tiqline is a process SLA monitoring tool: it turns events from Shopify and your own systems into one case per piece of work, gives every step a time limit and alerts you in Slack or by email when a step runs over.
Shipping alert app or process monitoring: which problem are you solving?
A shipment tracking app tells you and your customer where a parcel is. Process monitoring tells you which order is stuck at a step, including the steps before a parcel even exists. This guide explains the difference, when one is enough and how they complement each other.
What a shipping alert app does
Shipment tracking apps such as AfterShip take a tracking number and follow the parcel across carriers. AfterShip connects to more than 2,000 carriers, sends email and SMS notifications to customers at delivery milestones and offers a dashboard for on-time performance and exception rates. Shopify is supported on every plan.
Pricing on AfterShip's tracking page starts at $29 a month for Essentials with 6,000 shipments a year and $0.08 per extra shipment. Premium starts at $59 a month, adds API and webhook access, and charges $0.12 per extra shipment. Enterprise is priced individually. Webhooks can go to up to 10 URLs and are retried up to 14 times.
Inside Shopify, the Shopify Flow app can wait and then check an order. The Shopify Flow template library includes a workflow that tracks an order in Google Sheets and sends a Slack message if it isn't shipped within two days. A single Wait action can delay a workflow for at most 90 days.
What process monitoring does
Process monitoring starts earlier. tiqline creates a case when the first event of an order arrives, for example when it is paid, and moves the case through the steps you describe: paid, picked, packed, fulfilled, refunded. Each step after the first can have a time limit.
When a step runs past its time limit, tiqline marks the case as stuck, groups all stuck cases of that step into one incident and sends one alert to Slack or email. The alert names the process, the step and the time limit and links to the cases. The parcel is only one part of that chain.
The key differences
- Starting point: a tracking app needs a tracking number. tiqline starts with the first event of the order.
- Audience: a tracking app talks to customers, with branded notifications. tiqline alerts your team.
- Scope: a tracking app covers carrier milestones. tiqline covers any step that sends an event, such as payment, picking in a 3PL warehouse or a refund.
- Branches: tiqline can send a case down one of several paths, for example shipping or cancellation, each with its own time limits.
- Billing: AfterShip bills per shipment. tiqline bills per event, and each event is stored and counted once.
Sources
Side by side
| Topic | tiqline | Shipping alert app |
|---|---|---|
| Starts with | First event of the order, such as paid | Tracking number |
| Covers | Every step that sends an event, before and after shipping | Carrier milestones |
| Alerts | Slack or email to your team when a step runs past its limit | Customer notifications by email and SMS (AfterShip) |
| Warehouse steps | Through the track API with the order number | Only once the carrier has the parcel |
| Refunds and cancellations | Own path with its own time limit | Outside the parcel view |
| Pricing basis | Events, Free plan with 5,000 a month | Shipments (AfterShip, from $29 a month) |
When a shipping app is the right tool
Choose a shipping app when your main problem is the customer asking where their parcel is. Branded tracking pages, delivery notifications and carrier exception reports are what these apps are built for, and tiqline does none of that.
When process monitoring is the right tool
Choose process monitoring when orders get stuck before they reach the carrier, or when you need to know which step is late, not only which parcel. Typical cases are a 3PL that does not pick on time, a payment that never gets captured, or refunds that wait too long. None of these have a tracking number yet, or ever.
Using both together
The two fit together well. Let the shipping app handle the customer side and the carrier details. Let tiqline watch the internal steps and the hand-off: from paid to picked, from picked to fulfilled in Shopify, from cancellation request to refund. If the fulfillment step in Shopify stays open past its limit, your team gets one Slack message or email for all affected orders, before customers start asking.
Example: where the delay really happened
All numbers in this example are made up for illustration. A shop ships 200 orders a day through an external warehouse. Its tracking app shows 3% of parcels as late. A closer look shows that most of those parcels left the warehouse a day late; the carrier was on time.
In tiqline the shop sets three steps: paid, picked within 6 hours (sent by the warehouse through the track API), fulfilled in Shopify within 18 hours of picking. On the first Friday, 14 orders miss the pick limit at 3 p.m. One alert names the step and says 14 cases are waiting, while there is still time to ship the same day. The tracking app keeps telling customers where their parcels are.
Setting it up in tiqline
- Connect your Shopify store and, for warehouse steps, send events through the track API with the order number.
- Choose the ID field that links events to a case, for example the order number.
- Describe the steps in the process editor and set a time limit for each step after the first. Add a branch where cases split, for example shipped or cancelled.
- Preview the draft on your real cases before you publish it, so you see which cases would be stuck today.
- Choose the alert channels: a Slack channel through an incoming webhook, up to 20 email addresses, or both.
- Publish. A time limit you change later applies at once, also to cases that are already running, and the change is recorded in the audit log.
Limits of tiqline
tiqline does not track parcels across carriers and does not send notifications to customers. It has no carrier integrations and no tracking page. From Shopify it takes order, fulfillment and refund events; there are no dedicated return topics. It also does not store customer names, addresses, phone numbers or email addresses from Shopify, only IDs, states, amounts and counts.
Questions
Is a shipping alert app the same as process monitoring?
No. A shipping app follows a parcel after it has a tracking number. Process monitoring follows the whole order, including steps before shipping and after delivery.
Does tiqline replace AfterShip?
No. tiqline does not track parcels or notify customers. It alerts your team when a step in your own process runs past its time limit.
Can tiqline watch a 3PL warehouse?
Yes, if the warehouse or your middleware sends an event with the order number through the track API. There are no ready-made 3PL connectors.
Which Shopify events does tiqline use?
Orders created, paid, fulfilled, partially fulfilled and cancelled, fulfillments created and updated, and refunds. Other topics are ignored.
Can Shopify Flow alert on late shipments?
Yes, with a Wait action and a check afterwards. Shopify's template library has a workflow that sends a Slack message if an order isn't shipped within two days.
What does tiqline cost?
The Free plan includes 5,000 events a month. Standard costs €49 excl. VAT a month for 50,000 events.
Can tiqline alert my customers?
No. Alerts from tiqline go to your team by Slack or email. Customer notifications stay with your shop or your tracking app.
Start for free
The Free plan includes 5,000 events a month.