Over the last years, several tools have been released aimed at improving the productivity of businesses. Unlike before, where companies used to pay a lot for a general solution, there’s a trend of strategically investing in specialized applications and products that align with their goals.
However, the major hurdle is that despite the availability of such a wide range of tools, they don’t work together, especially when compared to Microsoft’s tools that support each other. Since most productivity tools come from different companies, so it’s understandable that they don’t provide the same level of integration support.
One can be using Shopify to increase sales, Slack for collaboration, Zoom for online meetings, or Gmail for communication – integrating all these different apps in a seamless manner is what Zapier does. Thus, Zapier uses two services and serves as an intermediary for their APIs. In this way, it connects multiple applications and automates various tasks.
What Is Zapier?
Usually, modern web applications are known to have an API – used by third-party developers for interacting with it. APIs help to download stored data, upload information, and perform other useful tasks.
Zapier provides support for more than 500 applications. It supports triggers and actions for each of these apps. In addition, one trigger can execute more than one action. Hence, there’s no limit when it comes to the development of Zaps, allowing ample opportunity to automate tasks.
Benefits of Zapier
Zapier offers the following benefits.
Speed
Zapier improves speed between routine business tasks. For instance, consider that you are required to upload customer files to a fixed folder in Dropbox. What you can do is to create a zap that downloads all the files that you receive from the client on Gmail, and then go on to upload it to a specific folder.
You will need a separate Zap for each of your customer, which runs in the background and ensures that your employees don’t have to spend time on it. There are multiple tasks that you perform daily, which make a good case for automation. For instance, check this link.
Consistency
Manual work is inefficient and causes a lot of errors. After all, humans aren’t supposed to be perfect. They can make mistakes, forget things, and mess up at some point. On the other hand, computers are great at handling standard business tasks – the reliability you get from them is unparalleled. To make sure that all your customer files are sent properly to your folder in Dropbox, Zap can offer a lot of functionality. This ensures that you don’t lose out any critical email, just because it was sent at wrong time. Whenever you have a specific formula or protocol that has to be used for transferring data from one app to another, it’s better to use Zapier.
Visibility
Zapier is an ideal method to incorporate visibility in your workflows Whether you are using email or Slack for managing your work, Zapier alerts as soon as a Zap performs an action or your employees does something. Going back to the email instance, you could generate a multi-step Zap that can notify your team as soon as the client is uploaded to Dropbox.
Sending Graphics Using Zapier
Do you want to use Zapier to send computer-generated graphics? Here’s what you need to do.
Send Files in Zaps
You can include files, such as documents or images in your Zap. While referencing your files on Zapier, you work with the actual file object, not the text field that describes the file. For instance, a file can be a photo, but the field that describes it can be the photo’s name or its URL. Here’s how you can send a file with Zapier.
Determine If Your Action Accepts Files
If the action app allows a file object, only then you can files in an object. To check this, see whether those fields have a document icon. If there’s one, then it’s possible to use a file with that field. Do keep in mind that no more than one attachment can be added at one time.
Place a File
If your zap’s action has to copy or create a file object, locate the file field. You can identify them as Attachment or File.
After you add a URL, Zapier evaluates it, loads data in it and names it. Do note that the URL has to refer to a publicly available file. If you are uncertain that it’s publicly available, open the link in a private browser. In case you are prompted for a file download, expect the URL to work in the Zap as well.
Regular text can be added as well from the trigger. This ends with a text being generated from the data in those fields.
Visit our website to learn more about how to make the most out of Zapier. We will help you to send different types of graphics through Zapier and provide a much-needed productivity to your office’s processes.
