Zapier: Explore Specific Apps Faster

If you use Zapier for SaaS integration (there are good reasons to do so) and, like me, you occasionally need to check out a new integration, refresh the possibilities of ones you already use, or check out recent changes, it may help you to know about some short-cuts I use.

Explore page

The first is simply to navigate to the Explore page here:

https://zapier.com/app/explore

and then select the App you are interested in.

This, however, doesn’t usually work for me because I am logged into Zapier and when I navigate to the Explore page, I see not one App but several that I use often or am in the process of exploring. Rather than spend a lot of time clicking / unclicking Apps or opening new incognito browser windows, I came up with something else.

Specific Zapbook

Each integration with Zapier will be in their own “Zapbook”. The URL for the specific integration is

https://zapier.com/zapbook/APPNAME

where APPNAME is usually the App name with underscores replaced by hyphens. I say usually because there are always exceptions.

For example, you can see Xero‘s integration here:

https://zapier.com/zapbook/xero

The Zapbook page for a specific App has three sections that I use often:

Recommended Zaps

This section shows a series of Zaps that combine Apps together. Lots of useful ideas can come from this section. Sometimes it leads to a new App to try out.

Triggers and Actions

This section is the core of Zapier – what can start (trigger) the process and what it can do (actions).

I revisit these a lot when exploring solutions to new problems or process improvements.

Search other Zaps

The last section of interest to me is the rest of the Apps. Selecting one or two here allows a quick(er) view into how the two Apps can be integrated together.

By looking at a specific App’s possibilities, I can quickly home in on the functionality to determine if it will work or not for the problem / process at hand.

A list of URL’s

I spend some time each week looking at Zapier Apps. Every customer has new software I have never heard of, or at least it seems so. Sometimes, they want that App integrated into another App I’ve never heard of (or one I have).

So I created a list of all the Zaps and their links (if they follow the naming convention).

I didn’t type those, by the way, but will save that for a different post.

This provides a quick link to the Apps and also gives me a place to store my notes, workflow diagrams, bug reports, and other things I want to be able to recall about the App. Since I store that list in Smartsheet, I can also add the screen shot of the triggers and actions and quickly retrieve them.

Final Thoughts

There’s a whole infrastructure behind the scenes. I have Reports that only shows items that have a Note or is marked In Use or  has a Trigger and Action image. I don’t build infrastructures and then hope my workflow will fit. Instead, I build it in pieces. This one started because searching through all of the Zaps for the one or two I was most interested in at the moment became time lost when I was checking / unchecking the Zaps I use regularly. That led to using the Explore URL directly. Then I lost a bit of time when the App’s link wasn’t correct, which led to the list of all Apps. And that became a convenient and useful place to consolidate my thoughts and experiences for specific Apps.

If you like this post, please “Like” it. That makes me feel good.

If you are new to Zapier and want to check it  out, click here.

If you are new to Smartsheet and want to check it out, click here.

If you have questions about this post, add them below.

 

 

 

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