Learning 3 Different Operations Tools in 30 Days: Final Update
This post is part of a month-long project where I’m learning three different operations tools: TextExpander, HubSpot, and Zapier. To learn more about my project, click here to see my project landing page.
Last week I learned how to use HubSpot.
This week I learned how to use Zapier.
What is Zapier?
Zapier is a software system that allows you to integrate many different web applications to run in the background so you can focus on more important tasks and save time. By creating “Zaps” you link two or more systems together to do time-saving tasks, like creating a new contact in HubSpot when you add a new row to a Google Sheet. This Zap could be helpful if you like using Google Sheets for saving contact information but your office wants you to use HubSpot. This Zap automatically copies the new contact from the spreadsheet to the contacts list on HubSpot.
What Did I Learn?
Although Zapier can be very helpful, I found that it doesn’t always work. I tried creating a Zap that would send a message to a Slack channel when a new event was created on Google Calendar. The first problem was that it didn’t always send a message. The second problem was that when it did send, the time for when the event was supposed to start was wrong. I tried to change the time zone in settings, but it still never changed the time. Unless you want to send an event reminder without the time, this Zap is pretty useless.
In the end, I was able to make three Zaps that work well and are useful.
I go into more detail about making a Zap, and how they work in my blog post,
Zapier is Good, Most of the Time.
Should You Use Zapier?
If you’re looking to use Zapier, definitely check it out. I think it can be useful for a lot of trivial tasks, as long as it works right. And it’s not that hard to create simple Zaps. You can also create quite complex Zaps too, with many different action steps. But creating a simple Zap to do a trivial task, like creating a new contact in HubSpot when a new row is added to a spreadsheet, can be very helpful.
The free version also has limitations. You can only create 5 Zaps, and you can’t use more than two applications per Zap. So if you find Zaps that would be helpful, it might be worth the $17.50/month fee when billed annually. But honestly, I don’t think I’d pay that much for Zapier, because it doesn’t work all the time, and in reality, the tasks I found for it to do really wouldn’t take that much time to do manually. Like I said before though, it really depends on what you’d use it for. So try it out for yourself, and if you like it, great! You found a new tool to save you time. But in my opinion, it’s not worth the cost.
