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Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

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Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#11

Post by gk1 »

I'm super excited about this. Well done!

One of my biggest pain points was the lack of ability to determine if a record already exists before choosing to use an Update or Create action. (You'd think a service's API would treat Update the same as Create if no matching record is found, but that's not always the case.) So I've had to err on the side of caution and always use a Create action, thus filling the CRM (or whatever) with many many duplicates.

The search feature looks like it will handle this. Will be implementing shortly.

Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#12

Post by mikeknoop »

gk1 wrote: post #11

I'm super excited about this. Well done! One of my biggest pain points was the lack of ability to determine if a record already exists before choosing to use an Update or Create action. (You'd think a service's API would treat Update the same as Create if no matching record is found, but that's not always the case.) So I've had to err on the side of caution and always use a Create action, thus filling the CRM (or wha…

Some APIs do support "upsert" functionality which is basically what you suggested. It's not very popular though and Zapier previously had to support the lowest-common-denominator which is plain creates.

Now that we officially support Search actions, we can do a lot more cool things.

Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#13

Post by colinbartlett »

This is HUGE! So excited to see this. I automate huge swaths of my life with Zapier.

I have been relying on a little self-hosted web app to "fork" some web hooks and this seems to me to eliminate that need entirely.

https://github.com/deadlyicon/deploy-hook-forker

Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#16

Post by bryanh »

joelrunyon wrote: post #14

If you have multiple zaps that could be one multi-step zap - do you have a way to merge them?

We don't have any automated tools for combining zaps into multistep zaps right now - unfortunately. Seems like it could be useful though!

Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#17

Post by bryanh »

colinbartlett wrote: post #13

This is HUGE! So excited to see this. I automate huge swaths of my life with Zapier. I have been relying on a little self-hosted web app to "fork" some web hooks and this seems to me to eliminate that need entirely. https://github.com/deadlyicon/deploy-hook-forker

That is pretty clever. We also let you rewrite the "hook" - or shrink it - or even augment it!

Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#18

Post by louisswiss »

mikeknoop wrote: post #9
ckluis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you thought about adding time-delays between zaps?

Allow me to work magic for you: https://zapier.com/zapbook/delay/ (it's brand new today, too) :)

Give this man a Cookie!

Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#19

Post by krmmalik »

acutelyobtuse wrote: post #15

Anyone who uses Zapier for personal workflows - I am curious why use Zapier over IFTTT? Note: this is NOT a challenge to why something like Zapier exists for business, nor a comment directly on the new multi-step Zaps.

Its hard to explain but i dont feel IFTTT and Zapier quite operate in the same space. IFTTT is much more about your relationship with a service that needs some basic interaction with another. Every "recipe" is built around you, your relationship with the primary online service.

Zapier is more like a glue between two building blocks, it doesnt have to include the relationship to you, just between two building blocks. That simple shift in the way zapier is solving automation make it incredibly powerful.

Re: Introducing Multi-Step Zaps: An Easier Way to Build Powerful Workflows

#20

Post by ycapplication »

bryanh wrote: post #5
mikeknoop wrote: post #3

Zapier co-founder here. This is seriously the biggest change to our product since launching the company. We've been working on it for a year (including a beta w/ several thousand users) and are very excited to finally release it. Before, Zapier only supported 1-to-1 integrations which limited it's power. Multi-Step Zaps open up a huge array of new power... - transforming data (like dates, string manipulation) - execu…

Likewise - Zapier co-founder/CTO here - really excited about this launch. It represents a complete re-build of our stack to support workflows. Pretty much anyone can build complex workflows from a pretty easy to use UI. To call this out specifically - I think HN might appreciate the Code steps you can add to your workflow - we support both Python [0] and Javascript [1] today. I've been using it to replace dozens of c…

We love Zapier and I'm really excited to start playing around with this. One concern I've always had as an engineer using Zapier was how it accounted for unique trigger events.

1. Concerning privacy, for API's that don't offer webhooks for instance, does Zapier poll the API and then store some of our data in order to confirm that new records are indeed new? 2. Concerning robustness, what insurance is there against any failure that the zap will catch up with its triggers?

We don't currently use Zapier for anything mission critical and I'm hesitant to recommend it, but it would be pretty cool if we could use it for making zaps that contain more sensitive data and are more critical.

The privacy policy states: "Your user-facing Task History is stored for the life of your account so that you can monitor Zapier activity and replay failures." [1] I was hoping for a bit more of a technical explanation, though, and could only find pricing FAQ's.

[1] https://zapier.com/help/data-privacy/

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