Best Practices for Managing a Zapier Workspace
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Transcript
Speaker 0:
Recording. Perfect. So the the thing I wanted to talk about is about best practices for managing a Zapier workspace. We usually And
Speaker 1:
I listed off a couple of, areas. Can you like, I know one of them is folder management. One of them is app connection management. What else did I mention?
Speaker 0:
How to organize folders and zaps into folders by function, by trigger, by department, by primary app in action steps, or how to share and organize app connections. One connection with default access or connection per user, and then workspace sharing, user permission, and how to use the audit log. Which one do you want to start working with?
Speaker 1:
So, basically, what I would like this, the output of this, guide to have is the options of, you know, consider when developing your folder structure. Here's your main options. And depending on the use case, you may choose 1 or the other. There's not, there's not the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it. It's just, there are pros and cons for each way.
And some of those might matter in certain, companies, and it might not matter in other companies or other situations. Okay? So focusing on folder structure. The first and most basic folder structure that companies usually start with is naming the folder, after the person who's actually creating the zaps and managing that workflow. And so this is Paul's folder.
This is Tony's folder. This is Sarah's folder. And then whatever zaps are in there are, you know, managed and for that person. That works to a certain degree, to a certain team size, but it's also, confusing in the sense of Sarah could be creating zaps that have an impact on Tony's work, but Tony doesn't ever look inside Sarah's folder. Or if he does, then he copies his app and puts it in his folder even though that's not the most efficient way to do it.
This makes it easy in the sense of, like, it's fairly similar to before you had a team's account when you were running on a business account and you had a single login. You could still see who's doing what, where. So, you know, there's that. It makes it also very difficult to find flows based on function. So if we have lead processing, well, is that in Sarah's folder or Tony's folder?
They're both sales agents. Which folder would the lead processing be in? And so you end up having to look into different folders and they may process their own leads differently. And so now you have inconsistency in lead processing. So option number 2 for folder structures is to do it by function.
You might consider this department. So sales department, marketing department, accounting, reporting, executive, you know, project management, product management, those sorts of functions or departments. And that works better because then inside there again, you can have some folders inside there. So you can say, you know, inside the sales department, we have a lead processing flow. So now you're starting to name the folders inside the departments or the functions based on the flow that they're impacting.
And then you could have a, you know, email marketing folder that deals with all the zaps and workflows for email marketing. So that's generally, I would recommend going with this option. The positives here are that you get more of a a natural visual understanding of how data is flowing through each workflow in each zap and what department that it has an impact on. Because when you're coming into a Zapier team's account and you're trying to find, well, what's doing this and what's doing that and how are we interacting or whatever. When I want to create a new flow, a new Zap, where's that going to fit and how is that impacting everything else?
Well, once you find the folder, you can see the other zaps that have an impact there. Even if it's not the same software, it still would have an impact. And sometimes you can say, oh, no, it's the same trigger. I just want to add a path to that existing zap. And that makes things either less complicated or more complicated, but it just, you know, again, it depends.
But it helps for troubleshooting because you don't have to go to, you know, 3 different folders to find which zap is doing, in this case, lead processing. The negatives of doing it this way are there can be some duplication issues or efforts in when you're moving data from one department to another. So when you're generating invoices from a CRM, well, is that sales or is that accounting And which department does that workflow fit in? So that's where it can get a little murky. And sometimes I've seen people do, like, a 2 department labeled folder.
So you have a sales folder, which is just sales workflows, and then you have a sales and accounting workflow, which is the cross between the 2. And then you have an accounting, folder where it's just the workflows that deal with account. So this the negative here is that it multiplies the number of folders that you have. The positive there is that it's really straightforward defined. Oh, we're moving data between these 2 two default functions or departments, and so it's going to be in that folder.
And that also solves the similar thing that I was mentioning of, you know, when I go to add a new workflow or modify a workflow, what other workflows is that going to impact while they're all in this folder so I can see them visually. And it depends on your naming structure as well. But trying to name things, you know, part 1, part 2, if they're, you know, a, each other in different work in a single actual workflow, but they're split into multiple zaps. The third option is, I think we're at 3 now. The next option is to do it by application, and you can either do it by triggering application or by the main action application.
