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FAQ & Common Issues

Running into something unexpected? You’re in the right place. This page covers the most common questions and issues people encounter with Tracksies HQ, organised by category so you can find what you need fast. Most of these have straightforward fixes — don’t worry, you’ve got this.

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Email Issues

My emails aren’t sending

This is the number one question we get, and the answer is almost always the same: your site needs an SMTP plugin to send emails reliably.

Here’s the thing: WordPress can technically send emails on its own, but it’s a bit like posting a letter without a stamp and hoping for the best. Most of those emails end up in spam folders or don’t arrive at all. A proper SMTP setup is like using a trusted postal service — your messages actually get where they’re going.

Work through these checks in order:

  1. Check your SMTP setup. You need a dedicated email delivery plugin — WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP are both solid free options. Install one, connect it to an email service (Brevo, Postmark, or Mailgun all have free tiers), and send a test email from the plugin’s tools page. If the test email doesn’t arrive, that’s your problem — fix the SMTP connection first, and your Tracksies emails will start working too.
  1. Check your email toggles. Go to Tracksies > Settings in the left sidebar, click the Emails tab, and make sure the specific email types you’re expecting are actually toggled on. Each email type has its own toggle, so it’s possible for some emails to send while others don’t. See Email Templates for a walkthrough of every toggle.
  1. Check your spam folder. It sounds obvious, but check your spam and junk folders. Emails from new senders often end up there, especially if your SMTP setup is fresh and your domain hasn’t built a sending reputation yet.
  1. Check the email queue for failed entries. If you’re using Trustie for review request emails, go to the Review Requests tab in Trustie settings to see the queue. Failed entries will show there with details about what went wrong. For Woo status emails, enable debug logging in Tracksies > Settings > Debug tab and reproduce the issue — the log will tell you exactly what happened. See Debug Logging for how to read those logs.

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Emails are going to spam

Your emails are sending, but they’re landing in the junk folder instead of the inbox. This is a reputation and authentication problem, not a Tracksies problem — but here’s how to fix it.

  1. Set up SMTP properly. If you haven’t already, install an SMTP plugin and connect it to a dedicated email service. Sending through your hosting provider’s default mail server is unreliable and much more likely to trigger spam filters. See the SMTP check above.
  1. Configure SPF and DKIM records. These are DNS records that prove to email providers that your emails are legitimately coming from your domain. Think of them like a return address and a wax seal on a letter — they tell the recipient’s mail server “yes, this is really from who it says it’s from.” Your email service (Brevo, Postmark, etc.) will give you the exact records to add. Your hosting provider or domain registrar can help you add them if you’re not sure how.
  1. Make sure your sender email matches your domain. If your website is mybusiness.com, your emails should come from something like hello@mybusiness.com — not a Gmail or Outlook address. Sending from a mismatched domain is one of the fastest ways to land in spam. You can set the sender address in your SMTP plugin’s settings.

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Customer didn’t get their shipped/packed email

When a specific status email doesn’t arrive but other emails are working fine, the issue is usually one of two things.

  1. Check that the specific status email is toggled on. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Emails tab and look under the Customer Emails sub-tab. Each order status has its own email toggle — Packed, Shipped, Partially Shipped, and Ready for Pickup are all separate. The one you need might be turned off. See Email Templates for the full list of toggleable emails.
  1. Check the tracking requirement setting. For Shipped emails specifically, Tracksies may be configured to only send the email when tracking information is provided. If you changed an order to “Shipped” without entering a tracking number, the email might be held back deliberately. Check your shipped email settings in the Emails tab under Settings to see if tracking is required before the email sends. See Shipping & Tracking for how tracking integration works.

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Customer Profile Issues

Customer profiles are empty

You’ve gone to Tracksies > Customers in the left sidebar and the list is empty, or a specific customer has no data. Here’s what to check.

