (with the response label in colour), or Applied
• Owner - The user who claimed the task, or "Unclaimed"
• Order - The order number with the customer's name
• Age - How long ago the badge was created
• SLA - A visual indicator showing whether the badge is within SLA, approaching, or overdue
• Actions - Quick actions available for that badge

Available actions

From the Inbox, you can take action on any badge without opening the order:

• Respond - For interactive badges, submit a Pass or Fail response directly from the row
• Claim - Take ownership of an unclaimed badge task
• Reassign - Transfer a badge task to a different team member (admin only)
• Snooze - Temporarily hide the badge from the Inbox (see Snooze and SLA)
• Reset - Clear a response and return the badge to the Unanswered state
• History - View the inline audit timeline for that badge instance
• View order - Jump directly to the order detail page

13. Interactive badges

Interactive badges go beyond visual flagging - they allow your team to record structured responses directly on each badge. This turns badges into lightweight tasks with a clear outcome.

Enabling interactive mode

When creating or editing a badge in the Build tab's Badge Library, expand the Advanced section and tick the Interactive checkbox. Once enabled, this badge will prompt for a Pass or Fail response wherever it appears.

Responding on order pages

On an order's detail page, interactive badges that haven't been answered yet appear in the Actions Required section of the OrderBadger metabox. Each badge pill displays tick and cross icons inside it. Click the tick to pass or the cross to fail.

Once responded to, the badge moves down to the Applied Badges section. It displays a coloured border - green for pass, red for fail - along with the response icon, so the outcome is visible at a glance.

Responding from the Inbox

In the Badge Inbox, the State column shows the current state of each interactive badge. Unanswered badges display action buttons directly in the row. After responding, the State column shows the response label as coloured text (green for Pass, red for Fail).

Resetting a response

If a response was submitted in error, use the Reset action (available in the Inbox and on the order page) to clear the response and return the badge to the Unanswered state.

14. Ownership and claiming

When your team has more than one person working orders, it helps to know who is responsible for each badge task. OrderBadger's ownership system lets you assign badges to roles and claim individual tasks.

Assigning badges to a role

In the Advanced section of a badge definition (see Creating badges), set the Assignment option to Assign to role and choose a WordPress role (e.g. Shop Manager, Warehouse Staff). Any badge instance created from this definition will appear as Unclaimed in the Inbox for users with that role.

Claiming a badge task

When you see an unclaimed badge in the Badge Inbox or on an order detail page, click the Claim button to take ownership. Once claimed:

• The badge shows your name in the Owner column of the Inbox
• Other team members can still see the badge but know it's being handled
• If an SLA is configured, the SLA clock can optionally start from the moment the badge is claimed (see Snooze and SLA)

Badges without assignment

Badges set to Unassigned (the default) don't require claiming. They appear in the Inbox for all users and can be responded to by anyone. This is suitable for small teams where everyone shares responsibility.

15. Snooze and SLA

Not every badge task can be handled immediately, and some need to be handled within a deadline. Snooze and SLA features help your team manage timing.

Snoozing a badge

If a badge task can't be addressed right now - perhaps you're waiting for information or the order isn't ready - you can snooze it from the Badge Inbox. Snoozed badges are hidden from the default Inbox view until the snooze expires.

Snooze presets:

• 1 hour - Hide for one hour
• 4 hours - Hide for four hours
• Tomorrow 9 am - Hide until 9:00 am the next day

You can always view snoozed badges by enabling the Include snoozed filter toggle in the Inbox.

Setting up SLAs

Service-level agreements are configured per badge in the Advanced section of the badge definition (see Creating badges). To enable an SLA:

1. Tick the SLA checkbox
2. Enter a duration in minutes (e.g. 60 for one hour, 480 for a full working day)
3. Choose a scope: from created (the clock starts when the badge is applied to the order) or from claimed (the clock starts when a team member claims the badge)

How SLA status appears

In the Badge Inbox, the SLA column shows a visual indicator for each badge with an SLA configured:

• Within SLA - On track, no action needed
• Approaching - Nearing the deadline
• Overdue - The SLA duration has been exceeded and the badge needs urgent attention

Use the Inbox's SLA filter to show only overdue badges when you need to prioritise escalations.

