Expanding Invision's Zapier

[UncrownedGuard]

Just a suggestion, but as someone who loves Zapier for helping with tasks and automation, I am super happy to have Invision's custom Zapier app and also wish it had a lot more.

Currently, it is very much limited to triggers and not so much to actions. You can create a lot of things via actions, but not much else.

There is also the find action which is really nice, but nothing to really follow up with what it finds.

So here are some suggestions that I had.

Trigger on Published status as a trigger: It is overly difficult to just set up a zap to trigger something being published when it comes to scheduled content.  The dates are in the new content created sections, but it is numerous times easier to use an RSS feed from the site to trigger this than the actual site's Zapier.

Trigger on Event Start: I have had no luck getting zaps to work by using the new event created and then using the dates months in advance to trigger a zap.  The solution for me was linking my community calendar to a Google Calendar and using their Zap interaction to trigger on even start.  Again, there are ways to do it, but oddly not great solutions within the actual Zap from Invision.

Spam Tools (Flag as Spammer/Report Content/Hide Content): When dealing with a wave of spam that is getting past the built-in spam filters, it would be great to have Zaps as a backup to turn on.  I can easily have a tool like ChatGPT read a new topic created from a new account and with solid accuracy answer if it is spam or not.  In fact, I can even prompt it to look for any Airline Ticket Sales in the spam to limit possible mistakes.  Then the Invision Zap can even find the member who posted it.... but then it ends.  I could send a notice message to myself that spam is happening, but that really defeats the purpose of automation.  Allowing the Zap to act on content would open up a huge tool bag of anti-spam tools.

Changing User Groups: It would be really nice to have the actions that happen on one app be able to influence the user groups of users in my community.

Edit Blocks: Blocks are one of my favorite pieces of Invision Community and being able to automatically edit the content in these blocks via Zapier would be a huge asset!  From something as simple as replacing a link when a YouTube or Twitch goes live, to linking a block to an Excel spreadsheet for daily messages, placing sales in promotional blocks, or even mirroring messages across sites, etc. etc. the possibilities are endless.  This would greatly increase a community's ability to automate holiday stuff, sales, and so on.

Again, I do enjoy the actual Invision Community Zapier app, but I have to admit in the roughly 25 zaps that I use with my community, only about 5 use the actual app designed for Invision.  

[Daniel F]

3 minutes ago, UncrownedGuard said:

Trigger on Published status as a trigger

This is something what we have implemented for v5.

3 minutes ago, UncrownedGuard said:

Trigger on Event Start:

 I have had no luck getting zaps to work by using the new event created and then using the dates months in advance to trigger a zap

Why? What was the issue?

5 minutes ago, UncrownedGuard said:

Changing User Groups:

Couldn't you use the "Member Edited" trigger?

[UncrownedGuard]

On 11/25/2023 at 4:19 PM, Daniel F said:

This is something what we have implemented for v5.

That is great to hear!!

On 11/25/2023 at 4:19 PM, Daniel F said:

Why? What was the issue?

It is mostly getting the Zap to trigger.  Let's say I post a webinar on the community calendar for June 10th, 2024.  The current setup will fire the Zap as soon as the event is added (let's say today) and that isn't exactly ideal.  Now I need to add more steps to the Zap to try and schedule the further steps for 7 months from now.  The only way I found to do this with success is to have the Zap schedule the tasks in either a spreadsheet or a social media manager, but now it will not accept edits to the event.  So, if I change the start time, the Zap has already fired and is not going to process the changes to wherever it went.

On 11/25/2023 at 4:19 PM, Daniel F said:

Couldn't you use the "Member Edited" trigger?

If I wanted the change based on a group change in my community, yes.  But I cannot flip that and have my community make a change based on something else.  We only get an Update Member action and that is just a few options (name, email, password).  I can add/remove secondary groups, but it a fairly limiting in potential.

[LFIWebMaster]

@UncrownedGuard, 100% want to emphasize this.  I'd ideally love all the get/post/delete options in the REST API to be available in Zapier as actions.  The big things for us would be the ability to create polls/questions on topics, look up topics and events by ID, and have a trigger of 'when user group membership changes.'

[pequeno]

On 11/25/2023 at 10:19 PM, Daniel F said:

This is something what we have implemented for v5.

Why? What was the issue?

Couldn't you use the "Member Edited" trigger?

Promote content: when promote a content, I want to trigger a zap for publish in facebook page.

Can you implemented this?

Trigger only selected category post: it was good idea can trigger only topics or posts from a selected categories. If I have a presentation forum, I wan´t to post this posts.

Thanks.