This is a complete documentation of the free plugin Sequential order number for WooCommerce which helps you convert your WooCommerce orders into a custom and sequential format.
Overview of the Plugin
- Supports sequential order numbers for WooCommerce
- Enable custom formatting for order numbers in your store by adding a prefix and starting number for orders.
- Option to have order date prefixes for all orders
- Support Subscription orders.
- Compatibility with WooCommerce Subscriptions and WebToffee subscriptions plugins.
Installation
You can install the plugin either from the WordPress plugin directory or as a zip downloaded from the WordPress.org website. You can learn more about the installation procedure by reading the article How to install a free plugin from WordPress.
Get started
From the WordPress dashboard, navigate to WooCommerce >Settings > Sequential Order Number.
Settings
Following is the Sequential order number settings window. You can configure the settings as per your preference.
Number format settings
Start Number
Here you can add a custom starting number for your store’s order number.
Order number format
Select an order number format with a combination of number, prefix, or date.
Prefix
The custom prefix will appear at the beginning of the order number. For eg, if you enter WT- as the prefix with the start number as 100, then your first order number will be WT-100.
Order date prefix
The order date prefix will appear after the default prefix. Select any of the date formats as date prefixes from the list below:
Order number length
Maintains a fixed length for order number padded with ‘0’ excluding prefix. For example, entering order number length as 7 with order number 123 and prefix ‘wt’ will generate a sequential order number as wt0000123.
Apply for all orders
Enabling this option will change starting number and/or prefix for all the existing and new orders in your store. If unchecked, it will only apply to the new orders.
Track orders
Enable the track order option to track the sequential order number. Insert the below-given shortcode to track orders.
[woocommerce_order_tracking]WooCommerce offers this shortcode to link orders based on the order ID. You can use it on the front end of your site.
Following is a screenshot of the order tracking page on a website created using the shortcode.
By entering the order ID and billing email corresponding to a specific order you can view all the details regarding the order.
Search orders
You need to enable this option for searching plugin-generated orders from the WooCommerce orders page. If you disable it you will not be able to search custom order numbers from the orders page.
Finally, click on the Save Settings button. As a result, the store’s order numbers will be updated.
Following is a screenshot of an order page containing sequential orders.
In the below screenshot, the values assigned for each field are as shown below:
- Starting number – 100
- Order number format – [Prefix][Date][Number]
- Prefix – WT
- Order date prefix – ‘[Y]-‘ Current year (2021) with a hyphen
- Order number length – 6
Conclusion
To sum up, if order management takes up a lot of your time, then the plugin will be helpful in making it easier for you. If you are dealing with lots of orders in your store on a daily basis, you can save time tracking orders quickly.
Comments (5)
Adrian Smith
July 15, 2021
Hi
We just noticed that the sequential plugin had given up and we have received a few orders with the post_id assigned instead. Checking for updates I see that you have released a bugfix release for this and we have applied it. We have some questions:
1. How do we recover for the orders that did not get a sequential number?
2. Is it possible to apply a renumber process to a selection of orders – not all?
2. Will the next sequential number follow on from the last generated one or will it continue to use the post_id value?
Arpan
July 10, 2021
i didn’t quite understand the usage of woocommerce_order_tracking.
After using your plugin, order number got printed correctly in the generated invoice, but woo-sms plugin is not able to send sms with new order number. it continues to send sms with woo-commerce generated random order number.
Mark
July 13, 2021
Hi Arpan,
The might be some changes needed in the Woocommerce SMS plugin to make it compatible. Instead of referencing $order->id or $order->get_id() when fetching order data, that plugin should use
$order->get_order_number()to make it compatible.Please contact their support and request to make this change.
Sarah
March 16, 2021
What does tracking the orders do? Will the plugin work if I don’t enable this option?
Mark
March 16, 2021
Hi Sarah,
[woocommerce_order_tracking] is a shortcode provided by Woocommerce to link to the order based on order ID and you can use it in the front end of the site. You need to enable that option if you want to track the orders based on the sequential order numbers.
It is not required to enable that option to use the plugin. It’s needed only if you are using that shortcode.