And so, you know, just real quick, a brief here on triggers versus actions inside Zapier. Triggers are what start a workflow. Actions are what happens inside the workflow. And generally speaking, there's only ever one trigger and there's multiple potential actions in a workflow. So when we see folder structures this way where it's app application based, it's usually the trigger application.
And so when something changes in my CRM, it's going to kick off these workflows or these zaps. Anytime the trigger is the CRM, it's going to be in the CRM folder. So Salesforce or Pipedrive. And so then that folder is where you would go to say, hey. When something changes in Pipedrive, that it's gonna change something elsewhere.
It's going a zap is going to be in that folder. So that helps when it comes to troubleshooting and trying to figure out what I change in a certain application, how that will have an impact in other applications. Again, this is more application centric and so less department centric or function centric. And that causes problems when, you have departments that have multiple applications that are working back and forth to each other. So say, for example, you have email marketing and you have a CRM and they're both in sales and marketing departments.
But you have to look in 2 separate folders to see, well, which one is actually, you know, marketing the deal as one. Is it an action that happens in the CRM or is it an action that happens in the email marketing platform? You know, which one is actually having this impact? And then it could be in a completely different folder, meaning like my e commerce application is the one that's triggering this, but it's having an impact in my CRM. And so how would I know to go to ecommerce as the trigger to be able to look at what's happening inside my CRM?
What workflow has an impact in my CRM? So this is the least likely to organize your folders in this methodology. But we've seen it done this way before, and I can understand why people would do it because they're thinking that way of, like, this is the application that starts it. So I want to know all my workflows from there are in this folder. So that's, like I said, that's another way to do it.
We tend to recommend the function way of, starting it and then using sub folders and naming flows in there. So, so naming of the subfolders inside the department for what is the what is the workflow that's happening. And sometimes it may take 10 zaps. Say, for example, the trigger is dependent upon a user, like, let's say, a Zoom account, and so you need to have a separate Zap for each Zoom user that you have. Well, we have a folder that is, Zoom recordings to Airtable.
And so now we know every zap inside that folder is just it's you know, there's multiple ZAPs, but they're all doing the same thing, which is moving the Zoom recording information into Airtable. When we need to go and update one of those ZAPs, because it's in a subfolder, we see all the other zaps that run a similar function just for different users, and we can make sure to update the related zaps because that's all that's in that folder.
Speaker 0:
Cool. Also, I don't know if you looked at it. There is an app called Zapier manager that has a trigger for new Zaps. So you could think in the future if they improve this connector, because I don't have access to that specific trigger, maybe you do, to copy this information in a database. So instead of using folders, you can start using labels instead.
Speaker 1:
Right. Yeah. And then the other thing is using Canvas by Zapier to be able to document the actual processes inside your organization and then label the Zaps that are already built or functioning and where they are stored inside that. So I strongly urge users to look at Canvas by Zapier to and then inside there, not document your Zaps, but document your business workflows. So where do customers come from?
How do they move through your sales process? How do they move through your, fulfillment process? And how do they move through billing process? What is the step 1, 2, 3, 4 through all of that, as well as the cycles, you know, things that get repeated. Hey, this is a returning customer and they made a purchase and now they get this email trigger, etcetera.
All of that you can document inside Canvas by Zapier. And then, and then put notes in there of to what Zap in what folder impacts which steps in that process.
Speaker 0:
Mhmm. Do you want to move to next topic, or do you have time? Do you want to continue next time?
Speaker 1:
I'd like to skip, the rest of this. And, what I would love for you to be able to do because I don't know this that well. Put it that way. I would love for you to be able to query chat gpt or whatever. Find some blog posts about this and get them summarized, into, like, app, app connection, strategies for Zapier, etcetera.
Like, I know folders. I don't know the permissions level that well at at the team area because Zapier makes changes frequently. And so I'm not up to date as to what the permissions capabilities are.
Speaker 0:
Mhmm.
Speaker 1:
As well as, like, access control. So what I do know is, like, for example, you can transfer ownership of a Zap to someone else. The owner will get a notification when a Zap has an issue or fails, when a Zap run fails. You can also use Zap manager to notify other people or yourself if a zap that's owned by someone else fails. You know, that needs to take that needs to be taken into account when you're talking permissions is who can edit a zap, who gets notification when is that fails, and do you build a zap manager notification system to notify certain people no matter what who owns the Zap.
