Zapier is a tool that automates repetitive tasks across different applications. While there is a limited selection of free features, users must pay a subscription fee for the majority of functionality. For certain tasks, however, the amount of time saved by automation could be well worth the expense. In this post, we will learn to automate tasks with Zapier.
What does Automation mean?
Automation means having something taken care of without human intervention. This can be something physical, like a car’s automatic transmission shifting gears for the driver. Or a grocery store door opening as you walk through. Automation is also very common in software. One simple example is setting an alarm on your phone, and trusting that the alarm will ring for you at the right time. Zapier allows users to automate and sequence tasks across many software applications.
Zapier models each automation as a trigger and an action. Building an automation in the form of “When trigger is detected, do action,” is called a “Zap.”
In practice this can look like “When I receive an email with an attachment, upload that attachment to my cloud storage,”. Or, “When someone fills out the form on my website, add a row to my Google Spreadsheet.”. You can see other common integrations on Zapier’s “popular zaps” page.
How can Zapier act on my behalf?
How is Zapier able to access someone’s information in another tool or service? When creating Zaps, each user provides Zapier with the needed credentials for their other accounts, like Google. This allows Zapier to take actions on the user’s behalf. Zapier then sends and receives information using an Application Programming Interface, commonly known as an API. For more information about APIs, check out this article.
How to Use Zapier
On Zapier’s site, users can build their Zaps by visually chaining together different blocks. Users can then test each block of the pipeline or the entire pipeline at once, either using real data or with user-created test data.
Let’s walk through the creation of a Zap which integrates Google Sheets with Mailchimp.
Example: Google Sheets and Mailchimp
In this example, let’s pretend the user has a Google Spreadsheet full of user data. The desired automation, expressed as a sentence, is “When a new row is added to a spreadsheet of users, I want to add the user to my Mailchimp email list.”
- The Trigger is “when a new row is added”
- The Action is “add the user to our Mailchimp email list”
The first block (the trigger) detects when a new row is added to a specific Google Spreadsheet. Zapier is able to access and select this Google Spreadsheet because we provided our Google credentials to Zapier and specified which spreadsheet this block should read from. Zapier can even read real rows from the spreadsheet to use as test data without changing your real data.
The second block maps the data from the spreadsheet into the fields in Mailchimp and adds new users to the Mailchimp email list. Zapier is able to access and add data to Mailchimp because we provided our Mailchimp credentials to Zapier.
Now, if new data is added to the User spreadsheet, that user’s name and email will be added in to Mailchimp automatically!
Adding a Filter
We can now enhance our Zap with additional logic, like a Filter. A Filter is a paid feature in Zapier, as is having more than two steps in a Zap, so the next part of this example assumes that the user has a paid account.
Let’s assume that this Zap should only add an entry into Mailchimp if a part of the row has indicated that they opted in to receiving emails. We can filter on data in the Google Spreadsheet to determine whether or not the Zap should add to Mailchimp.
- The Trigger is “when a new row is added”
- The Filter is “if the user opted in to receive emails” (Indicated by a “Yes” in the Newsletter Signup column)
- The Action is “add the user to our Mailchimp email list”
Now, if new data is added to the User spreadsheet, and the Newsletter Signup column has a “yes’ in it, that row’s worth of data will be added in to Mailchimp automatically.
This time-saving automation is just one example of the many ways Zapier can automate tasks on your behalf. If you would like help starting to use Zapier or any of the tools mentioned today, just call or email and we’ll be happy to assist you!