  1. The initial sync may still be running. After you activate Tracksies HQ, it syncs your existing WooCommerce orders in the background. For a small store, this takes seconds. For a store with thousands of orders, give it a few minutes and refresh the page. You can check for sync activity in Tracksies > Settings > Debug tab.
  1. You need actual orders. Customers in Tracksies are created from WooCommerce order data. If you have no orders in WooCommerce > Orders, there are no customers to show. Tracksies tracks buyers, not WordPress user accounts.
  1. Try a manual import. If the automatic sync didn’t pick up your orders, you can trigger a manual import. Go to Tracksies > Customers and look for the Import option. This forces Tracksies to re-read your WooCommerce orders and build customer profiles from them. See Order Sync for details on how the sync system works.
  1. Check the order sync toggle. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features tab and make sure the Order Sync feature is toggled on under the WooCommerce module. If it’s off, Tracksies isn’t watching for new orders. See Feature Toggles for how parent and child features work.

For more on how customer profiles are built and what data they contain, see Customer Profiles.

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Tags aren’t appearing on customer profiles

Tags are visual achievements that celebrate customer milestones, but they need a few things to be configured before they’ll show up.

  1. Check the tags feature toggle. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features tab and make sure Tags is toggled on under the WooCommerce module. If it’s off, no tags will be calculated or displayed anywhere.
  1. Check individual tag channel toggles. Tags are organised into channels — Commitment, Tenure, Value, Price Sensitivity, and Engagement. Each channel has its own toggle. Go to Tracksies > Settings and find the Tags configuration area. A channel that’s toggled off won’t award any tags, even if the main Tags feature is on. See Customer Tags for how channels work.
  1. Check that thresholds are configured. Each tag channel needs thresholds to define when a tag is earned. For example, the Value channel might have tags at $100, $500, and $1,000 of lifetime spend. If no thresholds are set, there’s nothing to award. Check your tag configurations in the Tags settings.
  1. Run a recalculation. If you’ve changed tag settings or imported a batch of orders, existing customers may not have been re-evaluated yet. Go to Tracksies > Customers and look for the Recalculate option. This tells Tracksies to re-check every customer against your current tag thresholds and award any newly earned tags.

For the full guide on setting up and customising tags (including custom colours and icons), see Customer Tags.

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Customer shows wrong status

Customer statuses in Tracksies (Active, VIP, Caution, Do Not Serve) are set manually by you or your team — they’re not automatic. This is intentional. Automatic statuses based on order patterns (like At Risk or Churned) are separate from the status labels you assign.

If a customer shows a status you don’t recognise or didn’t set:

  1. Check who changed it. Open the customer profile by clicking their name in the Tracksies > Customers list. In the Details sidebar on the right, you can see the current status and review the profile activity to find when and by whom it was changed.
  1. Change it yourself. In that same Details sidebar, you can update the status to the correct one. Changes take effect immediately.

For more on how statuses work and what each one means, see Customer Profiles.

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Order Issues

Custom order statuses aren’t showing

Tracksies HQ adds custom order statuses like Packed, Shipped, Partially Shipped, and Ready for Pickup. If these aren’t appearing in your WooCommerce orders dropdown, check these two things.

  1. Make sure Tracksies HQ is activated. Go to Plugins in the left sidebar of your WordPress admin and confirm Tracksies HQ shows as active (it should have a “Deactivate” link, not an “Activate” one). Custom statuses are registered when the plugin loads, so if it’s deactivated, they disappear.
  1. Check the order statuses feature toggle. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features tab and make sure Order Statuses is toggled on under the WooCommerce module. This feature controls whether Tracksies registers its custom statuses with WooCommerce. If it’s off, WooCommerce only shows its default statuses.

For the full guide on custom statuses and what each one means, see Custom Order Statuses.

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Priority rules not applying to orders

Priority Rules use a “first match wins” system — like a bouncer checking a guest list from top to bottom. The first rule that matches an order sets its priority, and everything below it is skipped. If your rules aren’t working as expected, here’s what to check.

