19) Zapier Integration

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Zapier acts as middleware and lets SMMware interact with a larger number of softwares.

The first step is to start your own account, at http://zapier.com.

Second, set up Authentication, so that SMMware and Zapier can communicate. In SMMware, go to Admin->Zapier Settings. For the API key, click on ‘Get New’, then copy the key to your clipboard by clicking on the clipboard icon.

In Zapier you will be asked to enter your prefix. This is the first portiono of the URL for your SMMware site. For example, if your site was https://demo.smmware.com, your prefix would be ‘demo’, and you would enter that in Zapier for the field ‘api_prefix’.

Third, you can start using ‘Triggers’ and ‘Actions’ to being doing useful work.

Definition, Trigger: When a software tells Zapier that something has happened.

Definition, Action: When Zapier tells other software that something has happened.

Definition, Zap: In order to do useful work, you need to combine a trigger with one or more actions. This is called a ‘Zap’, and you use the web interface provided by Zapier to combine Triggers and Actions into Zaps.

SMMware’s first Trigger is for new clients, whereby SMMware lets Zapier know that a client has been added in SMMware, and sends it details like first and last names, email address, and so on.

When you create a Zap, you’ll select and configure a Trigger. In the image below, select the App as ‘SMMware’, and in the Event section select ‘A Client was Added in SMMware’.

The third section is for authentication, and you can enter the API key you got from SMMware there. Lastly, in the “Step details” section, you pick between having SMMware send Zapier the full set of info for the new client versus a reduced data set.

Once the Trigger is complete Zapier will have you select and configure an Action, and which one you use is up to you. An example would be having the new client info sent to MailChimp or Constant Contact for future mass emails.

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