Weekly summary

Written 2026-09-29. Every Monday morning Formahand sends the owner of an open store one short mail about the week before: sales, where they came from, the top products, what needs you and one thing to try. It is written to be read on a phone in a minute. Nothing in it is estimated or invented: every number is one your dashboard already shows.

1. Who gets it

• The owner gets it unless they switch it off.
• Admins get it only after they switch it on for themselves.
• Nobody else. Staff with other roles never receive it and cannot switch it on.

The switch belongs to each person, not to the store. When the owner switches it off, admins who switched it on still get it. One mail per address.

2. When it is sent

• Monday at 08:00 in the store's timezone (Settings, Store profile). A store without a timezone uses UTC.
• The mail covers the week before, Monday to Sunday, in that same timezone, and compares it with the week before that.
• Formahand checks for due stores every ten minutes, so the mail arrives between 08:00 and a little after.
• If something stops it on Monday, it is tried again on a later check, for up to 3 days. After that the week is dropped: news that is four days old is not worth a mail.
• It is never sent twice for the same week.

3. When it is not sent

"Visits" are storefront page views, counted the way Analytics counts them. "Orders" are paid orders: a checkout that never paid is not an order.

4. What is inside

The subject says the week in one line: "Your week at Oat & Co: 12 orders, $420.00". A week with no orders reads "0 orders, 35 visits", or "no orders yet" when the week before had none either.

A week with orders has five sections, in this order (a part that could not be read is left out, see section 9):

1. Sales. Orders, sales, the average order, visits, conversion, new customers, and refunds when there were any this week or last.
2. Where sales came from. The top 3 sources of this week's orders, each with its orders and sales.
3. Top products. The 3 best sellers by units sold, with units and sales. Product names only.
4. Needs you. Orders paid more than 2 days ago and not shipped, open returns, payment notices, and items low on stock with the lowest one named. Each line links to the place in your dashboard. When nothing is waiting it says so, but only when it could check.
5. One thing to try. One suggestion, chosen by the rules in section 5.

A quiet week (no orders, some visits) is shorter: two lines with orders and visits against last week, "Needs you" when something is waiting, and one thing to try. A store with no visits and no orders in either week (what a sample shows before the first Monday mail) gets two sentences on what the mail will show once shoppers come, and "First thing to do".

Comparisons are words, not charts. Each number is set against the week before: "12 orders, 3 more than last week", "$420.00, $80.00 more than last week", "No orders, down from 1 last week". A percentage is added only when both weeks stand on 10 or more (the counts themselves, or the paid orders behind a money amount): 3 orders against 1 is "up 200%", which says more about luck than about the shop, so below 10 you get the difference only.

Conversion is paid orders divided by views of the cart and checkout pages. It is shown only when at least 10 such views stand behind it, and it is compared with last week only when last week had 10 too. Otherwise the line is left out.

Money is in the store's currency with that currency's own decimals (no decimals for yen, three for dinar).

Sources come from the source Formahand records with each order (where the buyer came from: a search, a social post, a newsletter, a tracked link). Each source is one line, with all its orders: "Instagram" appears once even when three campaigns brought its orders. A campaign or a tracked link code is named only when every order of that source shares it. Orders whose source was not recorded are not a source and are never shown as "Direct". Until the store has recorded a source for any order of the week, the section says "Sources are recorded from now on.", or "Sources are recorded from" a date when that date is known. When recording began during the week, the lines are followed by "Sources are recorded from" that day, since orders before it have no source and the lines add up to less than Sales.

5. One thing to try

The mail picks one suggestion by fixed rules. The rules are tried in this order and the first that matches wins:

1. open-store: the store is closed to shoppers. Open it.
2. first-product: the catalog has no products. Add the first one.
3. product-photos: some products have no photo. Add photos (the mail names how many).
4. ship-orders: orders have waited more than 2 days to ship. Ship them.
5. tracked-link: the store has no tracked links yet. Make one for the place you post most (tracked links).
6. check-checkout: 20 or more visits and no order this week. Place a test order to check checkout, then share a discount code.
7. post-again: one social, email or tracked link source brought more than half of this week's orders, and at least 3 of them. Post, send or share there again.
8. restock: items are low on stock. Restock the lowest one.
9. share-link: none of the above. Share your store link once this week.

A rule whose fact could not be read is skipped, never guessed. No model writes the suggestion and no number in it is made up.

6. Turning it off and on

• From the mail. Every mail ends with "Turn off this weekly mail". The link works without signing in: it opens a page with one button, and pressing it switches the mail off for you, for that store. Opening the link alone changes nothing, so a mail scanner that follows links cannot switch anyone off.
• From the dashboard. Settings, Email sending, card Weekly summary: the switch "Send it to me", the last mail and what happened to it, and the sample button.
• Turning it on again. Switch it on in the same card, or ask an agent to (section 8). The link in an old mail stays valid, so it can switch the mail off again later.

The switch only ever changes the mail for the person who uses it.

7. Send me a sample

The Send me a sample button in the Weekly summary card sends last week's mail to you, now, and to nobody else. It works whatever the store's state and whatever your switch says, so you can see the mail before the first Monday. The subject starts with "Sample:". It asks before sending, allows 3 samples an hour per person and store, and does not count as that week's Monday mail. The test store does not send samples.

8. For agents

The same over HTTP: GET /api/weekly-summary (add ?week=YYYY-MM-DD for a week's numbers) and PUT /api/weekly-summary with { "enabled": true } or { "enabled": false }.

• No tool sends mail. get_weekly_summary is read-only. The sample is mail into a person's inbox, so only that person can ask for it, signed in, from the dashboard; a token cannot.
• The switch belongs to a person, so an app token is refused: only a token made by a person can read or set it, and it acts for that person.
• A week is Monday to Sunday in the store's timezone, named by its Monday. The running week is never given: its numbers would change after you read them.
• Money is in minor units of currency, with the formatted amount beside it. A part that could not be read is null and named in missing.

10. Privacy

• The mail carries no shopper's personal data: no names, email addresses or order details of buyers. Only counts, amounts, product names and source names (with a campaign name or tracked link code when one applies).
• The mail itself has no tracking pixel and no tracked links. Every link in it is a plain link to your dashboard or to the switch-off page.
• The switch-off link carries a signed value naming the store and the person. Changing it breaks the signature, so it cannot switch off the mail for anyone else.

11. Limits and what is not there yet

• One fixed time, Monday 08:00 store time. There is no choice of day or hour yet.
• English only.
• Up to 12 past weeks for agents; the mail is always last week.
• The mail does not yet carry a one-click unsubscribe header for mail clients. The switch-off address already accepts a one-click request, so it can be added without changing old mails.
• "A source with visits and no orders" cannot be told yet: sources are recorded per order, not per visit.
• A store that recorded no order source for the week shows "Sources are recorded from now on" until its first sourced order.