Sort Rotation

Sort rotation changes how a collection is sorted on a schedule. You pick an ordered list of steps, such as Best selling, then Newest, then a Dynasort recipe, and choose how often to switch. Dynasort walks through the steps in order and loops back to the first one, so a collection never sits on the same sort for too long.

It suits stores that want returning shoppers to see a fresh arrangement each week, catalogs where no single sort order serves every visitor, and merchants who want to mix Shopify’s built-in sorting with Dynasort recipes without touching the collection by hand.

How it works

A rotation has two parts:

• Steps. An ordered list. Each step is either a Shopify sort order (Most relevant, Best selling, Product title A-Z or Z-A, Highest or lowest price, Newest, Oldest) or one of your Dynasort recipes. A rotation needs at least two steps and can have up to thirty. The same option can appear more than once.
• Schedule. How often to switch and at what time of day. Choose a preset such as every day, every week, every two weeks or every 30 days, or type any number of days from 1 to 365. Pick the hour, and for weekly rotations pick the weekday. Times are in your store’s timezone.

When you start a rotation, the first step is applied straight away. Every switch after that happens at the time you chose. At each switch Dynasort moves to the next step:

• On a Shopify sort step, Dynasort turns its own sorting off for that collection and sets the collection’s default sort in Shopify to the one you picked. Shopify keeps that order up to date on its own.
• On a Dynasort recipe step, Dynasort turns sorting on for that collection with that recipe, re-sorts it right away, and keeps re-sorting it on your store’s normal schedule until the next switch.

One owner per collection

While a rotation is running, it owns the collection. The status toggle and recipe selector on the collection page are locked, bulk on/off actions skip rotating collections, and you cannot start an A/B test on it. Stop the rotation to take manual control again.

Setting up a rotation

Open the collection and find the Sort rotation section under the recipe card. Click Set up rotation.

1. Add steps. Choose an option from the dropdown, which lists Shopify sort orders first and your Dynasort recipes below them, and click Add. Reorder steps with the arrows or remove them with the bin icon.
2. Choose a schedule. Pick a preset or enter a custom number of days, set the hour, and set the start date. For weekly rotations, pick the weekday and the start date fills in for you.
3. Click Start rotation.

The first step is applied immediately. The next switch lands on the first scheduled slot after now, so if you pick “every week on Monday at 00:00” on a Wednesday, the first switch is the coming Monday.

Mixing Shopify sorts and recipes

A popular pattern is one Shopify sort followed by one Dynasort recipe, for example Best selling for a week and then your Dynasort Default recipe for a week. The Insights page shows conversion for the collection over time, so you can see which arrangement your shoppers responded to.

Rotating many collections at once

On the Collections page, click Sort rotation in the page header. The bulk window lets you tick any number of collections, build the steps and schedule once, and start the same rotation on all of them. All of those collections switch together on the same schedule.

The same window has a Stop mode that ends the rotation on every collection you tick.

Managed collections (the ones Dynasort creates for you) are always sorted by Dynasort and are not offered here.

Monitoring a rotation

While a rotation is active, the collection page shows:

• Now. The step that is live, with a green badge for a recipe step and a blue badge for a Shopify sort.
• Next switch. When the next step is applied, shown in your local time.
• Schedule. The interval, hour, and timezone.
• The full step list, with the live step in bold.
• Recent. The last five events: starts, switches, edits, pauses, and stops.

On the Collections page, rotating collections carry a Rotating badge next to their name. A paused rotation shows Paused.

Editing, pausing, and stopping

• Edit changes the steps or the schedule without re-applying anything. The rotation keeps its place in the list and switches next at the new schedule’s first slot.
• Pause freezes the rotation on whatever step is live. Nothing switches until you resume, and the collection stays locked.
• Resume picks the schedule back up. The next switch is the first slot after now.
• Stop ends the rotation and puts the collection back to how it was before the rotation started: the same on/off status, the same recipe, and the same Shopify default sort. The collection page unlocks.

Tips

• Match the interval to your traffic. A week is a good default. Daily switches suit large, high-traffic collections. Thirty days suits seasonal catalogs where you want a stable arrangement for the month.
• Recipe steps need store sorting switched on. A Shopify sort step switches on schedule regardless, but a recipe step is only re-sorted while store-level sorting is on. The card warns you if it is off.
• Pins and boosts apply on recipe steps only. Shopify’s own sort orders do not support pinned products, so a pinned product is only held in place during Dynasort recipe steps.
• Manual sorting is not offered as a step. A “Manually” step with nothing reordering the collection would freeze whatever arrangement was last applied, which is rarely what you want. If you need a fixed arrangement, use a Dynasort recipe with pins.
• A/B testing and rotation are separate tools. If you want to know which of two sorts converts better, run an A/B test. If you want variety on a schedule, use a rotation.