Features

A detailed overview of every feature in Alius

Home Dashboard

The Home page is your command center. It provides an at-a-glance overview of your store’s alert activity and setup status.

Setup Guide

When you first open Alius, the Home page displays an interactive Setup Guide with three steps:

Step	Description	Auto-detected
1. Connect Slack	Link your Slack workspace via OAuth on the Integrations page.	✅ Yes — detected when Slack status is “Connected”
2. Send test message	Send a test notification to confirm messages are flowing.	✅ Yes — detected when a test message is sent
3. Create a trigger	Create at least one trigger to start receiving real alerts.	✅ Yes — detected when a trigger exists

Each step can also be manually marked as completed with a checkbox, which is useful if you’ve already completed a step outside the app.

Current Plan

The Current Plan section shows your active subscription:

• Free Plan — 1 trigger limit, $0/month
• Pro Plan — Unlimited triggers, $9.99/month

A “Manage Plan” button takes you directly to Shopify’s managed pricing page where you can upgrade or downgrade.

If you downgrade from Pro to Free, your current billing cycle will continue until it ends. After that, only your oldest trigger will remain active — all others will be automatically disabled.

Metrics Cards

Two metric cards display real-time activity for the last 7 days:

Metric	Description
Notifications Sent	Total Slack messages sent by Alius in the last 7 days.
Changes Received	Total Shopify webhooks processed in the last 7 days.

Each card shows a week-over-week comparison (percentage up or down vs. the previous 7 days) so you can spot trends at a glance.

Slack Connection Status

A quick indicator showing whether Slack is currently connected, with a link to the Integrations page if it’s not.

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Triggers

Triggers are the core of Alius. A trigger defines:

1. What event to watch (e.g., “Product updated”, “Order created”).
2. Where to send the notification (Slack channel).
3. Optional conditions to filter which events qualify for notifications.
4. Optional template to customize the notification message.

Trigger Types

Alius supports 8 trigger types across three Shopify entities:

Entity	Trigger Type	Fires when…
Product	Product created	A new product is added to your store
Product	Product updated	Any field on an existing product changes
Product	Product deleted	A product is removed from your store
Order	Order created	A new order is placed
Order	Order updated	An existing order’s status, fulfillment, or other details change
Customer	Customer created	A new customer account is created
Customer	Customer updated	A customer’s profile, tags, or marketing preferences change
Customer	Customer deleted	A customer record is removed

Trigger Status

Each trigger has a status toggle:

• Active — The trigger is live and will send notifications.
• Disabled — The trigger is paused. No notifications are sent, but the trigger configuration is preserved.

You can enable/disable triggers from the trigger form’s status switch.

Creating a Trigger

1. Go to Triggers → Create Trigger.
2. Configure:
   • Title — A descriptive name for the trigger.
   • Type — Select the event type from the dropdown.
   • Notification Hub — Select “Slack” (more hubs in the future).
   • Channels — Choose from your enabled Slack channels.
   • Template (optional) — Select a saved template or use the default.
   • Conditions (optional) — Add one or more field conditions.
3. Click Create Trigger.

Editing and Deleting Triggers

• From the Triggers index page, click any trigger row to edit it.
• Use the bulk actions checkbox to select multiple triggers and delete them at once.
• A confirmation modal appears before deletion.

Trigger Limits

Plan	Trigger Limit
Free	1
Pro	Unlimited

When you’ve reached your trigger limit on the Free plan:

• The Create Trigger button is disabled.
• A warning banner appears with an “Upgrade to Pro” button linking directly to Shopify’s pricing page.

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Notification Templates

Templates let you control the exact content of Slack notifications using dynamic placeholders.

Default Templates

If you don’t select a custom template, Alius uses built-in defaults:

Product Update (default):

Product Updated: {{product.title}}

Title:
  Previous: {{product_previous.title}}
  New: {{product.title}}

View Product in Shopify: {{product.adminUrl}}

Order Created (default):

Order Created: {{order.name}}

Customer: {{order.customerFirstName}} {{order.customerLastName}}
Total: {{order.totalPrice}} {{order.currency}}

View Order in Shopify: {{order.adminUrl}}

Customer Updated (default):

Customer Updated: {{customer.firstName}} {{customer.lastName}}

Email: {{customer.email}}
Tags: {{customer.tags}}

View Customer in Shopify: {{customer.adminUrl}}

Creating Custom Templates

1. Go to Templates in the left sidebar.
2. Click Create Template.
3. Configure:
   • Title — Name for the template (e.g., “High-value order alert”).
   • Type — Product, Order, or Customer.
   • Content — Write your template using {{variable}} placeholders.
4. Click Save.

