How do the rules work?

Learn how to create your first automation rule

Sergio avatar
Written by Sergio
Updated over a week ago

Planet allows you to create and schedule flash offers, volume discounts, bulk price changes, tag changes, and much more. Creating new rules in Planet will simplify your daily life by automating and managing your discounts in just a few clicks.

If you want to know how Planet rules work, in this guide you will learn everything you need to know to create one. If you prefer to watch it in video, here it is:

Create your first rule

To create your first rule in Planet, access the rules page from the "add new" button on the home page or directly from the side menu on the left side.

Then click on the "add a new rule" button at the top, as shown below.

Select the preset

When you create your new rule, a pop-up will appear showing the available presets and a brief description of their functionality. This way, you can choose the pthat best suits your needs.

Remember that you can create unlimited rules of any type, so you can combine different discounts in your eCommerce.

Currently, there are 4 templates available with different mandatory actions. In the following guides you can find specific information for each type of discount:

Apply a discount on the price (by percentage or fixed amount) or change to a fixed price. Example 1: 10% discount on the bathroom collection. Example 2: All accessories at 15€.

Create discounts on products or variants based on quantity. Example: Buy 2 + and get 20% off.

Create discounts for products with reduced stock. Example: 15% discount for products with stock <5.

Create offers for specific products with a limited duration. Example: 30% discount on shirts every Monday of the month.

Select the products

To create a rule in any of the presets, you must select the products you want to apply the actions of price change, discount, tag change, etc. There are 3 ways to select the products:

Manually

Choose the products manually by clicking on the checkbox located to the left of each row of the table. You can filter the products to find them more easily but remember, in manual mode you have to select those you want to include, the filtering of products does not select them automatically, for this it is recommended to use the second option: selection by the filter.

Advanced filter

The second product selection option is done through a filter. For example, if you want to select products that have a tag or are in a specific collection, you only have to add this condition and all the resulting products will automatically be affected. If you modify the tags or products in a collection, the rule will be updated to apply the appropriate changes.

Whole store

As the last option, you can choose the complete store, which will allow you to apply the actions to all the current and new products that you create since it will automatically detect them.

Actions

In this section, you must select those actions that you want to apply to the previously selected products. Depending on the chosen preset, the available actions (mandatory and optional) will vary.

You can select as many as you want, and all of them will be changed at the same time, so you must take into account which of them may be affected by each other.

Apply a discount on the price (by percentage or fixed amount) or change to a fixed price. Example 1: 10% discount on the bathroom collection. Example 2: All accessories at 15€.

Create discounts on products or variants based on quantity. Example: Buy 2 + and get 20% off.

Create discounts for products with reduced stock. Example: 15% discount for products with stock <5.

Create offers for specific products with a limited duration. Example: 30% discount on shirts every Monday of the month.

Schedule

The last step to configure a rule is to define the period in which it will take effect. In order for the rule to be activated, it is necessary to define a start date and time. When you create the rule, the rule creation date will be set as the default start date. You can edit the start date with day and time as shown below.

The end date is optional, if not defined the rule will be active until it is manually deactivated or when an end date is added. In addition, you can include more than one period for your rule.


It is important to bear in mind that the rule will start changing prices at that precise moment and that it may take a few minutes depending on the number of products, so if you want them to be changed by that time, set it for a few minutes earlier.

FAQs

Which states can a rule have?

Rules change status based on their schedule, and you can have the following:

  • Pending: the rule is waiting until the day and time set in the schedule.

  • Applying: the actions are being applied, it may take a few minutes to complete.

  • Applied: the rule is active with the actions.

  • Finishing: the actions are being deactivated, it may take a few minutes to complete.

  • Finished: the rule is finished and has no more pending schedules.

What happens when a rule is deactivated?

When a rule is active, the established changes will be made when the time comes. On the contrary, when it is deactivated, it is disabled and no changes will be made if they are pending. If a rule that has already been applied is deactivated, the actions will revert to their original value. In this way, a rule can be quickly stopped without having to reach its end date.

When can a rule be edited?

Rules can only be edited in certain cases:

  • Editable: when a rule is pending or finished.

  • Partial editing: when it is applied, only the schedule can be edited.

  • Not editable: it cannot be edited or deactivated when it is applied or ending.

What happens if two rules affect the same product?

When two business rules are scheduled that have products in common, the rule that starts first always prevails. Therefore, even if the second rule also starts, it will not carry out the matching actions between the two rules for the products affected by the first rule until the first rule has finished. Once the first rule is finished, after a few minutes the actions will be applied to those products based on the second rule. Similarly, when there are more than two rules that have products in common.

What happens if a product is added to a collection or tag when they are already being used for a rule?

If a rule is created in which the selection by collection or tag has been used and then the tag is added to another product or added to the collection, the rule will be updated automatically taking into account the added or deleted product.

What happens if a value of a product that has already been changed by a rule is modified manually?

In case any value of a product covered by a rule action is modified manually in Shopify, the modified value will remain valid until the rule ends. If the rule had not started and the manual change is made, once it starts, it will be changed as set in the rule and when it ends it will revert to the initial value, which in this case is the one set manually. If the rule is already applied when the change is made, it will revert to the original value detected when the rule was created.

Still have questions?

In the help section you can find several articles about specific functionalities of the platform.

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