5 steps to automating your tasks with Zapier

About Zapier

Zapier is a powerful automation tool that helps you build connections between your apps to automate repetitive or time-consuming tasks without using any code.

Step 1. Understanding automation

Automation is a potent tool that can save a lot of time, effort, and money, giving you the time and freedom to focus on your business's primary objectives. In addition, automating specific processes guarantees quality results since tasks are executed identically without the possibility of human mistakes.

Some of the apps we use today already have built-in integrations with others. The problem is that not all apps can exchange information with each another easily, and even if they do, there might be limits on what they're willing to do together. Automation software such as Zapier is there to fill in those gaps — a true game-changer for businesses of any size.

However, keep in mind that not all tasks should be automated per se. To determine whether automating a particular task will be worth your while it is advised to take into account the following factors:

· frequency of task

· time per task

· time to automate it

Step 2. Setting up your Zaps

Let's start with some terminology. In Zapier, automated workflows are called Zaps. They consist of any number of actions between 2 and 100.

A workflow always starts with a trigger: an event that will activate the automation. From any trigger, follow specific actions. Actions can do many different such as

· sending an email

· adding rows to a Google Sheet

· sending a message in Slack

Triggers and actions can come from third-party apps like Google Sheets or Airtable, or Zapier apps, such as Path by Zapier, Filter by Zapier, or Formatter by Zapier. One of Zapier's strong suits (as opposed to its competitors) is that they connect with an enormous amount of third-party apps (more than 3500 at the time of writing). And more apps are being added regularly.

Once you have selected an action, you'll then have to choose an action event. The action event determines what exactly is going to happen in the action.

Step 3. Get the most from your Zaps using Zapier native apps

Zapier apps are very powerful and can be used to control your flow. Say you don't want a flow to continue unless a certain condition has been met? For example, every time you receive an attachment in Gmail, you want that attachment saved to Google Drive. But only from specific email addresses. Use Zapier's Filter app to determine any conditions that should be met before the flow continues.

Generally, your Zaps will run whenever something happens in an app. But you might want to schedule your workflow to run at a specified moment in the future. You can use the Zapier Schedule app for that. Schedule allows you, for example, to trigger an action every first day of the month, every day of the week, and so on.

Do you need to reformat data before it's sent from one app to another? Use Zapier Formatter. With Formatter, you can add an extra step to your Zap to ensure that information like text, dates, numbers, and phone numbers are formatted correctly from one stage to the next.

Step 4. Testing your integration

Since you're setting your Zaps up to run automatically, you'll want to make sure you get things right from the get-go. This means you'll have to do extensive testing before you put your Zaps live.

Once you've tested everything, it's finally the time to turn on your Zap. Your workflow will now run automatically! Hopefully, things will go according to plan, but if they don't: Zap History keeps a detailed log for each Zap if something goes wrong. This way, you can always go back and correct the error and try again.

Step 5. Hire a Zapier professional on Codemap

Zapier is a pretty intuitive tool to use, even for beginners. However, if you want to set up more advanced and complicated workflows, it is advised to hire a Zapier expert on Codemap to help you with your project.

Codemap allows clients to send requests, get qualified proposals and offers, and seamlessly hire the professional of your choice, all in one place and wholly free of charge.

Connect with top, vetted Zapier experts on the Codemap platform. Use our smart brief to describe your project and get matched with qualified Zapier pros that will help you build the workflow of your dreams. Not sure about the perfect fit? Our Codemap Curation team can provide you with tailored talent recommendations.?