What is Zapier? And how to use it

What is Zapier? And how to use it

We use Zapier for our automation clients.  There are tons of automation and productivity apps out there , but Zapier is one of our favourites, and we think you’ll love it to.

If you don’t know much about Zapier yet, you need it.  It’s the ultimate piece of automation that your small business needs to grow.

Let’s look into Zapier in more detail.

What is Zapier?

Imagine if you could get automatically transfer data into any of your favourite tools. That could be Gmail, Google Sheets, or Salesforce, even if they aren’t designed to talk to each other. Well, now you can.

Zapier lets you automate manual tasks. Say your data is in Gmail and you want it in Google Sheets too: Zapier can help. Do you want to be notified about new leads on Freshsales and then create a Google spreadsheet with those leads? You can do that too with Zapier. You can even set up a Zaps (their word for connected tasks) to mark items as read in Trello as new leads come in!

Zapier will save you time and help you get things done faster.

How does Zapier work?

Zapier is an automation tool that bridges the gaps between web apps and services by using triggers (when this happens) and actions (do that). You can build automated workflows (called “Zaps”) with the thousands of available apps on Zapier.

A Zap can be as simple as “when my account is created, email myself the details” or as complex as “when my new order is received, send it to my fulfilment centre, wait for the fulfilment to complete, then invoice me.”

How to get started with Zapier

Once you have an account on Zapier, you’ll see the dashboard. This is where you can see your existing zaps, create new ones, and work with existing templates.

If you’re new to Zapier it can be pretty intimidating but the trick is starting small.  And remember, there’s no learning curve! You don’t need any computer programming experience (or even knowledge about code) to get started!

There are three main steps to creating a Zap: Choose a trigger, choose an action, and add a result. A trigger is what triggers your Zap to happen. For example:

When you want to start a new Zap, click the Create a Zap! button. This will bring up a form where you’ll be able to choose which trigger app to start with.

Once you’ve chosen your trigger Zapier will be prompted to choose what action you want to happen

When you have finished building your zap, you will test everything is connected and working. If everything goes green and the test has worked you can turn on the Zap and let Zapier do the heaving lifting.