Today I’m excited to announce significant upgrades to our existing Zapier integration. From the very beginning we knew that building a connection to Zapier was important to our customers, although we had no idea it would become one of our most used integrations. We see our Zapier integration as an important part of making our customers’ workflows more efficient, especially where we don’t or aren’t able to integrate natively with a particular app. For that reason we’ve invested in making the CallRail Zapier connection even more powerful.
What is Zapier?
Zapier makes easy-to-use, browser based software to connect various applications around the web. Many web applications boast open APIs, which allow developers to freely build additional functionality, but you have to be a developer to take advantage of these. Enter Zapier, the no-code solution to connect apps across the web.
Zapier works on Triggers and Actions. Triggers are certain events that happen in one app (e.g. new phone call in CallRail). Actions are tasks that Zapier performs in other app(s) as a result of a certain Trigger. So a new phone call in CallRail can be set up to to “trigger” an Action in another app, like create a new task in Trello (with information passed from that Trigger.)
How Zapier folks describe themselves:
We’re just some humans…who think computers should do more work. 🙂
The team at Zapier has a robust platform that allows everyone to take advantage of open APIs to do everything from backing up your Evernote notes in Dropbox to automatically adding inbound Unbounce leads to MailChimp. All without knowing a lick of code or even what API stands for. The company’s success has led to more than 500,000 users and upwards of 550 connected apps on the platform. Here are a few popular Zaps with CallRail as the Trigger app:
Why do people use Zapier?
Zapier’s success can be attributed partly to the explosion of cloud technology, web application development, and increasingly DIY software consumers. As more of us rely on these cloud-based applications to make our work life easier, the more reason there is to share data between them. Combine that with our copy-and-paste work life that aims to avoid any repetitive tasks like data entry and tools like Zapier become extremely valuable.
The company does a good job of explaining, concisely, why people find Zapier useful:
There’s a secret language that lets web apps (Evernote, Dropbox, Gmail…) talk to each other. The terrible tragedy is that this language is only spoken by an elite few who possess technical superpowers. Zapier bestows these superpowers upon you! Want to send an email to create a new task in Trello? Now you can. Want to backup your Evernote notes to your Dropbox? Now you can! Your time is valuable. Don’t waste another second or dollar creating complicated integrations systems. Use Zapier to automate the apps you and your team are already using daily.
What problem does the CallRail Zapier integration solve?
We know our customers value efficiency and a delightful user experience. To deliver on our goal of creating the most delightful user experience available in call analytics software, we know we need to make sure call analytics data tracked by CallRail is available in the applications our customers are using. While we’d like to build every integration our customers request, the reality is there are so many good tools out there that we can’t possible get to all of them.
With the upgraded Zapier connection, our customers are able to connect CallRail data to more than 550 connected applications across the web. We think that’s a big win for CallRail users.
For example, let’s say you use CallRail for tracking new phone call leads for a holiday promotional campaign you’re running. Your company uses a fantastic CRM that fits your industry perfectly, but isn’t widely supported via integrations by many applications on the web, including CallRail.
Ideally, you would like for First Time Callers that are tagged as “Good Leads” in CallRail to be automatically entered into your company’s CRM so that your sales team can follow up. Without CallRail’s Zapier integration, you’re left either doing some repetitive, manual data entry or trying to find a developer to build a custom connection. With Zapier, you take a few minutes to build a “Zap” and you have a custom integration that suits your marketing and sales team perfectly.
So what’s new about the integration?
We’ve upgraded several key parts of the integration.
- Easier Authentication: Previously, the CallRail Zapier connection relied on Zapier webhooks, which required a user to go back and forth between Zapier and CallRail during the setup process to make sure the connection worked properly. Now you can connect to CallRail from Zapier, grant access, and build as many zaps as you’d like without having to enter in multiple webhooks for each company and trigger event.
- Expanded Triggers: CallRail now has more than just a phone call trigger. Triggers now include Phone Call Started, Phone Call Completed, SMS Received, SMS Sent, Company Created, User Created, Session Tracker Created, Source Tracker Created, Phone Call Marked As Spam, Phone Call Tagged.
- More Data Fields: The new data fields that are passed with each Trigger above are too numerous to list here and vary based on each Trigger. Essentially, we’ve built the Zapier connection to be able to access as many fields as possible that are associated with each Trigger.
CallRail’s upgraded Zapier connection now allows for 10 Triggers, including SMS Sent/Received and Phone Call Completed.
How to setup the CallRail Zapier integration
CallRail users can begin taking advantage of the integration right away by building a new Zap and selecting CallRail as the Trigger app. Once you’ve selected CallRail you’ll be asked to login to CallRail and authorize Zapier to use your information. Once you’ve authenticated you will see a drop down of the Triggers available. Simply select the Trigger you want to work with, enter the companies you for which the Trigger should apply, any specific conditions that need to be met for the Trigger to cause an Action, and the fields you want to be passed over to the Action app (if applicable.)
For more information you can see our support article on Zapier.
