Add an Automated task with Zapier

Integrate with 1000s of apps to add Automated tasks for sites to complete

Tilly James avatar
Written by Tilly James
Updated over a week ago

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Introduction to Zapier

Zapier allows thousands of apps to interact and automates workflows between them.

Zapier works via a system of Triggers and Actions.

  • A trigger is an event that starts a Zap. For example, if you want a spreadsheet row to be added each time a site completed a certain task, the trigger is Task Completed in Trail. Learn more about using Trail as a trigger

  • An action is an event a Zap performs after it is triggered. For example, if you want sites to receive an Automated task when a spreadsheet row is changed, the action is Add Task.

Creating an Automated Task

Automated tasks are ones that you want completed when triggered by an event in another app.

They will only appear when the rules of the zap are met. They won't show up based on a schedule and can't be manually added by teams.

Here are a few examples of Automated tasks:

  • Rainy day tasks that appear with bad weather forecasts

  • A task to prepare for events scheduled at a site

  • Prompts to review a document that's been added to the shared drive

  • Follow up tasks

First, you'll need to create the task in Trail & use the automated task type.

You can specify the number of days for the task to run. Usually, this will be 1, meaning teams need to complete the task on the day it's triggered, but some tasks might go on longer.

Setting up a Trigger

Zaps always start with a trigger, this will be the app that you want to determine when the Automated task should appear.

In the rainy day example, the trigger is a Zapier app that gets today's forecast for a given location.

Filtering the Zap

You may want to filter the zap for certain criteria. Just add in a step that checks the data from step 1 and determines whether the zap should continue, and therefore whether the automated task should be triggered.

For example, in our rainy example, we'd want to filter above a certain percentage chance of rain.

More on filters here.

Setting up Trail as an Action

  1. Select Trail as an Action app

  2. Connect your Trail account - find out more here

  3. Select the Automated task(s) you want added.
    If you can't see the task you're looking for, check it's schedule is set to Automated

  4. Select the Site(s) where you want the task completed
    You can use the Custom option to select data from previous steps in the zap. For example, choosing the site based on where a previous task was completed.

  5. Add instructions and custom data from earlier steps in the Zap (optional)
    For example, the probability of rain has been added and will be visible at the top of the task.

  6. Select an End Date (optional)
    If the field is left blank it will default to the task settings, so it only needs to be used as an override.

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