Streamlining Your Shopify Workflow: Community Tips for Lost Shortcuts & Product Selection

Hey everyone,

It’s always a bit jarring when a familiar tool or shortcut in our Shopify admin suddenly changes or disappears, isn't it? We rely on these little efficiencies to keep our businesses humming, especially when we’re dealing with high volumes. Recently, a discussion in the Shopify community perfectly captured this sentiment, with a store owner, punkwithacamera, expressing frustration over the loss of the J & K keyboard shortcut for navigating orders and a "select all" feature for custom product selections.

As a Shopify expert who’s been helping merchants like you navigate the platform's ins and outs, I know firsthand how critical a smooth workflow is. For a DIY screen printing shop like punkwithacamera’s, these seemingly small changes can significantly impact production speed. They highlighted how the J & K shortcut was vital for moving between orders to queue them for production, and the "select all" feature was essential for quickly grouping specific products, like all their "3X3" items. To make matters worse, their manual workaround for these custom selections kept breaking monthly, forcing them to rebuild it from scratch!

It’s a common scenario: Shopify evolves, features shift, and sometimes our established routines get disrupted. But what's fantastic about our community is how quickly members jump in to share solutions and workarounds. Let's dive into what was discussed and how you can tackle similar challenges.

Bringing Back the Flow: Navigating Orders After J & K

The J & K shortcut was a beloved feature for many, allowing rapid navigation between orders. When it disappeared, it left a gap in many high-volume workflows. While we can't magically bring specific deprecated shortcuts back ourselves (as community member MBilal rightly pointed out), there are effective ways to adapt.

Discovering Available Shortcuts

First things first: did you know you can easily see what keyboard shortcuts are currently available in your Shopify admin? It's a lifesaver!

• Simply press the ? key while you're in your Shopify admin.
• A pop-up will appear, listing all the active shortcuts. It’s a good habit to check this periodically, especially after updates, to stay on top of new or changed shortcuts.

Using the Next/Previous Arrows

For moving between orders, MBilal highlighted a built-in feature that’s a solid alternative:

When you're viewing an individual order's details page:

• Look to the top right of the page. You'll see "previous" and "next" arrows.
• These arrows will open the next or previous order based on your current filters and sort order from the main Orders list.

This brings us to a crucial point for efficiency:

Optimizing Your Order Navigation with Filters

This is where you can really streamline your process, just as MBilal suggested. Before you start clicking through orders, apply filters to your main Orders list. For example, if you're only processing orders that need to go into production:

1. Go to your Orders section in the Shopify admin.
2. Use the filter options (e.g., "Unfulfilled," "Payment Pending," or custom tags you use for production status).
3. Apply the filter.
4. Now, when you open the first order in this filtered list and use the "next" arrow, you'll only navigate through the orders that actually require your attention for production. This avoids wasting time on orders that are already fulfilled or waiting on other steps.

Say Goodbye to Monthly Resets: Automated Collections for Product Selection

This was perhaps the biggest win from the community discussion – solving the recurring problem of "select all" features breaking and forcing manual re-entry. punkwithacamera's frustration with having to manually select "3X3" products every month and then having that selection reset is a classic example of a manual process creating unnecessary overhead. Both MBilal and JohnQQ championed the automated collection approach, and for good reason!

JohnQQ specifically noted, "the automated collection approach will completely eliminate your monthly reset problem. Shopify automatically adds new matching products to the collection, so once you set it up, it becomes genuinely more reliable than manual selection ever was." And they're absolutely right!

How Automated Collections Work Their Magic

Instead of manually picking products, you set up rules. Shopify then automatically adds any product that meets those rules to the collection. This means no more manual selection, no more monthly resets, and new products matching your criteria are added instantly.

Step-by-Step: Setting Up an Automated Collection for Production Batches

Let’s say you need to group all your "3X3" products for a screen printing run:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.
2. Click Create collection.
3. Give your collection a clear title, like "3X3 Production Batch."
4. Under "Collection type," select Automated collection.
5. Now, you'll set your conditions. Here are a couple of powerful options:
   • Condition based on Product Title:
     1. Select "Product title" from the first dropdown.
     2. Select "contains" from the second dropdown.
     3. In the text field, type 3X3.

     This will automatically include any product whose title contains "3X3."

   • Condition based on Product Tag (Recommended for precision):
     1. First, ensure all your relevant products (e.g., all "3X3" items) have a consistent tag, like 3X3. You can bulk edit products to add this tag.
     2. Then, in your collection conditions, select "Product tag" from the first dropdown.
     3. Select "is equal to" from the second dropdown.
     4. In the text field, type 3X3.

     Using tags is often more precise as it ensures you only group exactly what you intend, regardless of title variations.

6. Click Save.

Once set up, this collection will always contain the correct products, automatically updating as you add new items or change existing ones. When you need to select these products for a custom selection or production queue, you simply choose this automated collection instead of manually picking individual products. Problem solved!

Making Your Voice Heard: Sending Feedback to Shopify

While workarounds are great for immediate relief, the community also emphasized the importance of providing feedback directly to Shopify. This is how the product team learns about the real-world impact of changes and prioritizes future development.

• Use the Feedback Option: In your Shopify admin, there's often a "Send feedback" option (sometimes found under the "Help" menu or a small feedback button).
• Contact Shopify Support: Reach out to Shopify Support and ask them to log your requests for the product team.

As JohnQQ wisely advised, when you send feedback, "include your specific use case (high-volume production workflow for screen printing) since that context helps Shopify understand the real impact of the change." The more detail you provide about *why* a feature is important to your workflow and *how* its absence affects your business, the better chance Shopify has of understanding and addressing it.

It’s clear that even small changes in the Shopify admin can have a ripple effect on daily operations, especially for busy shops. The beauty of the Shopify ecosystem is not just the platform itself, but the vibrant community of merchants and experts who come together to share insights and solutions. By leveraging automated collections and smart filtering, you can overcome these workflow hurdles and keep your business running smoothly. And remember, your feedback is invaluable in shaping the future of the platform. If you're looking to start your own journey with this powerful platform, you can explore Shopify and its features today.