Baby Steps: Creating a Simple Zapier Integration

This article will describe how you can create some simple zaps using Issuetrak and Zapier.

Zapier is pretty easy to use, and we've tried to match that quality where API v2 is concerned so that you can get started without having any programming knowledge. However, there are some things you should know and some pre-work that you should take care of before we proceed. Just so that it's fresh in your mind, go ahead and do the following:

  • Review API v2 Overview
  • Review Using Zapier with Issuetrak
  • Create a Zapier account
  • Optional but recommended: Stand up an Issuetrak Test instance so that you can experiment in a non-production site. Issuetrak Support can help you with this, or you can read about how to deploy one on your own.
  • Generate an API v2 token and keep its value safe but accessible for later

Once you've taken care of the pre-work above, you should be ready to proceed.


SMS Notifications

This first scenario allows you to receive SMS notifications every time a new Organization is created in Issuetrak. These steps might look pretty complex, but it's easy to get through them in just a couple of minutes once you have the information that you need.

  1. Sign into Zapier.
  2. Along the lefthand side, choose Create Zap.
  3. You'll be prompted to choose an App and Event. Enter "Issuetrak" into the search field, and then select Issuetrak when it appears.
  4. In the "Event" field, choose New Organization.
  5. Click Continue.
  6. You'll be prompted to choose an account or create a new one. Click Connect a new account.
    1. Enter the API v2 token that you generated earlier.
    2. Enter the application URL for your Issuetrak site.
    3. In the "Connection Label" field, give this site a friendly name so you can easily identify it later.
    4. Click Yes, Continue.
    5. You will now be prompted with "Test your trigger". Click Test trigger. If Zapier has communicated successfully with your site, then some information about an organization in your site should be displayed. Click Continue.
  7. You will now be prompted to choose an Action/App event to execute. Find and select SMS by Zapier.
  8. Set the Event field to "Send SMS".
  9. Click Continue.
  10. You should now see "Connect your SMS by Zapier account" displayed. Go ahead and click on "Connect a new account".
    1. Fill in the information about the number you want Zapier to send SMS messages to, then click "Send PIN".
    2. Fill the PIN you received, then click Yes, Continue.
  11. You should see a list of different numbers available from which you can choose to receive the SMS messages from. Choose a number and then click "Next".
  12. You should now be prompted with "Set up action". We're going to map fields from Issuetrak to the SMS message function. In the Message field, type any message you would like to receive via SMS from Zapier, but leave an opening in your message for information from your Issuetrak site to be presented. For example, you can set the message to "New Organization has been created in Issuetrak:". Click just after the text at the end of the message, and you will be prompted to select what information from new organizations should be populated into the SMS when they are created. By default you will see only 4 fields that you can include, as well as "Show All Options", which will display every available Organization field. In this example, simply select "Name" and then click Continue.
  13. Click Test & continue.
  14. You should now receive an example SMS on your phone corresponding with the message template you just configured in Zapier. Once received, click Continue.
  15. Click Publish Zap, then click Publish & Turn On.

You will now receive a text message every time a new organization is created in your Issuetrak site. You can choose to go back and edit the SMS template to include as much information about the new organization as you would like.


Slack Announcements

This zap will announce the creation of every new user on a Slack server and channel that you have authority over.

  1. Sign into Zapier.
  2. Along the lefthand side, choose Create Zap.
  3. You'll be prompted to choose an App and Event. Enter "Issuetrak" into the search field, and then select Issuetrak when it appears.
  4. In the "Event" field, choose New User.
  5. Click Continue.
  6. You'll be prompted to choose an account or create a new one. Click Connect a new account (or choose an existing Issuetrak site if you've previously configured this, then skip to step 7).
    1. Enter the API v2 token that you generated earlier.
    2. Enter the application URL for your Issuetrak site.
    3. In the "Connection Label" field, give this site a friendly name so you can easily identify it later.
    4. Click Yes, Continue.
    5. You will now be prompted with "Test your trigger". Click Test trigger. If Zapier has communicated successfully with your site, then some information about an organization in your site should be displayed. Click Continue.
  7. You will now be prompted to choose an Action/App event to execute. Find and select Slack.
  8. Set the Event field to "Send Channel Message".
  9. When prompted, sign into the Slack server that you have authority and permission to integrate Issuetrak with, then click Continue.
  10. Select the channel to receive new user announcements.
  11. In the "Message Text" field, we will create a template for the announcements to follow. For this example:
    1. Enter the following text:

      We've got a new user in Issuetrak!
      UserID:
      Email:
      Created By:

       
    2. Click the area immediately to the right of UserID, then Show all options. Select User id from the list of available fields.
    3. Click the area immediately to the right of Email, and then choose Email from the list of available fields.
    4. Click the area immediately to the right of Created By, then Show all options. Select Created by user iid.
    5. Set any additional options you want for this announcement, then click Continue.
  12. Click Test & continue.
  13. You should see a Slack announcement corresponding with the template you just created. Once received, click Continue.
  14. Click Publish Zap, then click Publish & Turn On.

You will now receive announcements in the configured Slack channel about new user creations.


Email Creation of New Users

This zap will go in the other direction than the previous two: Instead of using Issuetrak to trigger an event, we will use another app to trigger something happening in Issuetrak. We're going to make a zap that will create new users based on information contained in an incoming email. This zap's configuration is a little more complex (but no more difficult) than the previous two.

  1. Sign into Zapier.
  2. Along the lefthand side, choose Create Zap.
  3. You'll be prompted to choose an App and Event. Enter "email" into the search field, and then select Email by Zapier when it appears.
  4. In the "Event" field, choose New Inbound Email.
  5. Click Continue.
  6. You will be prompted with a field that will determine the email address that will receive email messages to create users. Enter a short but descriptive word or phrase into the field (such as "newituser"), and take note of the value in the field as a whole (for example, newituser.8ggr8a@zapiermail.com).
  7. Click Continue.
  8. Send an email to the email address determined in step 6, then click Test trigger.
  9. If Zapier successfully received an email at that recipient address, you can now click Continue.
  10. You will now be prompted to choose an Action/App event to execute. Find and select Issuetrak.
  11. Set the event to Create User.
  12. Click Continue.
  13. You'll be prompted to choose an account or create a new one. Click Connect a new account (or choose an existing Issuetrak site if you've previously configured this, then skip to step 14).
    1. Enter the API v2 token that you generated earlier.
    2. Enter the application URL for your Issuetrak site.
    3. In the "Connection Label" field, give this site a friendly name so you can easily identify it later.
    4. Click Yes, Continue.
    5. You will now be prompted with "Test your trigger". Click Test trigger. If Zapier has communicated successfully with your site, then some information about a user account in your site should be displayed. Click Continue.
  14. We will now configure the manner in which user accounts will be created in Issuetrak when this zap is triggered. For this example, we will take three values from the incoming email and populate them into different fields for the new user account, then select additional (non-email) values based on our preferences.
    1. For "First Name", find and select From Name.
    2. For "Last Name", find and select Subject.
    3. For "Display Name", find and select From Name and Subject (so that both values are side-by-side with a space between them).
    4. Set the "Time Zone" field according to preference.
    5. Set the "Primary Organization" according to preference.
    6. Set the "Redirect After Issue Submit" according to preference.
    7. Set the "Home Page" according to preference.
    8. Set any other non-required fields according to preference.
    9. Click Continue.
  15. Click Test & Continue.
  16. You should see a new user get created in your Issuetrak site.
  17. Click Publish Zap and then try sending emails from different accounts to the Zapier service account for this zap, then monitor for new user creation.