Twelve questions to ask Sidekick about your orders

Monday, 9:15. A customer calls to ask whether her deposit went through. You're in Shopify Admin with three tabs open and a fabric book balanced on the keyboard. You type “Is 1042 paid?” into Sidekick. The answer gives you the order's status, its total, and a link back to OrderPilot.

OrderPilot gives Sidekick read-only access to useful order lookups, help from its documentation, and a way to open prefilled quote and order forms. The questions below turn that access into a practical desk habit: ask, open the record, and take the next action there. All names, order numbers, and amounts in these prompts are sample data.

Find the right record before answering the customer

Sidekick is Shopify's assistant inside Shopify Admin. It can use the page you're viewing as context, so a short question can fit the work already on screen. Shopify describes that behavior in its Sidekick getting-started guide. OrderPilot supplies the specific record lookups described here.

1. “Is 1042 paid?”

Use the order number when you have it. Read the returned payment status and total, then open the OrderPilot link for the payment history and remaining balance. A partially paid order is a different answer from an unpaid order, especially when the customer is asking about a deposit.

For a sample $3,000 sofa with $1,000 received, the useful response is that the payment is recorded and $2,000 remains. Check the actual record before quoting that balance or requesting another payment. If the customer says they paid elsewhere, investigate that transaction rather than creating a second request.

2. “Find the order for PO 4417”

A vendor calls with its purchase-order reference while your colleague knows only the customer's order number. Ask Sidekick to find the connected order, then follow the link. This is especially useful when a customer sale includes furniture from several vendors.

Read the relevant line before passing on the update. News about a dining table doesn't establish that the matching chairs are ready. The lookup reconnects the conversation; the order tells you which pieces the news concerns.

3. “Show quotes for jane@example.com”

Use the customer's whole email address when a surname produces several possibilities. Review the returned quotes by project, contents, and status. A customer can be considering a bedroom while an earlier living-room order is already underway.

Keep the full email in the prompt when preparing a new quote, too. It gives matching a clear target and avoids attaching the new conversation to a similarly named customer.

4. “Find orders tagged design-trade”

A shared tag turns a vague request into a useful list. Open the results to review the orders that need attention. Tags work best when the team agrees on their spelling and purpose; “trade,” “designer,” and “design-trade” shouldn't accidentally mean the same queue.

Use the list as a starting point for the owner's order dashboard. A tag identifies a group of records. It doesn't tell you which unresolved question matters most.

Find work waiting on a person or a shipment

Sidekick can point to the work, while the linked record supplies the detail needed to move it along.

5. “Which orders are waiting for review?”

This question brings the review queue into the conversation. Open an order to see why it needs attention and what the salesperson has prepared. A manager still makes the approval decision in OrderPilot.

The best next action can be a short question to the salesperson. If the requested discount is clear but the delivery arrangement is missing, settle the missing detail before approving the sale. A queue is more useful when each record has an owner.

6. “Find PO 2210 for Atelier Nord”

Use both the PO number and vendor when you want to narrow the search. Open the purchase order to read its lines and vendor conversation. That gives the person covering the desk a place to pick up the work without asking whose inbox contains the answer.

A sent PO and a vendor's confirmed production date describe different events. Read the response before telling a customer that the factory has accepted a particular finish or arrival window.

7. “Is anything incoming for the Madison sofa?”

This lookup shows open PO lines for the product. It's useful when a customer likes the floor sample and asks what else is coming. Open the PO lines to inspect the configuration, quantities, destination, and customer allocation.

Incoming stock is not automatically free stock. A navy sofa already ordered for someone else doesn't become available because it shares a model name with the floor sample. Treat expected dates as planning information and establish availability before offering a piece.

Find the message before sending it again

8. “What emails went to the customer on order 1042?”

The order's send log gives the conversation a factual starting point. Look at which message went out, when it went out, and the delivery or opening information available. Then decide whether the customer needs the same quote again or a different answer.

An opening event doesn't establish that the customer agreed to the specification. A delivered email doesn't establish that they noticed it. The send-log guide explains how to read those distinctions without making a customer defend their inbox.

When a resend is appropriate, open the order and review the recipient and current document first. Sidekick finds the log; staff handle the communication from the record.

Ask for the setting or the explanation

9. “Where do I turn on deposit orders?”

Sidekick can direct you to Settings › Quotes & orders › Delivery & stock. Deposit orders let staff request a deposit from a quote or draft in Admin, using a separate Shopify order with its own payment link.

Deposit orders work on any Shopify plan; Shopify's native percentage deposit, POS Take Deposit, and minimum-deposit requirements need Shopify Plus. Once the setup is right, return to the customer's quote and prepare the request there.

10. “How do I add terms to a location?”

Ask for the OrderPilot instructions, then open the location settings. A location's terms need to describe the store's actual sale and service arrangements. The person authorized to manage them makes the change.

This is a useful question for someone covering another showroom: it leads to the maintained setting instead of an old document copied from a desktop. The in-app help guide explains when to use settings search or the Academy for more detail.

11. “Open the PO workbench”

A navigation request takes you to the place where the work happens. The PO workbench gathers the sold lines for purchasing, so the next task is reviewing the vendor and specification.

Sidekick's OrderPilot tools don't create POs, approve reviews, send customer emails, or change existing orders and settings. They return information and links, leaving the permitted action with the staff member on the right page.

Dictate the first draft, then read it like a quote

12. “Quote Russell Winfield four oak dining chairs in navy, 10% off, deliver for 120”

A specific sentence can open Create Quote with information already filled in. Staff review and save the form. Until then, the sentence is a starting point, not a placed order.

Matching uses exact template titles, exact Shopify product titles or SKUs, and a customer's full name or whole email address. A name that matches two customer records matches neither. The Still to do banner names details the request couldn't resolve. Read the quantity, chosen upholstery, discount, delivery charge, and customer together. If “oak dining chairs” isn't an exact catalog title, select the correct product. If navy isn't resolved, choose its actual option value. A chair can have remarkably strong opinions about which navy it is.

Then review the complete price and delivery arrangement before saving. The useful time saving is less initial typing, followed by the same careful furniture conversation.

Use the right tool for totals and the right screen for the job

OrderPilot's Sidekick lookups respect staff permissions. A natural-language request doesn't grant access to restricted records or settings.

For “What did we sell last month?”, use Analytics and Sales performance for OrderPilot reporting. The integration described here retrieves records; it doesn't provide aggregate analytics over OrderPilot data. Build recurring totals into the Monday review, where the reporting period and definition stay consistent.

These prompts belong in Shopify Admin, including Admin used on a tablet. They aren't a chat feature inside Shopify POS. Keep the register workflow focused on the sale, and use the Admin assistant when you need these lookups.

Keep this prompt card beside the order desk

1. Is 1042 paid?
2. Find the order for PO 4417.
3. Show quotes for jane@example.com.
4. Find orders tagged design-trade.
5. Which orders are waiting for review?
6. Find PO 2210 for Atelier Nord.
7. Is anything incoming for the Madison sofa?
8. What emails went to the customer on order 1042?
9. Where do I turn on deposit orders?
10. How do I add terms to a location?
11. Open the PO workbench.
12. Quote Russell Winfield four oak dining chairs in navy, 10% off, deliver for 120.

Start with a question your team answers repeatedly, then follow the result into the record. For more furniture-specific uses, read practical AI for furniture stores.

Sources

1. Getting started with Sidekick — Shopify Help Center.