As well as if someone owns a Zap in a certain depending on permission level, certain people can't edit that Zap. Other people can't view the ZAP's runs. And so you can't, know if that was the Zap that caused the problems or if that was the Zap that is you're trying to troubleshoot. So it becomes very complicated when you start to mix in their access control list. And so that needs basically some research.
I don't have the knowledge on that in its Zapier's current state.
Speaker 0:
Okay. Okay. And then we have how to audit the log. But, again, if you
Speaker 1:
I have no experience there. So I I just when I looked when you asked about this, I looked up real quick what are the things that makes a team plan special and gives it more, stuff, than a regular business plan. The audit log was pretty significant, and so I added that to the list. The idea there is when you run the audit log or when you look at the audit log, you're supposed to be able to see if you're an admin, I guess. You have permissions to see the audit log, and then you can see everything that's, gone through your Zaps and which Zaps are actually, you know, consuming tasks or breaking or whatever.
Even if you don't own them and even if you don't have editor permissions to those Zaps. So, the audit log, I don't know if it's, gives you, like, information on the data that's flowing through. Like, you can actually click through, like, you can in zap history or if it's just more high level stuff so that data from private zaps is not exposed to the team admin. But that comes into play as well. You got private Zaps and how private are they?
Because they used to be more private, but I know Zapier just changed that recently so that team admins can see private Zaps and how many tasks they're using. What I don't know is can they see the apps that are involved and the data that's transferring through them.
Speaker 0:
Mhmm. Okay. Maybe a word about version control and documentation.
Speaker 1:
So Zapier has versions in their Zaps now, which is really fantastic, and I recommend using that. And I recommend, labeling, your version by what changed. What did you have to update, etcetera. So that when it comes time to roll back to a previous version or to look at the changes between versions, you have you've given yourself an indication. So for example, a recent zap that I was modifying, I said, you know, fix the JSON in the webhook call.
And then my next version was, lo and behold, I need quotes in the JSON for that webhook call. And then the next one was, Zapier is Found out the curly braces caused the problem in my JSON call in step 8. And that just gives me an indication as to why I made the change and what the change is. That helps even though Zapier does now have, where you can compare versions, but I think that's on enterprise not on teams. So you might wanna check that Andres before you publish any of this.
But I know you there there's a possibility to compare versions, but it's a whole lot easier at a glance when you're looking at the version list to be able to see why the zaps were changed. And it helps when you're working in a team for somebody else to look at that and be able to see, oh, this is what Paul was doing here. This is why he made three changes on that day because he was working in step 8, or, you know, the, the pipe drive step, and it was taking him a little bit to get the, the actual, configuration correct. So always, always, always put comments in your versions when you go to publish a new version of a Zap. Also
Speaker 0:
When when the AI will arrive and summarize that as well.
Speaker 1:
Also, b, it is still viable to use what we used to use for version control. It's still a viable option. And so what we used to use is every time we came in to edit a zap, we would duplicate the zap, change the number so it would be, like, the 45 in the title of the zap. And then we'd work on version 45 while version 44 is still running, and turned on. And once we got version 45 to the point that we liked it, we'd turn version 45 on and turn version 44 off.
And that kept it so that if you screwed up and made a mistake in version 45, you could simply, roll back by turning version 44 back on and turning version 45 off. This isn't so much necessary now that Zapier has versioning of their zaps, because you can go back to a previous version of the zap, especially in teams plan. But it is helpful if you're making significant modifications and you might not be able to do it in one fell swoop and you don't want to have multiple drafts. You don't wanna have a draft just sitting there that somebody else might edit or publish or delete. Because if somebody edits a Zap that has a draft, it'll prompt them, hey.
Do you wanna edit the draft or edit or or start from the live version? And if they say, you know, essentially start from the live version, delete the draft, it will delete your the draft and all the work that you've put into it. So in that sense, when you're working with a team, when you're working on multiple, something that may take more than just this next 5 minutes, In those cases, sometimes we still duplicate the zap and work on a copy of the zap to verify, that we can make it work, what changes we need to make, and then turn the copy on and the original off. And then that also can be useful when you're dealing with, triggers that that chain that don't change or that are, you know, difficult, like, webhooks, for example. So, but then the other thing is naming structures and naming schemes.
