Weekday Slack digest of stuck AfterShip shipments
Every weekday morning, we flag the AfterShip shipments that have actually gone off the rails and post a prioritized Slack digest with next steps.
Every weekday at 8am, pull my AfterShip trackings that are still in transit or in an exception state using the List Trackings action, then reason about which shipments are genuinely stuck versus normal in-flight ones.
A shipment counts as stuck if any of these apply: it is past its estimated delivery date, its last checkpoint update was more than 48 hours ago, or it is sitting in an exception status like "Attempt Fail" or "Available for Pickup" for longer than it should be. Skip normal in-transit shipments so the Slack channel does not get spammed.
For each shipment flagged as stuck, use Get Tracking by ID to fetch the full checkpoint history so the digest has real context about where and when things went wrong.
Then, using Slack's Send a Message action, post a single prioritized digest to my Slack channel. Group the flagged shipments by severity (for example, critical, warning, watch), and for each one include the courier, the tracking number, the last known checkpoint with its timestamp, the estimated delivery date, the AfterShip tracking URL, and a concrete suggested next step such as contact the carrier, notify the customer, or escalate to ops. Use Slack's mrkdwn formatting so the message is readable at a glance.
If there is nothing stuck on a given day, skip posting entirely rather than sending an empty message. Use cron for the trigger since AfterShip does not have a polling trigger on this platform.
Additional information
What does this prompt do?
- Scans your AfterShip trackings each weekday morning and separates the shipments that are genuinely stuck from the ones still on schedule
- Groups the flagged shipments by severity, naming the courier, the last known checkpoint, and a link straight to the AfterShip tracking page
- Suggests a concrete next step for each one, such as contacting the carrier, notifying the customer, or escalating to ops
- Posts the whole summary as a single tidy Slack message so nobody has to babysit the AfterShip dashboard
What do I need to use this?
- An AfterShip account with your shipments tracked in it
- A Slack workspace and the channel you want the digest posted to
How can I customize it?
- Change the time or days it runs (defaults to 8am on weekdays)
- Adjust what counts as stuck, including how many hours without a checkpoint update and how far past the estimated delivery date
- Pick which Slack channel receives the digest, or split by region or courier
Frequently asked questions
Won't this spam our Slack channel with every shipment we have in flight?
How does it decide a shipment is stuck?
Can I use this with any courier?
Does it change anything in AfterShip?
What if we don't use Slack?
Related templates
Stop losing shipments in the AfterShip dashboard.
Get the ones that need attention in Slack every morning, ranked and ready to act on.