Welcome to the world of automation! This article introduces Zapier and how it can be used with your marketplace. The next article dives deep into how to use the Zapier and Sharetribe integration.

Prefer to get your hands dirty? Pick one of our tutorials and templates to start automating your marketplace operations today.

If you ever wanted to do something in one software as a result of an event happening in another software, then Zapier is the tool for you. Zapier connects different apps and services to automate repetitive processes without any coding. It enables different software to communicate and work together. The Zapier and Sharetribe integration connects your marketplace to thousands of apps and can be used to automate countless different workflows between these apps and your marketplace.

The Zapier and Sharetribe integration can help you automate admin tasks and create new functionality for your users.

A simple use case for Zapier is to automate the task of taking data from your Sharetribe marketplace and inputting it into another application or database. Say you want to add the contact information of every new user who signs-up to your newsletter audience so that each new account receives your newsletters in the future. You can do this manually, copying data from Sharetribe and pasting it into your marketing tool each time a new user joins.

The Zapier and Sharetribe integration can do such repetitive work for you automatically. The integration can recognize when a new user signs up, glean their contact data from your marketplace database, and send it to another system for ingestion. This task now gets done automatically and instantly, anytime of the year, day or night.

Follow our tutorial to learn how to add new user information to your marketing audience.

Automatically moving data between your marketplace and another application also means you can integrate additional functionalities into your marketplace without coding.

Notifications are an example. Your marketplace already sends email notifications to your users for a wide variety of events. With Zapier, you can integrate an SMS sending system to also send SMS notifications, using those same events as triggers for a workflow that takes data from your Sharetribe marketplace and uses it to perform an action in another system.

Follow our tutorial to learn how to add SMS notifications to your marketplace with Zapier.

Zapier can also change data in your Sharetribe marketplace as a result of a trigger, or starting event, in another application. For example, if someone purchases a subscription in your subscription system, Zapier can update their permissions in your marketplace so that they receive their membership features automatically after purchase.

The Zapier and Sharetribe integration unlocks many use cases, but it cannot do everything. One limitation is that Zapier cannot change the screens, components, interfaces, or pages that users see in your marketplace. Zapier simply moves data from one application to another and, while it can thus modify the data of your marketplace, it cannot alter how functionalities already in your marketplace behave.

Moreover, Zapier only works with apps that have a Zapier integration and Zaps can only do actions in their respective integrations that have been enabled. Thankfully, there are 1000s of apps integrated with Zapier, so Zapier’s automation capabilities can be applied to a great number of workflows.

Get automation-inspired by our Zapier templates and tutorials.

Zapier is a no-code software tool. It provides an interface where you configure automatic workflows called Zaps without any coding. These automations begin with triggers in an application, such as an email being received in your Google inbox or a new form being submitted via Typeform.

The possible triggers depend on the kind of events that take place in the application. Triggers from your Sharetribe marketplace, for example, are events that happen in your marketplace, such as a user signing up or a new listing being posted. With Zapier, these events serve as the initiation, or trigger, for an automatic workflow, or Zap.

Zaps progress through actions. Actions are the changes performed by Zapier in your marketplace or another application after the trigger event occurs. Triggers start the Zap, actions determine what actually happens during the Zap workflow.

Zaps can have many actions weaving together different apps and data or only only a single action. In your Sharetribe marketplace, Zapier can perform actions like changing the published state of a listing or retrieving a customer’s contact email from the marketplace database.

Actions are commonly used to transfer information from one application to another as part of the Zap automation. This is done in Zapier by mapping the data from one application to the fields available in another application. By manipulating data from one application to another in this way, you are creating an integration between these different systems, configuring them to work together through Zapier.

To begin with, you will need a Zapier account. Zapier offers different plans, including a free one that may be sufficient for your needs. You can visit Zapier's website and click on the "Sign Up" button to get started.

Once your account is set up, you'll find yourself in the Zapier dashboard. This is your control center where you'll create and manage your Zaps.

The next step is to connect your Sharetribe account to Zapier.

A new window will open asking you to connect your Sharetribe account by entering your Client ID and Client Secret. The Client ID and Client Secret are your Sharetribe marketplace credentials.

Each environment in your marketplace (Live, Test, and Dev) has its own credentials. Make sure you are creating these credentials in the environment you want to use with your Zap.

You create the Client ID and Client Secret in your Console:

Voila! Now you have your Client ID and Client Secret to copy back into Zapier. You should also copy these details to a safe place, like a password manager.

Next, enter your Sharetribe credentials into Zapier. Click on "Authorize" to grant Zapier the necessary permissions. Once the authorization process is complete, your Sharetribe account will be connected to Zapier, and you can start creating Zaps to automate your tasks.

Learn more about trigger and actions available in the Sharetribe-Zapier integration works.

If you want to jump straight into creating Zaps, check out our templates and tutorials for inspiration on guidance for automating your workflow.