Order Desk Zapier integrationAutomate Order Desk with Zapier.
Order Desk Zapier integration in short: 2 instant triggers, 7 actions and 1 search to file orders into folders, tag them, add notes and shipments without retyping anything. Order Desk is open on the free plan, no upgrade needed.
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What Order Desk and Zapier do together
Connecting Order Desk to Zapier lets Zapier react when an order arrives or changes folder, then act on orders for you. The automation you build there is called a Zap: one event starts it, then one or more steps run every time that event happens. Order Desk offers 10 operations in the Zap editor.
Three results come back again and again. A tracked order: once your label tool produces a tracking number, Add Shipment attaches it to the order it belongs to. A sorted queue: New Order Added starts the Zap, then Change Tag or Change Folder files the order where your team expects to find it. A documented order: Add Order Note writes the context from another tool on the order, so whoever opens it next knows what happened.
What Zapier does not do for Order Desk: there is no trigger on a new shipment, a new note or a tag change, only on new orders and folder moves. There is no delete action at all. The single search, Get Order, wants the ID of one order, so it is a lookup, not a browse. The good news sits on the trigger side: both triggers are instant, so the free plan loses nothing on speed.
The same app has its own page on the Make side: Order Desk Make integration. For a wider view of the tools, there is also n8n vs Zapier.
The Zapier words, in plain English
Eight words cover everything on this page. Read them once, the rest of the page uses them without explaining again.
- Zap
- The automation itself: one event that starts it, then one or more steps that run each time that event happens.
- Trigger
- The event in an app that starts the Zap, such as a new order in Order Desk. Once the Zap is on, Zapier waits for it.
- Action
- What the Zap does after it starts: the step that writes a note, changes a tag or adds a shipment for you.
- Task
- The unit Zapier bills. One task is one action that completes successfully, and your plan counts those.
- Polling vs instant
- Polling: Zapier checks the app on a timer. Instant: the app calls Zapier itself when the event happens. Both Order Desk triggers are instant.
- Filter
- A step that lets the Zap go on only when what arrived meets the condition you set, and stops it otherwise.
- Search step
- A step that looks up something that already exists, like an order, so the steps after it can use what it found.
- Multi-step Zap
- Any Zap beyond one trigger and one action. A second action, a filter or a search makes one, and it needs a paid plan.
What an Order Desk Zap really costs
Order Desk is not reserved for paid plans: it runs on the free plan. You pay in tasks, never in waiting time.
- Free plan100 tasks a month
- Free plan Zap size2 steps: one trigger, one action
- Order Desk triggersInstant on every plan
- Reserved for paid plansNo
The trigger never costs a task, and neither does Zapier looking for new data. Each action that succeeds counts once, so a three-action Zap uses three times more than a one-action Zap. An action that fails is not counted. The free plan gives 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps only: add a filter, a search or a second action and you need a paid plan. The interval grid below only concerns polling triggers, and Order Desk has none.
Set up the Order Desk Zapier integration in three steps
- 01
Open your connections
In your Zapier account, open the Apps page and click + Add connection. A connection is your Order Desk account linked to Zapier once, then reused by every step that touches it.
- 02
Pick Order Desk
Search for Order Desk by name in the dialog, pick it, then click Add connection. You need an account on Order Desk before this point, so keep its login at hand.
- 03
Sign in and grant access
Sign in to Order Desk in the tab that opens and grant Zapier access to the account. If the Zap must touch anything you do not own yourself, your user needs read or write access to it.
Your first Zap: note and tag every new order
GoalEvery new order gets a note and a tag, with nobody touching it.
- 01
Pick the trigger
Start building a Zap and pick Order Desk with New Order Added as the event that starts it. Choose the Order Desk connection you made in the previous section.
- 02
Test it on a real order
Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent orders of the connected account, so you map the next steps on a real order rather than a guess.
- 03
Add the note
Add Order Desk again with Add Order Note. Fill Order ID Type and Order ID from the order the trigger returned, then type the Order Note Text your team should read.
- 04
Add the tag
Add a second action, Change Tag, mapped the same way, and set the Tag. Two actions make this a multi-step Zap, so this step needs a paid plan.
