Overview

Zapier and Make automations can be broken down into 3 parts: Triggers, Search Steps, and Actions. Triggers and actions are always needed to create a full automation, whereas search steps are only needed if required for a specific workflow.

Triggers

A trigger is the step that tells your automation when to start. Triggers will begin an automation when the chosen event happens in the selected app.

At Copilot, we have triggers for nearly every event. For example: Client Created, Client Activated, File Created, and Form Response Submitted are all possible triggers. Any time one of these events happens in Copilot and it is a trigger for an automation in Zapier or Make, the automation will start.

Triggers can also be used if an external app is needed to trigger some actions within Copilot. For example, if you wanted to create a client in Copilot when someone schedules an event in Calendly, you would use Calendly’s Invite Created trigger to begin the automation.

Search Steps

A search step tells your automation what additional information to find. It does not perform any actions but can be used in subsequent steps to perform specific actions.

At Copilot, we have search steps such as Find a Client, Find a Company, Find a File Channel, and more.

Other external apps have search steps as well, Find a File in Google Drive is one example.

These steps are not always necessary in every automation. However, some workflows require these steps to find information within the app being used, in order to allow a specific action to be taken.

Actions

Actions are the steps in an automation that will cause an update or change to take place in the desired app. Actions are the only type of step that will “do something” in whichever app the action step is for.

At Copilot, we have many actions that can be taken: Update a Client, Create a File, and Request a Form Response are just a few examples.

Other external apps have actions as well, Upload a File to Google Drive is one example.

Once your automation knows when to start (trigger) and what to do (action), as well as any necessary search steps, the automation should begin running as expected once it is published or turned on.