Customer Notes (My Account)

A typed notes system for order and customer profile communication, with role-based access control over who sees what.

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What This Is

Every customer interaction in Tracksies — notes, calls, emails, complaints, compliments, refunds, returns, preferences, warnings — is stored on a unified timeline tied to the customer profile. The system you’ll use day to day is the Notes part of that timeline: short, timestamped entries that flow between you, your team, and your customers.

Three things make Tracksies notes different from generic order notes:

1. Every note has a type that decides where it’s visible — to the customer, to the warehouse, or to office staff only.
2. Every note is stored twice — once as a WooCommerce order note (for compatibility with existing email tools and third-party plugins) and once in the Tracksies interactions timeline (for role-based visibility and cross-order history).
3. Notes travel to the right place automatically — shipping notes arrive in the shipped email, customer notes appear on the packing slip, internal notes stay in the office.

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The Three Note Types

Customer Note

Visible to both staff and the customer. Use these for anything you want the customer to know about — order updates, responses to their questions, confirmations of delivery instructions you’ve acknowledged.

Where it appears:

• Customer’s My Account > Messages page
• Packing slip PDF, in its own “Customer Notes” section
• Customer profile in the Tracksies admin interaction timeline
• Order detail panel in the packing dashboard
• WooCommerce order edit screen (as a public order note, so it’s compatible with any tool that reads WC order notes)

Shipping Note

Visible to the customer, but with extra behaviour: shipping notes are attached to the shipped email alongside the tracking link. Use these for delivery instructions, handling requirements, or anything the customer needs to know when their parcel arrives.

Where it appears:

• Shipped email — appended to the tracking-info section, so the customer sees it right next to their tracking number
• Customer’s My Account > Messages page
• Customer profile in the Tracksies admin interaction timeline
• Order detail panel in the packing dashboard
• WooCommerce order edit screen (as a public order note)

A shipping note is a customer-visible note with the subject set to “Shipping” — it goes everywhere a regular customer note goes, plus the shipped email.

Internal Note

Staff-only. Customers never see internal notes anywhere, and they never appear on printed documents or emails.

Where it appears:

• Customer profile in the Tracksies admin (staff with internal-level permission)
• Order detail panel in the packing dashboard (staff with internal-level permission)
• WooCommerce order edit screen (as a private order note, so it does not go in any customer-facing WC email)

Where it never appears: packing slips, shipped emails, the customer’s My Account, or any other customer-facing surface.

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Visibility Levels (the full model)

Under the hood, Tracksies uses four visibility levels for every interaction, not just three. The three note types above cover the common cases; the fourth level is for more granular team setups.

You’ll see all four levels in the full interaction form on the customer profile page in Tracksies > Customers. The simpler three-type dropdown in the packing dashboard maps internal → Internal, customer → Customer, customer + shipping subject → Shipping.

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How to Enable Customer Notes

The customer-facing side of the feature (My Account Messages) needs to be turned on before customers can see or submit notes:

1. Go to Tracksies > Settings in the left sidebar
2. Click the Features tab
3. Find the HQ module tile
4. Enable Interactions (hq.interactions) — this is the parent feature
5. Enable Customer Notes (hq.interactions.customer_notes) underneath it

Once enabled, a Messages section appears on the customer’s My Account page where they can view existing customer-visible notes and submit new ones.

Note: Staff can always add notes from the admin side and the packing dashboard, regardless of whether the customer-facing feature is enabled. The toggle above only controls whether customers can see and submit notes from their My Account.

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Adding Notes from the Admin

At Tracksies > Customers, click into a customer to open their profile. The interaction timeline appears in the main panel. Click Add Interaction to open the full form, which exposes:

• Type — note / call / email / complaint / compliment / refund / return / preference / warning / other
• Visibility — internal / packing / customer / all (the four levels above)
• Subject — product / service / staff / shipping / communication / general
• Summary — short one-line label
• Details — the note body

Choosing subject = “Shipping” on a customer-visible note is what makes it land in the shipped email. Any other subject on a customer note just shows up on the profile and My Account.

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Adding Notes from the Packing Dashboard

If you’re using Packsie, the order detail panel in the packing dashboard shows existing notes and a quick-entry form. The picker has three labelled buttons so packers can see exactly what will happen before they hit send:

Each note in the panel is colour-coded by type, with author and timestamp.

Role-based guardrails

The picker is filtered by the current user’s allowed visibility levels (the same matrix that controls what notes they can see). A user who can’t see customer-visible notes can’t create them either — the buttons simply don’t render, and the server rejects any note_type the role isn’t permitted to submit.

• Administrators, Shop Managers, Tracksies Managers — see all three buttons by default.
• Tracksies Packers and Shippers — by default see no buttons, because the default role matrix grants them packing and all visibility only. To let a packer add notes, grant them internal (for staff-only notes) or customer (for customer-facing and shipping notes) in Tracksies > Settings > Packsie > Interaction Visibility.

If no buttons are available for the current user, the form is replaced with a short message pointing to the settings page. This is the intended fail-safe: staff who haven’t been granted a level can’t accidentally send a note to a customer.

See Packing Dashboard for the full packing workflow.