So how does this Zap play into the workflow? What are the not just the apps involved because we can determine that fairly quickly, but what data is moving and why is it moving. And so naming your zaps is really critical, because it's not just CRM to email marketing tool. It's okay. You know, when deal when stage is changed in CRM, update tag in email marketing, you know, something like that.
Like, that's much better title for a zap, and helps when it comes to version control, etcetera, and naming and structures.
Speaker 0:
If I have uh-huh. Go. Go on. Finish, please.
Speaker 1:
What what we find is sometimes you have multiple Zaps that are a part of one workflow that you have to have part 1, part 2, part 3, etcetera, because of whatever reason. Like, you need multiple loops, and you can't have multiple loops in one Zap. And so you end up having a loop in the first Zap and a loop in the second Zap. And so what we do in that case is the zaps will have very similar names, if not the exact same, except it'll be part 1 and part 2 and part 3. We don't use the word step when we're naming those zaps because, a step is inside of a zap.
And so we use the word part, to be able to name those. And you could go with part a, part b, part c. We've just found that, using numbers works better.
Speaker 0:
I was wondering if we could, like, have a form that, you know, ask a couple of questions, I mean, we can generate the ideal Zap name.
Speaker 1:
Interesting. Yeah. Basically, AI you know, the other thing is is that you can take notes on each step and you can put notes in the description field or the notes field for the whole Zap. And Zapier has enabled AI for all of that. We also recommend renaming your Zap steps because creating a record in Airtable, okay, that's great.
But that isn't as helpful as creating a client record in Airtable. Mhmm. So when it says updating a record in Airtable versus updating the stage of a deal record in Airtable in this base. So the naming of steps, the notes in a step, and the notes in a zap also are very critical. And there is an AI feature that's available for those except I don't think for naming your steps or your Zap.
And so that would be interesting to have a way to come up with the most ideal Zap, name, but I would rather have Zapier add their AI magic to the naming much like Loom does, to the naming of a Zap or the naming of, steps.
Speaker 0:
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Error handling.
Well, let's let's try this keyword, next chapter. Nice. Error handling. What do you have to say for that?
Speaker 1:
So the big thing is is find out who's going to be responsible for, following through on errors. Some errors are false negatives and can be ignored. But if you ignore all errors thinking they're all false negatives, you're going to be in a problem. That's why a client of mine, had an issue the other day and did not know it and came to me and said, hey. My Zaps aren't working, and they haven't been for a while, but I didn't know that.
And when I we went and looked, he got an email notification of an, an app connection that got disconnected and needed to be reauthorized. But she didn't reauthorize it because she just ignored the error message. And then every time that zap ran, you know, it would no longer work on that step because it was no longer had permissions to be able to do that. So don't ignore errors. That's the first thing.
But you have to especially in a team situation, you have to have some way to know that who's responsible for this error. Because if you have 7 people and this error should go to one person and everybody else thinks, oh, that person will take care of it and that person thinks it was a different error that belongs in somebody else's court, then you start to run into problems. So this goes back to folder structure and permissions and all of that. Generally speaking, what, you know, the owner of a zap will receive an email notification of an error. But you can also turn on error notifications inside each Zap and specify who gets the error notification after what threshold, etcetera, and how they get a notification.
You can also in your Zapier account, specify what kind of notifications you want. If you want a daily summary or individual notifications. And then you can override that on a per zap basis in the settings of the zap. So, focus on that, take a look at the options inside the settings area of zaps because people don't often look at that. That includes flood protection and, there's another thing that I forget what it's called, but that's another error setting that you can adjust.
So that being said, depending on the criticality of a workflow, I would actually recommend that somebody that you do a every 6 month audit of your Zapier infrastructure, all your workflows, etcetera, and make sure that they're following whatever, error notification system that you've set up. So if it's a mission critical, it goes to this person or it creates a ticket in the system. You can use Zap manager for that or Zapier manager for that, which allows you to run a zap basically when another zap has an error. And so you can create tickets in your ticketing system and assign it to people. And that would be the best case scenario.
