Getting Started with Zapier

Zapier allows you to connect thousands of applications to Inspect Point. This article will walk you through the basic steps to create two Zaps, one to connect a Google Form to your Inspect Point account to submit a new proposal and the second will create a task in Zoho CRM after an inspection has been completed.

In addition to these two simple examples, you can use Zapier and Inspect Point to take a variety of actions in your application such as Field Service Management (FSM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or any of the thousands of applications available in Zapier. For example, you can create a Zap that listens for an Inspection Complete or Proposal Acceptance trigger in Inspect Point and then uses information found in the Inspection, Building Profile or Proposal to perform actions like Creating a Task in your CRM for sales to follow up or pre-fill a Quote with Proposal details, sending an email or Slack message, updating your FSM with the latest building details or notify your service manager to order parts. The variety of scenarios is nearly limitless.

 

Note: Zapier Integrations require a Platinum Inspect Point subscription. Customers with standard subscriptions do not have access to the Inspect Point API which is required to use Zapier.

 

Prerequisites

• Create a Zapier account at the Starter or higher subscription. (https://zapier.com/sign-up/)
• You must have an account in whatever service or application you want to connect. Note that these applications may also come with additional subscriptions and fees. Our first example uses a free Google service and will require a Google account. Our second example uses Zoho which requires a license.
• You must have a Platinum Inspect Point account and obtain an API key from your account manager

 

Example 1: Use a Google Form to Create a Proposal in Inspect Point

Google Form
After you have created your Google account, follow the steps below to create a google form to submit a new proposal to Inspect Point.

 

1. Create a New Google Form

In order to create a new Proposal in Inspect Point we need to collect the necessary information. Typically, this information will come from your Field Service Management (FSM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or other connection available in the Zapier app library. For this example, we’ll use a Google Form to capture the proposal information.

 

I created a Google Form that looks like this:

Zapier
Next we’ll create our first Zap which is a process that automatically runs and can perform a variety of actions to move data between applications and initiate actions available in those applications. Our example will automatically run whenever a new Google Form is submitted and create a new Proposal in Inspect Point. Creating a Zap requires you to configure at least one Trigger and one Action and each has four sections to populate “App & Event”, “Account”, “Trigger” and “Test”. The following section walks you through configuring your first Zap.

 

1. Login to your Zapier Account

2. Create a new Zap by clicking + Create Zap button

3. Click the “1. Trigger” button

 

4. Choose “Google Forms” as the Trigger

Search for “google forms” and select the app.

5. For the “App & Event” section Choose “New Form Response” as the Trigger Event

You need to choose the triggering Event, in this case we want to choose “New Form Response” as the event that causes the Zap to run.

 

6. For the “Account” section Sign in to your google account

For the Account section, you will login with your Google account and grant it permission to access your Google Forms so that it can monitor when new forms are submitted.

 

7. For the “Trigger” section Choose the Google Form you created

In the Trigger section select the Google Form name you created in the “Google Form” section above. When I created my Google Form I named it “Inspect Point Proposal Example”.

 

8. Test the form and Continue with selected record

Test the trigger, it will create some dummy data that you can view, then click the “Continue with selected record” button at the bottom.

 

9. Configure the Action Step

Next we configure the Action step which will accept the data from Step “1. Trigger” and submit it to Inspect Point to create a new proposal. In order to do this we will need to tell the Zap how to map the fields found in the Google Form to the fields of the Inspect Point Proposal. Start by Clicking the “2. Action” button and search for “Inspect Point” and choose that app.

 

10. Again, we choose the App & Event Trigger, in this case we choose Create Proposal as the event

 

11. For the “Account” section Sign in with your Inspect Point Sub Domain Name and API Key

Select “Choose” to enter your account Subdomain and the API Key that was provided to you by your Inspect Point account manager.

 

12. For the “Action” section Map the Google Form fields to the Proposal fields

As mentioned previously, we need to map the Google Form fields to the Inspect Point Proposal fields. In this example I set Building Available to “False” so that the Zap will automatically create a temporary building for this proposal. As you go through the mapping process, each Proposal field will allow you to select a corresponding field from the Google Form. For example under Project Name, we see the list of Google Form field names as well as the sample data from the prior Zap step 1 Trigger. In this example I named the Google Form field “Project Name”, see the yellow highlight.