- 05
Test, then publish
Test each step once and read what came back. When every step returns what you expect, click Publish to switch the Zap on.
The 2 Order Desk triggers
2 events start a Zap when something happens in Order Desk, and 2 of them are instant: the app calls Zapier straight away, whatever your plan.
Order Folder Changed
Instant triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when an order's folder is changed in Order Desk.”
This one watches where your orders sit: each time an order leaves one folder for another, the Zap starts. Folders are how Order Desk stages work, so a move is the cleanest signal that something changed for that order.
New Order Added
Instant triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a new order is added to Order Desk.”
Each order added to Order Desk starts the Zap once and hands that order to the next steps. It is the natural starting point for anything you want done to every single order, from a welcome message to a tag that sorts it on arrival.
The 7 Order Desk actions
Order Desk gives you 7 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.
Create New Order
ActionIn Zapier“Create a new order in Order Desk.”
Builds a brand-new order in Order Desk from data another app holds, and drops it into the Folder you choose, which is the one field it insists on.
Add Order Note
ActionIn Zapier“Adds a note to the order”
Writes a note on an existing order, so context from another tool stays attached to the order itself. You point it at the order with Order ID Type and Order ID, then give it the Order Note Text.
Add Shipment
ActionIn Zapier“Add a shipment to an order at Order Desk”
Attaches a shipment to an order that already exists, found through the Order ID Type and Order ID you map, with its Tracking Number.
Change Folder
ActionIn Zapier“Change the order's folder.”
Moving an order to another folder is all this action does: set the target Folder, then point it at the order with Order ID Type and Order ID.
Change Tag
ActionIn Zapier“Change the tag on an order.”
Puts a new tag on an order. You set the Tag, the Order ID Type and the Order ID, and the order carries that label from then on, which helps when folders alone do not tell orders apart.
Set Order Item Data
ActionIn Zapier“Set Order Item Data (Metadata or Variation)”
Works at line level rather than order level: it writes metadata or variation data on one item of an order, through a Data Type, a Field Name and a Field Value.
Set Order Data
ActionIn Zapier“Set the checkout data or metadata on an order.”
The order-level counterpart: it sets checkout data or metadata on the whole order, with a Data Type, a Field Name (the key of the field) and a Field Value.
The Order Desk search: Get Order
1 search step looks for data that already exists in Order Desk, so a later step can use it.
A search step looks up something that already exists, here an order, and hands it to the steps after it. In the editor, searches sit at the bottom of the Action event list, under SEARCH. Adding one makes the Zap multi-step, so it needs a paid plan.
Get Order
SearchIn Zapier“Get details for a specific order from Order Desk”
Fetches the details of one specific order so a later step can use them, typically in a Zap started by another app that only knows the order reference.
The three settings every search exposes
- Successful if no search results are found?Left on its default, a search that finds nothing stops the Zap there and skips the steps that relied on it. Switched on, the Zap carries on without the order.
- Create X if it doesn't exist yet?This box turns a search into a find-or-create. Order Desk offers no find-or-create variant for Get Order, so it does not come into play here.
- If multiple search results are found?Three ways out when several items match: keep the first one (the default), stop the Zap, or hand all of them on at once.
When an Order Desk Zap breaks
Most broken Order Desk Zaps come down to one of four situations. Knowing them in advance saves a lot of guesswork.
Zapier attaches no help article to Order Desk, so the cases below are Zapier's general limits, applied to what this app does. For anything else, there is Zapier troubleshooting.
Old orders never come through
A Zap only reacts to what happens after you switch it on. Orders already sitting in Order Desk are not picked up; moving that backlog is a separate job.The folder loop
Order Folder Changed plus Change Folder in one Zap can move the order, fire the trigger again, and repeat, burning through your task count fast.A bulk import stalls
After a bulk import or a migration, a sudden huge batch of new orders can be held back by Zapier's flood protection.Get Order comes back empty
Fed the internal ID instead of the Source ID, Get Order finds nothing, and by default the Zap stops there and skips the steps that relied on it.
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