Call for beta testers of our Zapier integration

We’re excited to reveal a new integration we’re working on, with Zapier. This integration is special in that it actually represents many possible integrations.

What is Zapier?

Zapier is a web service that allows many different web services to integrate with one another. We’ve had requests for integrations with many different services, and we think that this integration could address many of these integration needs at once.

Zapier has a free tier for limited volume and paid tiers at higher volumes. Each integration, or zap, is driven by a trigger and then the receiving service performs an action. Little Green Light will be releasing a Zapier action in early 2020, so your LGL account can be on the receiving end of any number of integrations.

How does Zapier work?

As an example, let’s say you would like to pull into your LGL account any tweet that mentions your organization. Since Twitter has a Zapier trigger and Little Green Light is building a Zapier action, you’ll be able to do exactly this.

The beauty of the Zapier model is that it means each of these services doesn’t have to build separate integrations with each other. It’s like a hub-and-spoke model that makes it much more efficient to build integrations. Hence the hub and spoke graphic in their logo:

Besides the Twitter example above, there are thousands of other triggers available from all kinds of software. Here are a few more examples:

Square: If you use Square for on-site payment processing, you could use their New Transaction trigger to pull purchaser and transaction information into LGL.

Google Forms: If you use Google Forms, you can pull information from new submissions into LGL—though we still recommend using LGL forms. 🙂

Sendinblue: We recently had a request to integrate with the email service Sendinblue. We don’t have plans for building that integration, but you could use Sendinblue’s New Subscriber trigger to pull new subscribers into your LGL account.

There are many, many more such examples. For more insight, you can browse the applications that have built Zapier triggers.

What will LGL’s Zapier action allow you to do, exactly?

You’ll be able to create and edit constituent records, create gift entries, and add notes to constituents. The mapping will be quite similar to how the Flex Importer and LGL forms mapping works. Incoming records will be dropped into the Integration queue for review. It’s important to realize, though, that Zapier works by pushing one record at a time; it’s not a solution for sending a large file of data.

You’ll be able to map the following types of fields:

• Constituent names
• Contact info (email, phone, address)
• Constituent categories (groups, tags, etc.)
• Notes (note type, date, and text)
• Gifts (and other financial transactions)
• MailChimp or Constant Contact (add to list)

If you’d like to join our list of potential beta testers, please click the link below and complete the short request form.

We look forward to working with you on this and seeing what kinds of connections you can make.

P.S. A common question when it comes to Zapier is how to pronounce it. The official Zapier company line is that it “rhymes with happier.”