Skip to content

Dispatch Confirmation and Customer Tracking Email

Example prompt: "When ops marks a sales order as dispatched in our Google Sheet and fills in the carrier and tracking number, generate the packing list as a Google Doc, email the customer their tracking link, and log the dispatch on the 'Dispatch Log' tab."

The Problem

Dispatch day is when the same three columns get copied into four different places — the packing list for the warehouse, the dispatch note that goes in the box, the customer's tracking email with the carrier URL pasted from a saved note, and the row in the dispatch log that the office types in on Monday morning from a printed-out daybook. Most days it just about works; the days it does not are the days a customer phones because they have not been told their order shipped, or the days the tracking number was keyed in wrong and the link 404s.

How GloriaMundo Solves It

We build a workflow that watches the sales orders sheet for the moment a row flips to 'Dispatched' with a carrier and a tracking number entered by ops. A code step checks the qualification conditions and the idempotency guard so a later edit to the same row does not redraft. An integration step looks up the carrier's tracking URL template and substitutes the tracking number into it, then renders a packing list Google Doc in our Dispatch Notes folder. A separate integration step drafts the customer email with the tracking link, saves it for the operator to review, and writes the dispatch into the log. The Slack summary at 5pm closes the day: who has shipped and been notified, who is awaiting send, who has no email on file. Glass Box preview shows the rendered packing list and the customer email before either is created, so the operator can spot a wrong address or a typo'd tracking number before the customer sees it.

Example Workflow Steps

  1. Trigger (sheet row update): Any update to a row in the 'Sales Orders' tab.
  2. Step 1 (code): Qualify the dispatch — status just became 'Dispatched', carrier matches the Carriers tab, tracking_number is non-empty, dispatched_at is set, and this so_number is not already in the Dispatch Log.
  3. Step 2 (conditional): If the row half-qualifies (e.g. carrier set but unknown, or tracking missing), post a Slack note in #dispatch asking the operator to correct it and exit without drafting.
  4. Step 3 (integration): Render a packing list Google Doc in the 'Dispatch Notes' Drive folder using the company address, ship-to address, line table, dispatched_at, carrier, and tracking number.
  5. Step 4 (code): Substitute the tracking_number into the carrier's tracking_url_template to build the customer-facing tracking URL.
  6. Step 5 (integration): Draft the customer email in Gmail with the tracking link and line summary, or skip the draft and mark the log row 'Skipped — no email on file' if customer_email is empty.
  7. Step 6 (integration): Append a row to the 'Dispatch Log' tab with packing_list_doc_link, customer_email_link, notification_status 'Drafted — awaiting send', and sent_at empty; on send-detection, set notification_status to 'Sent' and populate sent_at with the send timestamp.
  8. Step 7 (integration): At 5pm every working day, post the dispatch summary in #dispatch on Slack — notified, awaiting send, no email on file, and Picked-but-not-dispatched lingerers.

Integrations Used

  • Google Sheets — the Sales Orders, Carriers, Company Settings, and Dispatch Log tabs
  • Google Docs — renders the packing list Google Doc that the operator prints for the box
  • Google Drive — stores the packing list Google Docs in the Dispatch Notes folder
  • Gmail — drafts the customer dispatch confirmation and watches the Sent folder for send detection
  • Slack — the #dispatch end-of-day summary

Who This Is For

The dispatch desk at a small manufacturer or distributor — typically one or two people who pick orders, book the carrier through whichever portal the carrier uses, and then need to tell the customer and the office that the order has shipped. The workflow assumes the operator owns the carrier booking; this is about the comms and the paperwork that follow.

Time & Cost Saved

A dispatch day with twenty orders is roughly an hour of paperwork done well — packing lists printed, tracking emails composed, dispatch log updated. The workflow turns it into a couple of minutes of reviewing each draft before clicking send. The bigger gain is the customer comms going out the same day the order ships rather than the next morning when someone has time, and the dispatch log being complete by 5pm rather than reconstructed on Monday.