And so for every error that happens, it gets put into a ticketing system, and then that ticketing system you know, those tickets either get purposefully dealt with or assigned or ignored on purpose. But, you know, you can always notify yourself via Slack or via email. It just really there's a lot of options there. So I'm just sorry. Kinda lost with the flow of where I was going, but, hopefully, that's enough for you to start with something.
Speaker 0:
Yes. That's that's great. I think, we covered most of the like, I have other topics here, but I I I don't I don't know how interesting are they.
Speaker 1:
Then they're not.
Speaker 0:
So Well, one one interesting, I think, that I don't know if you have something to say, cost management.
Speaker 1:
Or So, basically, it's how many tasks are allotted to each department or each workflow because just because you can, automate something doesn't mean it's cost effective to do it. And so, it's a consideration to put in place. And I think at the enterprise level, you can allot tasks to folders. I don't know if you can at the team level. But that is a way to manage costs and say, listen, you know, you only you know, your budget for your department is this many tasks.
You can't use all of our accounts tasks just because. So,
Speaker 0:
yeah.
Speaker 1:
That's what I got. But, actually, I need to go now. So Okay. Hopefully, that's enough to get started on and
Speaker 0:
Yeah. Yeah. We can go from there. Thanks, Paul.
Speaker 1:
Yep. Have a good afternoon.
Speaker 0:
You too. Bye bye.
Speaker 1:
Cheers.
Zapier is a powerful tool for automating workflows, but as your workspace grows, it becomes crucial to implement best practices for organization and management. In this blog post, we'll explore key strategies to keep your Zapier workspace efficient and user-friendly.
Folder Structure: The Foundation of Organization
For a more in-depth article about folder structure, check out this article:
Organizing Your Zapier Workspace: Best Practices for Folder Structure
One of the most important aspects of managing a Zapier workspace is how you structure your folders. There are several approaches, each with its own pros and cons:
1. User-Based Folders
This is often the starting point for many teams, where folders are named after individual team members. While simple, this approach can lead to confusion and inefficiency as the team grows.
- Pros:
- Easy to implement
- Clear ownership of Zaps
- Cons:
- Difficult to find specific workflows
- Can lead to duplication of efforts
- Challenging for team collaboration
2. Function-Based or Department-Based Folders
This approach organizes Zaps by business function or department, such as Sales, Marketing, or Accounting. It's generally recommended for its clarity and scalability.
- Pros:
- Provides a clear overview of workflows by department
- Easier to find and manage related Zaps
- Facilitates better collaboration within teams
- Cons:
- May require additional subfolders for complex workflows
- Can be challenging for cross-departmental processes
3. Application-Based Folders
This method organizes Zaps by the primary application involved, either the trigger app or the main action app.
- Pros:
- Helpful for troubleshooting app-specific issues
- Clear overview of which apps are most used in your workflows
- Cons:
- Can be confusing for multi-app workflows
- May not align well with business processes
Naming Conventions: The Key to Clarity
For a more in-depth article about naming convention, check out this article:
Zap Naming Conventions: A Guide to Organized Automation
Regardless of your folder structure, implementing clear naming conventions for your Zaps is crucial. A good Zap name should describe:
- The trigger event
- The main action or outcome
- Any key apps involved
For example: "New Salesforce Lead → Update HubSpot Contact" is much more informative than simply "CRM to Email Marketing".
Version Control and Documentation
For a more in-depth article about versioning, check out this article:
Mastering Version Control in Zapier: Keeping Your Automations in Check
For a more in-depth article about documentation, check out this article:
Documentation Best Practices in Zapier: The Key to Sustainable Automation
Zapier now offers built-in versioning for Zaps, which is a great feature for teams. Here are some best practices:
- Always add detailed comments when publishing a new version
- Include what changed and why
- For complex changes, consider duplicating the Zap and working on the copy
Additional Tools for Management
Zapier offers additional tools to enhance your workspace management:
- Canvas by Zapier: Use this to document your overall business processes and how Zaps fit into them
- Zapier Manager: This app can help with notifications and monitoring of Zaps across your workspace
Conclusion
Effective management of your Zapier workspace is key to maximizing the platform's potential. By implementing a clear folder structure, consistent naming conventions, and good version control practices, you can create a more efficient and collaborative automation environment for your team.
