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WooCommerce Integration (5)

Order Assistance

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Overview

Order Assistance lets your chatbot answer “Where is my order?” questions by looking the order up directly in WooCommerce at the moment the customer asks. Orders are never uploaded to OpenAI or to the chatbot’s knowledge base.

Requires: WPiko AI Chatbot and WPiko AI Chatbot Pro 2.1.0+ (2.1.2 for the steps below), an active Pro license, WooCommerce, and Use WooCommerce data in the chatbot turned on.

Upgrading from an older version? Order syncing (the “Recent Orders Auto-Sync” option, the orders JSON file and the Orders System Instructions) was retired in version 2.1.0. Old order files are removed from your OpenAI account automatically in the background, and the chatbot ignores any that are still waiting to be removed. Turn on Order Assistance to keep answering order questions.

How It Works

When a visitor asks about an order, the AI calls a secure lookup tool on your site. What the visitor receives depends on who they are:

VisitorWhat they must provideWhat they receive
Signed-in customer asking about their own orderThe order numberOrder number, status, and the extra details you choose under Signed-in order details
Guest (not signed in), or a signed-in user asking about someone else’s orderThe order number and the checkout email used for that orderBasic status only (order number and status)

If the order number and email don’t match, the chatbot gets no order information and asks the visitor to check the details, sign in to the account they ordered with, or contact the store. The AI is told never to guess order numbers and never to use an email found in your knowledge files.

Important: matching an order number and email allows basic status only. It is not proof of identity, which is why guests never receive dates, totals, items or tracking details.

Setting Up Order Assistance

  1. Go to WPiko AI Chatbot → AI & Training → AI Settings → Model & Knowledge and click WooCommerce in the Train AI assistant section.
  2. Make sure Use WooCommerce data in the chatbot is on.
  3. In the Order assistance section, set Order lookup to On.
  4. Under Signed-in order details, click Choose fields and tick the details signed-in customers can receive about their own orders. Your choices save right away.

Signed-in Order Details

Order number and status are always included. You can also allow:

  • Date Created
  • Date Paid
  • Date Completed
  • Order Total (with currency)
  • Tracking Number
  • Tracking Link
  • Order Items (product names and quantities, up to 20 items)

Email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, customer IDs, payment details and order notes are never shared with the AI.

Tracking Numbers and Links

When Tracking Number or Tracking Link is enabled, the plugin looks for a tracking number on the order in this order:

  1. AfterShip
  2. WooCommerce Shipment Tracking
  3. Advanced Shipment Tracking
  4. Common tracking-number order fields (fallback)

The tracking link uses the AfterShip format: https://track.aftership.com/your-tracking-number. Tracking details are only given to signed-in customers about their own orders.

Lookup Limits

To stop people guessing order numbers, lookups are limited in 15-minute windows:

  • 10 lookups per visitor (by IP address)
  • 20 lookups per order number

When a limit is reached, the chatbot says order lookup is temporarily unavailable and suggests trying again later or contacting the store. If your site is behind a proxy or CDN, set up the wpiko_chatbot_client_ip filter so limits apply to real visitors (see User Limits).

Example Conversations

Guest checking an order

Customer: “What’s the status of my order #1234?”
Chatbot: “I can check that for you. What email address did you use at checkout?”
Customer: “anna@example.com”
Chatbot: “Thanks! Order #1234 is currently Processing. For more details such as tracking, sign in to your account and ask me again.”

Signed-in customer asking for tracking

Customer: “Where is order 2468?”
Chatbot: “Your order #2468 is Completed. The tracking number is ABC123456789, and you can follow the package here: Track your package.”

Custom Order Numbers (Developers)

By default, the order number the customer gives must be the WooCommerce order ID. If your store uses a sequential or custom order-number plugin, map the number to the order ID with the wpiko_chatbot_lookup_order_id filter:

add_filter( 'wpiko_chatbot_lookup_order_id', function ( $order_id, $order_number ) {
    // Return the WooCommerce order ID for $order_number.
    return my_store_find_order_id( $order_number );
}, 10, 2 );

Troubleshooting

The chatbot can’t find an order

  • Check that Order lookup is On and Use WooCommerce data in the chatbot is on.
  • Make sure your Pro license is active.
  • For guests, the email must exactly match the order’s billing email.
  • If you use custom order numbers, add the wpiko_chatbot_lookup_order_id filter shown above.

Tracking details aren’t shown

  • Tracking is only shown to signed-in customers about their own orders.
  • Check that Tracking number and/or Tracking link are ticked in Signed-in order details.
  • Make sure the order has a tracking number from one of the supported tracking plugins, or a custom order field named tracking_number.

“Order lookup is temporarily unavailable”

The visitor reached the lookup limit. They can try again after 15 minutes.

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