Zapier makes you happier!
Updated January 07, 2019
Zapier makes you happier!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Zapier
We use Zapier in our organisation and with our clients to optimise and automate business processes. It allows us to increase the consistency of our workflows, saves us time, reduces the risk of errors and increases the efficiency of so many processes the involve web apps.
- It's a very intuitive interface. We learned it fast and we don't need to know any code to automate so many processes.
- The number of web apps Zapier plugs in to is mind boggling! The rate of growth of: A. the amount of apps and B. the amount of triggers and actions on each app is impressive and means that, if it doesn't do what you want right now, it probably will soon. I wouldn't bother taking on a new app for us or our clients if I knew it couldn't plug in to Zapier.
- One of our favourite tasks for Zapier is to automate our spreadsheets. Google Sheets (and Airtable) are far more powerful when you can trigger actions right from within your spreadsheet workflow.
- It's frustrating that steps within a Zap can't be duplicated. eg. If you setup a formatter step to capitalise first name, you can't just duplicate that for last name you have to go through the process again which is time I could be spending elsewhere.
- It would be wonderful if Zapier could become a fully functional visual programming tool. For me the two key tools it'd need to do that are branching and looping. They are fundamental to actual coding but aren't available in Zapier. This means making some long hacked processes around it with clunky filters and multiple parallel Zaps which is far less efficient. (Edit: Paths on Zapier has solved one half of that problem!)
- I'd like to be able to setup a client's account within our's and effectively "host" their Zaps as long as they're with us so that they don't need to see monthly bills. Then, have the ability to break their account out if they wanted to go it alone. (Edit: I've heard this problem is on the roadmap)
- We don't have exact numbers but our process efficiency gains have been massive since we started using it three years ago. Instead of working on admin, we're able to spend more time on optimising processes so that Zapier has been crucial for giving us the tools and capacity to continuously improve.
- IFTTT just doesn't have enough power to be useful for us. It doesn't connect to tools we want to use and doesn't provide the kinds of triggers and actions we need.
- PieSync is going to be useful for a different kind of workflow, where you need to keep two or more systems in sync (e.g. two CRMs.) It's going to be far more effective than trying to build all the possible Zaps you need to go back and forth keep both systems in sync.
- We've also looked at tray.io which has more powerful features like branching and looping but isn't as easy to use and has now moved their price point well out of the reach of small businesses.
- More tools are providing automations natively. eg. Agile CRM, Butler for Trello, Hubspot, but Zapier's breadth of integrations is far more appealing (or at least complementary to those native features) and also centralises all the automation activity in one place, rather than having to track down what setting it is in what app that created that automatic email which has a spelling error in it...
Zapier Feature Ratings
Using Zapier
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Its very easy to work out what actions and triggers are available for each app which makes starting your first Zap surprisingly simple
- Once you've setup a Zap, testing it is very easy and efficient so you can have piece of mind, knowing that your Zap will do what you think it should do.
- If a Zap does go wrong, it's often fairly straight forward to find it in the task history, check what went wrong, fix it and replay the Zap without losing any crucial data (unless your fix makes a major change to the Zap).
- It's a nuisance to keep two separate databases in sync. eg. Two CRM's, where there are lot's of different types of data to keep in sync.
- If you want a workflow to be able to decide which branch to take based on certain conditions, Zapier can't really do this.
- Zapier also can't loop through a batch of data and make changes to it. Unless you use a code step which is a little more complicated for the everyday user.