What this workflow does
This workflow sends a Shopify Messaging email to a student who completes one of your courses in Alva Courses: typically a congratulations note with a discount code for your next course. It turns the moment a student finishes into a sale, with no email tool beyond Shopify’s own.
Alva Courses’ own completion email only goes out on courses that need an instructor’s evaluation, and the certificate email only when certificates are on. This workflow works for any course. Shopify’s advice for an automation that involves another app, such as Alva Courses, is to build it as a workflow in Shopify Flow.
Why each email covers one course
A Shopify Messaging email cannot show values from an app’s trigger, such as Course title or Course URL; it reads Shopify’s own customer and store details. So write each email for one course, name the course in the text yourself, and add a condition so the workflow only runs for that course.
Build the workflow
1. Create the discount
In the Shopify admin, open Discounts and create a discount code for graduates, for example GRADUATE15 for 15% off. Limit it to one use per customer so it stays a thank-you rather than a public code.
2. Copy the course’s Flow ID
In Alva Courses, open Settings → Integrations → Shopify Flow and copy the course’s number from the Flow ID column of Course IDs for Flow. The same number is shown on the course’s own Settings tab.
3. Create a workflow with the Course completed trigger
In the Shopify admin, open Apps, then Flow, and click Create workflow. Click Select a trigger, find Alva Courses and choose Course completed.
4. Add a condition for the course
Add a condition after the trigger: Course ID is equal to the Flow ID you copied, for example 42. The email step goes under the condition’s Then branch.
5. Add Send marketing email and write the email
Under Then, add Shopify Messaging’s Send marketing email action and click Edit email. Write a subject such as You finished Watercolour 101: here’s 15% off what’s next, a short congratulations, a button linking to your next course and the code GRADUATE15.
6. Name the workflow and turn it on
Name the workflow Graduate email: Watercolour 101 and click Turn on workflow. Alva Courses only sends Course completed to Flow while a turned-on workflow uses it, so students who finished earlier are not emailed.
Who receives the email
Only students who are subscribed to email marketing receive it. Shopify skips everyone else and records in the workflow’s run that the email was not sent. You can see a student’s email marketing status on their customer page in the Shopify admin.
To reach every graduate whatever their marketing consent, rely on Alva Courses’ own emails, such as the certificate email, which belong to the course rather than to marketing.
Test the workflow
Use a test customer who is subscribed to email marketing. Sign in to your storefront as that customer, complete every lesson of the course in your condition, and check the inbox for your email and its discount code.
Nothing arrived? Look at the workflow’s recent runs in Shopify Flow first: a run that stopped at the condition means the Course ID did not match. Then check Alva Courses, under Settings → Integrations → Shopify Flow, for Course completed under Flow activity → Triggers sent.
Email graduates of several courses
Duplicate the workflow for each course, then change the Flow ID in the condition and the course named in the email. Each workflow can carry its own discount, so a beginner course can lead into the intermediate one with a different offer.
Prefer to run the follow-up from Klaviyo? See Send course completions to Klaviyo. Flow can also enrol graduates in the next course for you with Alva Courses’ Enroll customer in course action; see Shopify Flow actions.
See also
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Last updated 2026-10-01