Template Variables

Every condition field available in Alius is also available as a template variable. The full list of variables varies by entity type:

Product Variables

Variable	Description
{{product.id}}	Product ID
{{product.adminUrl}}	Link to the product in Shopify Admin
{{product.title}}	Product title
{{product.status}}	Product status (active, draft, archived)
{{product.productType}}	Product type
{{product.vendor}}	Vendor name
{{product.tags}}	Comma-separated tags
{{product.handle}}	URL handle
{{product.price}}	Price
{{product.compareAtPrice}}	Compare-at price
{{product.inventoryTotal}}	Total inventory across all variants
{{product.collections}}	Collections the product belongs to
{{product_previous.title}}	Previous value of title (for updates)
{{product_previous.price}}	Previous value of price (for updates)
… and all other product fields

Order Variables

Variable	Description
{{order.id}}	Order ID
{{order.adminUrl}}	Link to the order in Shopify Admin
{{order.name}}	Order name (e.g., #1001)
{{order.orderNumber}}	Order number
{{order.totalPrice}}	Total price
{{order.currency}}	Currency code
{{order.financialStatus}}	Financial status (paid, pending, refunded…)
{{order.fulfillmentStatus}}	Fulfillment status
{{order.email}}	Customer email on the order
{{order.tags}}	Order tags
{{order.shippingCity}}	Shipping city
{{order.shippingCountry}}	Shipping country
{{order.customerFirstName}}	Customer first name
{{order.customerLastName}}	Customer last name
… and all other order fields

Customer Variables

Variable	Description
{{customer.id}}	Customer ID
{{customer.adminUrl}}	Link to the customer in Shopify Admin
{{customer.email}}	Email address
{{customer.firstName}}	First name
{{customer.lastName}}	Last name
{{customer.phone}}	Phone number
{{customer.tags}}	Tags
{{customer.acceptsMarketing}}	Marketing opt-in status
{{customer.amountSpent}}	Lifetime amount spent
{{customer.numberOfOrders}}	Lifetime number of orders
… and all other customer fields

Template Priority

When a notification is sent, Alius resolves the message content in this order:

1. Selected Template — If the trigger has a templateId, the saved template’s content is used.
2. Inline Message Template — If the trigger has a custom messageTemplate stored directly on the trigger record.
3. Default Template — The built-in default for the entity type, automatically extended with any condition fields from the trigger.
4. Built-in Formatter — A fallback that generates a human-readable diff of what changed.

Condition Fields in Default Templates

When a trigger has advanced conditions, the default template is automatically extended to include those condition fields in the notification. For example, if your trigger has a condition on inventoryTotal, the default template will include:

Total Inventory: {{product.inventoryTotal}}
Previous Total Inventory: {{product_previous.inventoryTotal}}

This ensures the fields you care about are always visible in the alert.

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Integrations

Slack Integration

Alius connects to Slack via OAuth 2.0, installing a bot in your workspace.

Connecting Slack

1. Go to Integrations in the sidebar.
2. Click Connect to Slack.
3. Authorize in Slack → bot token is stored securely.
4. Status changes to Connected.

Enabling Channels

Once connected, a list of public channels from your workspace appears. Toggle channels on/off to control where Alius can post:

• Enabled channels appear in the trigger form’s channel picker.
• When you enable a channel, the Alius bot automatically joins that channel (required by Slack to post messages).
• Click Save to persist your selection.

Sending Test Messages

Click Send test notification to post a test message to all enabled channels. This confirms:

• The bot token is valid.
• The bot has access to the channels.
• Messages are flowing correctly.

Disconnecting Slack

Click Disconnect to remove the Slack integration. This:

• Clears the bot token and workspace info.
• Disables all channel mappings.
• Stops all Slack notifications until reconnected.

Disconnecting Slack does not delete your triggers. They remain configured and will resume sending notifications once Slack is reconnected.

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Snapshot & Change Detection

Alius maintains snapshots — internal records of the last known state of your products, orders, and customers. This is how it detects what actually changed:

1. When a webhook arrives (e.g., products/update), Alius loads the previous snapshot from the database.
2. It compares the incoming payload to the snapshot to produce a list of changes.
3. If there are changes, notifications are sent (subject to trigger conditions).
4. The snapshot is then upserted with the new state.

This means:

• Product updates without changes (e.g., Shopify resends the webhook) do not generate duplicate notifications.
• Conditions are evaluated against the current snapshot data, ensuring accuracy.
• Delete events use the previous snapshot to include meaningful context (e.g., the deleted product’s title) in the notification.

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Home Page Metrics

The Home page tracks two key metrics over a rolling 7-day window:

• Notifications Sent — Each Slack message successfully posted counts as one notification.
• Webhooks Received — Each Shopify webhook processed by the app counts as one event.

Both metrics include a week-over-week percentage comparison to help you identify trends (e.g., a spike in orders during a sale).