Integrate multiple apps using Zapier (Part 1)

So you’re a business owner or a product manager and you want to automate small tasks in your project or organization processes. Something simple like shooting an email in case of a sales enquiry or Making a calendar invite in the same. What do you do? Speak to a developer about it? And now let’s say if you’re a developer and you want to do the same. So would you directly jump to write the code for it? Well with Zapier, its not necessary.

What is Zapier?

Zapier is useful for developers as well as non-developers who wants to automate repetitive tasks using minimal efforts and development skills.

In zapier we create a zap which acts like a blueprint for task we want to do over and over again.

In words, a Zap looks like this: “When a new thing is added in A, do this other thing in B.” The first part is the Trigger and the second part is the Action. Zap can have more than 1 action. More info can be found here.

Apart from this, there are more than 20,000 apps integration available directly as a plug and play template in Zapier. GSuite, Outlook, Spotify, Twitter, Slack.. you name it and you’ll have an integration available

Some use cases:

• Google Calendar that triggers at specified time before event occurs to send Slack notification.
• When a new pull request is created on Github send email or notification on Slack channel.

Why Zapier?

• Once we’ve created a Zap, Zapier will run it automatically without any additional effort on our part.
• Zapier is more useful for business oriented apps. Zapier supports more than 500 Apps and has more triggers and actions as compared to ifttt.
• Zapier will also help you save time and money! With Zapier taking care of repetitive tasks, we can focus on the exciting business challenges that need our attention.

Build your first Zap (along with basic terminologies):

In this tutorial we are going to create a simple zap which will get triggered when a google form is submitted and will send message on slack channel.

While creating the zap we will also get familiar with some of the terminologies of zapier.

Steps:

Step 1. Login to Zapier

Step 2. Create Zap:

Let’s start on creation of zap by Clicking on `Make a Zap!` on the top right side of page.

Make a Zap!

Zap: A Zap is the link between different apps on Zapier.

For example, new google form response to send as message on slack would be an example of a zap.

Dashboard contains all created zaps. Also zap can only have one Trigger, but multiple Actions.

Step 3. Add Trigger:

Trigger: A Trigger is an event that starts a Zap.

For example, if you want to automate sending a text message each time you receive a form submission, then “form submission” will be the trigger for zap.

• Let’s add trigger app for our zap. In this tutorial we will use Google Forms App for trigger purpose. We can select any app as trigger based on our requirements and interests.

Add trigger

• For any trigger app there can be many trigger methods. So in next step lets select a trigger method which suits our interests.

Select Trigger Method

• After selection of trigger method we need to connect google account with zapier and in next step select spreadsheet related to google form.

Set up Google Forms Response

• Final sub step for trigger is a `Test This Step` where we can fetch sample input data from trigger app. The zap will try to pull sample data from specified trigger app for at most 3 minutes until it gets some data. For our zap the trigger step will try to fetch data from specified spreadsheet.

Step 4. Add Action:

The next step in this tutorial is to add an action. We are going to use slack app as an action that will send a message with predefined format to specific channel when zap is triggered.

Action: An Action is an event a Zap performs.

For example, if you want to send an SMS each time you receive an email, “send text message” will be an action.

• To add an action click on `Add a Step` button as shown in below image.

Add a Step

• Now click on `Action/Search` so that we can integrate slack app as an action step. There are few zapier’s inbuilt apps which we can also be used to process intermediary data.

• In this tutorial we are going to select slack app for action step. We can select different app as per our requirements and interests.

Choose an Action App

• Next we are going to select specific action that we want. We can select a different action to understand different actions and their use cases.

Select Slack Action

• Next sub step is editing slack template. In this step we can write a template message using values obtained from trigger step along with selection of the channel where message should be sent. If required we can also change other fields of template.

Set up Slack Channel Message

• Final sub step for action is a `Test This Step`. In this step we can test the action step by executing it. For our zap we can test whether message sent to slack channel is in proper structure by executing test step for action. After execution we can see message sent to slack channel as shown below:

Slack Message

Step 5. Activate Zap:

Now we have successfully created the zap and last step is to enable the zap. As seen in below image we can enable zap by toggle the ON/OFF checkbox.

Activate Zap

Step 6. Check Task History:

Once the zap is enabled, it will send slack message whenever the google form is submitted. Now in zapier we can check the task history for each zap. The task history is useful during debugging the zap for an error.

Task History

Conclusion:

Congratulations, if you have followed along, then you’ve successfully made your first meaningful Zap. In the next blog in the same series, we’ll try to make a bit more complex Zap exploring other features provided by Zapier as well. Please feel free to post your questions/feedback in the comment section.