  1. Check the feature toggle. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features tab and make sure Priority Rules is toggled on under the WooCommerce module.
  1. Check rule order. The order matters. Go to the Priority Order tab in Priority Rules settings and check where your rule sits in the list. A broader rule higher up might be matching first, preventing your more specific rule from ever being reached. You can drag rules up or down to change the order.
  1. Check if the rule is active. Individual rules can be toggled on and off. Make sure the specific rule you’re expecting to match is actually enabled.
  1. Remember: rules apply going forward. Priority Rules evaluate new orders and status changes. They don’t retroactively apply to all existing orders. If you create a new rule, it will match the next order that meets its conditions, not old orders sitting in your queue.

For the full guide including all 26 condition types and how to build rules, see Priority Rules.

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Returns option not appearing in My Account

The returns button in the customer’s My Account page has several conditions that all need to be met before it appears. It’s deliberately cautious — you don’t want customers requesting returns on things that aren’t eligible.

Check each of these:

  1. The returns feature is enabled. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features tab and confirm the Returns toggle is on under the WooCommerce module.
  1. The product is eligible for returns. Check your returns settings to confirm the product (or its category) is marked as returnable. Some products may be marked as final sale or non-returnable, which hides the return button for orders containing them.
  1. The return window hasn’t expired. Returns have a time limit — a set number of days from the purchase date or delivery date, depending on your configuration. If that window has closed, the button won’t appear. Check the return window setting in your returns configuration.
  1. The order status is right. Returns are typically available on Completed or Shipped orders. If the order is still in Processing, the customer hasn’t received the item yet, so the return option won’t show.

For the full returns setup guide including per-product eligibility, restocking fees, and the customer experience, see Returns.

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Contact Form Submissions

Form submissions not appearing in customer profiles

When you use a supported contact form plugin, Tracksies logs submissions as interactions on the matching customer’s profile. If that’s not working, check these:

  1. Confirm the form-plugin integration toggle is on. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features > Integrations. Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, Formidable Forms, and Fluent Forms each have their own toggle and are auto-detected when the plugin is installed.
  1. Check that the form has an email field. Tracksies matches submissions to customers by email. If the form has no email field — or uses a non-standard name for it — the submission is logged but can’t be linked to a customer profile. Standard email fields or fields named email, your-email, or email_address are detected automatically.
  1. Check whether the customer exists. If the submitter hasn’t placed an order, there’s no customer profile to link to. Tracksies logs the interaction on a matching profile; it doesn’t create a brand-new customer from a contact form submission.

For the supported plugin list and how each integration hooks in, see Integrations & Automation.

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Display Issues

Dashboard widgets not showing

Tracksies HQ adds two widgets to your WordPress Dashboard: Store Intel and Customer Notes. If they’re not appearing, check these things.

  1. Confirm Tracksies HQ is active. Go to Plugins in the left sidebar and confirm Tracksies HQ is activated. Store Intel needs the WooCommerce module enabled; Customer Notes needs the Interactions feature (hq.interactions) enabled in Tracksies > Settings > Features.
  1. Check Screen Options. This is the one people forget. On your WordPress Dashboard (the main page you see when you log in), click the Screen Options tab in the top right corner of the screen. You’ll see a list of checkboxes for every available dashboard widget. Make sure Tracksies Store Intel and/or Customer Notes are checked. If they’re unchecked, WordPress hides them — it doesn’t mean they’re broken, they’re hidden by your personal display preferences.

(Trustie has its own Intel widget if you’re using Trustie Pro — it lives in Trustie Pro, not HQ.)

For more on what the HQ dashboard widgets show and how to read them, see Dashboard Widgets.

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Brand Hub colours not applying

You’ve set up your colours in the Designer, but they’re not showing on your site. Here’s what to check.

  1. Clear your caching plugin. If you’re using a caching plugin (WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, or similar), your site may be serving an older cached version that doesn’t include the new CSS variables. Go to your caching plugin’s settings and clear/purge the cache. Your hosting provider may also have server-level caching — check your hosting dashboard too.
  1. Hard refresh your browser. Your browser caches CSS files aggressively. Press Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + R (Mac) to force a hard refresh that bypasses the browser cache. This loads the latest version of all CSS files from your server.
  1. Check the CSS variable output. If clearing caches didn’t help, check that Brand Hub is actually outputting the CSS variables. Right-click on your site, select Inspect (or press F12), and look in the section for a