Background SLA checks

A cron job runs every 15 minutes to check for badges that have exceeded their SLA duration. When a badge becomes overdue, it is flagged in the Inbox and (if digest notifications are enabled) included in the next digest email.

16. Audit trail

For teams that need full traceability, OrderBadger's audit trail records every significant event related to badges on an order.

Where to find it

Open any order's detail page and look for the OrderBadger Audit metabox. It displays a chronological timeline of all badge-related events for that order.

What gets recorded

The audit trail captures:

• Evaluations - When the order was evaluated against rules and which badges were applied
• Responses - Pass or Fail responses on interactive badges, including who responded
• Status changes - Badges moving between states (e.g. unanswered to answered)
• Claims - When a team member claimed ownership of a badge task
• Snooze events - When a badge was snoozed and when the snooze expired
• Overdue flags - When a badge exceeded its SLA duration

Event format

Each event in the timeline shows:

• An icon indicating the event type
• A description of what happened
• The actor - the user or system process responsible
• A timestamp showing exactly when it occurred

17. Digest notifications

Keep your team informed without notification fatigue. OrderBadger sends a daily email summary of outstanding badge tasks so nothing slips through the cracks.

How digests work

Once a day, at a configurable time, OrderBadger compiles a summary of all outstanding badge tasks and sends it by email. There are two types of digest:

• Personal digest - Sent to each assignee, covering only the badges they've claimed or that are assigned to their role
• Role digest - Sent to all users in a role, covering unclaimed badges in their queue

Configuring digests

Digest settings are managed in the Settings tab under the Notifications section. You can:

• Choose the send time for daily digests (e.g. 8:00 am)
• Enable or disable digests for specific roles

User opt-out

Individual users can opt out of digest emails from their WordPress profile page. This allows team members who prefer to work directly from the Inbox to silence email notifications without affecting others.

18. Use case ideas

OrderBadger is flexible enough to handle almost any order-flagging scenario. Here are ideas to get you started, grouped by business need.

Compliance and safety

Fulfilment and logistics

Revenue and customer experience

Customer intelligence New in v1.1

Payments and fraud

These are starting points. If you can describe a pattern in your orders, OrderBadger can detect it and badge it. With v1.1's expanded field catalog, you can reference customer purchase history, item-level data, shipping zones, and time context in any rule. For many more ideas - including industry-specific rules for fashion, food, electronics, health, and more - browse the Knowledge Base with 150+ ready-made rule articles.

19. Tips and best practices

Start with starter rules

Don't build from scratch. Browse the starter templates in the Build tab and apply the ones that match your store. Use the (?) help links on each card to read the full knowledge base article, or explore the full rule library (150+ articles) and how-to guides for inspiration. Most stores can go from install to live badges in under five minutes.

Be specific in your rules

Vague rules produce low confidence scores and unreliable results. Instead of "flag expensive orders", write "flag orders where the total exceeds £500." Include exact thresholds, product categories, and country names.

Use colour intentionally

Develop a colour system your team understands at a glance. A common pattern:

• Red - Requires action before dispatch (compliance, age check)
• Amber - Needs review or attention (high value, manual payment)
• Blue - Informational routing (international, specific warehouse)
• Green - Positive signals (new customer, VIP)

Test before activating

Always review the automatic preview that runs against your recent orders after saving a rule. If the results don't match your expectations, refine the rule text before making it active.

Mix both modes

Use Logic Mode for straightforward numeric thresholds (order total > 500) and Plain English for nuanced rules that reference multiple conditions or specific product attributes.

Leverage manual pinning for exceptions

Rules handle the common patterns. For one-off situations - a customer phoned with special instructions, a supplier flagged a batch issue - pin a badge manually rather than creating a rule you'll only use once.

Review and prune regularly

As your product catalogue and business evolve, some rules may become irrelevant. Periodically review your active rules and disable any that no longer serve a purpose. Fewer, focused rules are better than many stale ones.