How to see what runs in the background

Brain › Automations shows everything Tideswell does on its own. Under the page title it reads "What Tideswell does on its own: the agent, the alerts it sends your team, and the jobs that keep your data fresh." This page is the tour; see What are automations? for what an automation is.

What is on the page, top to bottom?

Four parts, in this order.

1. The health line. It reads "Everything is running. Nothing needs a look." when all is well. Otherwise it reads "One thing to look at." or "2 things to look at.", and lists each one with an Open button.
2. The Agent card, which sets up the agent that answers in your channels. See How to add the Agent to chat.
3. Alerts: "Messages Tideswell sends your team: warnings, reminders and the daily brief." A count such as 3 on · 6 off sits beside the heading. The columns are Alert, Who hears about it and Latest, with a switch at the end of each row.
4. Background jobs: "17 jobs that keep your Shopify data, stock and workflows up to date. You rarely need to touch these." Under it, a line counts how many are running, need a look, are paused because a module is off, or are off.

Click any alert or job to open its side panel: what it does, its switch, its settings and its Recent activity. Everything in the panel saves as you change it, and Run now sits at its foot.

How do you see the background jobs?

Press Show all 17 under Background jobs. The list opens and the button reads Hide.

The jobs are grouped under Running, Paused and Off, each with its count. A paused job belongs to a module that is switched off, and the group says so: "Nothing is lost while they do."

A job row has no switch. Open the job to switch it, as covered in How to turn an automation on, off, or run it now.

Which alerts can Tideswell send?

Nine. Switched-on alerts list first, so the order on your page follows what you have switched on.

• Task due reminders: "Reminds each person as their task's due date gets close, until it's done or snoozed. Each person can change their own reminders in Account." Starts on. See How to control task, stock and order alerts.
• Late purchase orders: "Flags purchase orders that are past their expected arrival date." Each alert names the supplier, the order number, the amount and how many days late it is. Starts on. See How to find late orders and plan revisions.
• Daily analyst brief: "A plain-English summary of the business, written each morning and delivered at 8am in each person's own time zone." Read it under Briefs in the Agent's Updates. Starts off. See How to read your updates and the daily brief.
• Purchase order results: "When a purchase order's results window closes, it records whether the order hit its target and tells whoever set it." Starts on. See How to commit to an outcome and have it measured.
• Low stock: "When a product's shippable stock drops to 5 or fewer." Starts off.
• Shipping backlog: "When paid orders waiting to ship pile up past the number you set." Starts off.
• Big orders: "When a single order over the amount you set comes in." Starts off.
• Store data stopped updating: "When your Shopify data stops refreshing for longer than it should." The alert itself reads like "Store data hasn't refreshed in ~30h". Starts off.
• Overdue supplier bills: "When a supplier bill passes its due date." Starts off. See How to check, record and pay supplier bills.

Setting up Low stock, Shipping backlog, Big orders and Store data stopped updating is covered in How to set up the stock and order alerts. Who hears each alert is covered in How to choose who gets an alert and how often.

Which background jobs keep things running?

Seventeen. They copy data in from Shopify and Klaviyo, recalculate figures other screens show, and run features you set up elsewhere. Where a job's panel says what stops without it, that line is quoted here.

• What needs attention: checks the workspace once a day and lists what it finds under What the workspace noticed in the Agent's Updates. "It never alerts anyone." Starts off.
• Catalog sync: "Keeps your product catalogue in step with Shopify: titles, categories and variants." If you switch it off: "Product details stop updating from Shopify."
• Calculated field refresh: "Keeps calculated fields up to date when the records they add up change." If you switch it off: "Every calculated number freezes at its last value." See How to build a field that works itself out.
• Customer sync: "Refreshes every customer's stats from Klaviyo each night." See What is the Customers area?.
• Forecast refresh: "Recalculates each product's expected demand." It runs while the Forecasting module is on.
• Group forecast refresh: "Recalculates expected demand for each category and product group." It runs while the Forecasting module is on.
• Inventory snapshot: "Records stock levels through the month, so month-end stock is always on file." If you switch it off: "Stock stops being recorded. If it is off at the end of a month, that month-end reading is never taken."
• Inventory sync: "Watches stock levels so stock-change workflows can react." If you switch it off: "Workflows that react to stock changes stop firing."
• Daily metrics snapshot: "Saves the store's headline numbers each day so trends build up." Starts off.
• Page snapshot: "Rebuilds the Analytics and Inventory pages so they open fast." These are Selling › Analytics and Selling › Inventory.
• Planning export: "Builds and sends the monthly partner data file." Starts off. You can build and download the file yourself at any time, as covered in How to send your open-to-buy file to a buying planner.
• Register special orders: "Turns register sales noted as special orders into special-order jobs." A sale counts when its note starts with SPL. Starts on. See How to turn a register sale into a special order.
• Report delivery: "Sends your saved reports when they're due." Starts on. See How to build, save and schedule a report.
• Sales history: "Saves daily sales by product. Shopify can't rebuild this later, so this job keeps it." If you switch it off: "Daily sales stop being saved." How to read demand and set your forecast reads it.
• Shopify change watcher: "Watches recent Shopify orders, products and customers so workflows can react when they change." If you switch it off: "Every order, product and customer workflow stops."
• Wholesale reservation: "Holds stock aside for confirmed dealer orders." See What is wholesale?.
• Workflow engine: "Runs your published workflows when the records they watch change." If you switch it off: "Every workflow stops." Starts on. See What are workflows?.

Purchase order results carries the same kind of line: "Results wait until you switch it back on. Nothing is lost: each one is measured as at the day its window closed."

Leave the background jobs as you find them. When a figure looks out of date, open the matching job and read its Recent activity first.

What does the Latest column tell you?

It says in words what an alert's newest run did, then how long ago, such as "3 products low, alert sent · 2h ago". It is the fastest read on the page.

• 3 products low, alert sent: the run found something new and told people.
• 3 products low, nothing new to send: the same products were already alerted on. This is a healthy run.
• Nothing low: the run found nothing. Each alert has its own words for this, such as No late orders or Under the limit.
• Never run: the alert has not run yet.
• Failed: and a reason: the run went wrong, and the reason is named.
• A skipped run shows the reason it was skipped.
• · 2 emailed on the end: emails went out, one per person.
• Off · last ran 2d ago: the alert is switched off.

Background jobs read the same way in their own rows, with three more:

• Never switched on: the job is off and has never run.
• Waiting for and a module's name: that module is switched off in Settings, so the job waits.
• Overdue since Aug 12. Last run: and what that run did: a switched-on job is more than three hours past its next run. See How to check whether an automation worked.

Open any alert or job to see Recent activity: its recent runs in the same words, newest first. Back-to-back runs that said the same thing fold into one line, such as "12 runs in a row, since 3h ago".

Why did a job record a skipped run?

Because something the job needs was missing. The reason shows in words in its Latest line and in its panel's Recent activity. The three common reasons:

• A module is switched off, so the jobs that belong to it wait. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.
• The data source is not connected yet, meaning Shopify or Klaviyo. See How to manage integrations, your workspace name and the audit log.
• Nobody is on the alert's list, so there was no one to tell. See How to choose who gets an alert and how often.

A skipped run is not lost work. The job tries again on its next turn.

How often does each one run?

Each job has its own fixed schedule, from every five minutes to once a day. The low-stock check runs every 15 minutes, late purchase orders once an hour, and the customer sync once a night.

Run now at the foot of a job's panel runs that job straight away instead of waiting. See How to turn an automation on, off, or run it now.