After mapping all the fields they should appear as follows, notice Building ID is left blank since we’re creating a temporary building for this proposal.

 

14. Test and Publish the Zap

Now we test this step and publish the Zap so that it will automatically run every time a new Google Form is submitted.

 

15. Submit a Google Form Test

Go to the Google form you created previously and submit a new form entry, I submitted one that looks like the following.

 

16. Finally, check the results in Inspect Point

The Zap may take a few moments to run. After it has run you will see the new proposal which looks like this in Inspect Point.

Congratulations! You have created a Zap that submits a new Proposal to Inspect Point.

 

Example 2: Create a Sales Task in Zoho after an Inspection is Completed in Inspect Point

Zapier
Next we’ll create a Zap that is triggered when a new Inspection is completed in Inspect Point and creates a Task in Zoho for the sales team to review the report (via a hyper link) and follow up with a quote if needed. Like the prior example I’ll walk you through filling out the “App & Event”, “Account”, “Trigger” and “Test” sections of each step in the Zap.

 

1. Login to your Zapier Account

2. Create a new Zap by clicking + Create Zap button

3. Click the “1. Trigger” button

 

4. Choose “Inspect Point” as the triggering app

Again, we search for “Inspect Point” and choose that as the triggering app.

 

5. For App & Event, choose Inspection Complete

Under App & Event select “Inspection Complete” as the event that starts the Zap. For “Account” select your Inspect Point account, and enter your Subdomain and the API key provided by your Inspect Point account manager. Select Test to view the sample data and then click “Continue with Selected Record” to continue.

6. Configure the get Building Details from Inspect Point

Click the “2. Action” button, choose “Inspect Point” as the App.

Choose “Get Building Details” as the Event.

 

For “Account' enter your Subdomain and API key that was provided by your Inspect Point account manager. If you completed the prior example, then this information should be remembered by Zapier.

 

For “Action” choose Find by “Building Id” and select the Building ID field from the Step 1 results.

Test the step, review the data and continue on to the next step.

 

7. Add another step to retrieve the Inspection details

Click the “+” button at the bottom of the last step to add another step.

 

8. Configure the App & Event for the Get Inspection Details step

Click the “3. Action” button, choose the “Inspect Point” app again, and then configure the “App & Event” by choosing “Get Inspection Details” for the event.

 

For the “Account” section, choose your Inspect Point account that should already be configured, Zapier should remember your settings.

For the “Action” section, select the Inspection ID that was returned as part of Step 1 for the “Inspection Id” field. Enter “No” for the “Should this step be considered a success when nothing is found”, because there should be a building in the system that is getting inspected.

 

Test the step, you should see the inspection details returned.

 

9. Add Another Step to Create a Zoho Task

Click the “+” icon, and search for Zoho app and select that for the next step 4. For the “App & event” section, choose “Create Module Entry” for the event.

 

For the “Account” section, you’ll need to enter your domain and CRM organization and then grant permission for Zapier to access your Zoho account.

For the “Action” section, choose “Tasks” for the Module field, choose “Standard” for the layout field, in the Subject field, enter the “Inspection Reports Name” field from step 3. Set the Status field to “Not Started” and the Priority field to “High”. For the Description field, I’ve used a combination of fields to construct a message, see below.

 

Test the action and you will see the data that is sent to Zoho, it should look like the following.

 

Finally, publish your Zap so that it will run automatically every time an inspection is completed.

 

10. Now we’re ready to test our Zap!

Sign in to your Inspect Point application and create a new inspection, fill out the details via the mobile application and finalize the Inspection and send it to the back office. From the back-end application open the Inspection and request the inspection “Full Report” be generated.

 

Once the report is done being generated, change the Inspection Status to “Completed” and click “Update”. After a few minutes, the Zap will run and retrieve the Inspection and Building details and then create the Zoho Task.

 

You can then open Zoho and see the new Task has been created. Confirm the fields you mapped have been populated with the data from Inspect Point, see below.

 

Congratulations you have created your Zap to react to a completed inspection and create a Task in your Zoho CRM!