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What Customers See

When Customer Notes is enabled, logged-in customers see a Messages section in their My Account area. From there they can:

• View notes — any note with visibility customer or all appears here
• Submit a note — a text input lets them write and send a note to your store

Submitted notes are timestamped and tied to the customer’s profile. There’s a rate limit of 5 notes per hour per customer to prevent spam.

Customer-submitted notes appear in your admin with the interaction type customer_added so you can distinguish them from notes your staff wrote.

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Customer notes at checkout

When a customer leaves a note in WooCommerce’s standard checkout “Order notes (optional)” field, Tracksies automatically links it to their interaction timeline — so it shows up alongside calls, complaints, compliments, and everything else you’ve logged for that customer. Staff get the full communication picture from one view, including signals that came in at purchase.

What happens under the hood:

• When an order is placed with a customer note, Tracksies creates an Interaction record that references the order (it doesn’t copy the note’s text).
• The interaction’s source is set to checkout_note so it’s distinguishable from staff-logged notes.
• At display time, the interaction timeline fetches the live note from the order. One source of truth (the order), one place to edit (Order Hub), and edits flow through everywhere automatically.
• If the order is deleted or trashed, the linked interaction goes with it — the reference has nothing to display without the order.

What this means for you:

• ✅ Edit the note in Order Hub → the interaction timeline shows the updated text immediately.
• ✅ Delete the order → the interaction is automatically cleaned up.
• ✅ Works for guest checkouts — Tracksies resolves the customer by email.
• ✅ No duplicate storage; the data lives once on the order.

Where it appears:

• Customer profile → Interactions timeline (with the note’s content inlined)
• Tracksies admin → Interactions list page

Where it doesn’t appear (by design):

• The notifications bell on the Packsie Operations dashboard. That tray is for customer_added type notes — messages the customer actively sent you, post-purchase. Checkout notes attached to an active order surface in the order’s usual places (Order Hub, packing dashboard, packing slip, customer profile) already — they don’t need to double up in the bell.

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Who Can See What

Visibility is enforced server-side, not in the UI. The default role matrix is:

A packer querying the API can’t receive internal notes even if they inspect the request. You can customise the matrix in Tracksies > Settings > Packsie > Interaction Visibility (the permissions matrix overrides the defaults above).

The same matrix also controls who can create notes at each level, not just read them. In the packing dashboard that means the note-type picker only shows buttons the user’s role is permitted to post — see “Role-based guardrails” above.

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How Notes Are Stored

Every note is written to two places simultaneously:

1. WooCommerce order notes — Customer and Shipping notes save as public WC notes (visible in customer-facing emails, My Account, and any third-party tool that reads WC notes). Internal notes save as private WC notes (admin-only).

1. tracksies_interactions table — Adds the typed interaction, visibility level, subject, author, and cross-order customer history. This is what powers the interaction timeline on the customer profile.

For Customer and Shipping notes, additional order meta is written so the note lands in the right document/email:

• Customer notes → _tracksies_customer_notes order meta → rendered on the packing slip PDF
• Shipping notes → _tracksies_shipping_notes order meta → appended to the shipped email’s tracking section

You don’t configure any of this — the right meta is written automatically based on the note type you chose.

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Common Questions

Do customers get notified when staff add a note?
No. Customer and Shipping notes appear in the customer’s My Account next time they log in — no email is triggered. The exception is Shipping notes on the shipped email: those go out with the email when the order is dispatched.

Can I disable notes for specific customers?
The feature is a global toggle. It’s on for all customers or off for all.

Do guest customers see notes?
No. My Account > Messages requires a logged-in WordPress account. Guest orders have no My Account to display notes in.

What happens to existing notes if I disable the feature?
Existing notes stay in the database and in WooCommerce order notes. They just stop appearing in the customer’s My Account until you re-enable the feature. Staff still see everything in the admin.

Can packers add notes without the customer-facing feature enabled?
Yes. The packing dashboard note form and the admin interaction form work independently of the customer-facing Messages area.

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Troubleshooting

Notes aren’t showing in the customer’s My Account
Check two toggles in Tracksies > Settings > Features: the parent Interactions (hq.interactions) must be on, and Customer Notes (hq.interactions.customer_notes) must also be on. The child feature won’t work without the parent.

A packer can’t see certain notes in the dashboard
This is working as designed. Packers and shippers see packing and all level notes, not internal or customer. Only admins, shop managers, and Tracksies Managers see the full set. Check the user’s WordPress role, and check the visibility matrix at Tracksies > Settings > Packsie > Interaction Visibility if you’ve customised the defaults.

A packer sees no buttons in the packing dashboard’s “Add Note” form
Same root cause as above, on the write side. The default matrix doesn’t grant packers or shippers the internal or customer level, so the picker hides every button (rather than letting them accidentally send something they shouldn’t). Go to Tracksies > Settings > Packsie > Interaction Visibility and tick the levels you want their role to be able to post — typically internal for shop-floor notes, and/or customer if they should be able to write customer-facing or shipping notes.

Shipping notes aren’t appearing in the shipped email
The shipped email appends shipping notes to the {tracking_info} variable. If your custom email template doesn’t use {tracking_info}, shipping notes won’t appear. Check the shipped email template in Tracksies > Designer > Emails.

Need more help? Check our FAQ & Troubleshooting guide or contact support.