Adding CiviCRM to Zapier

[Erik Hommel]

Hi all,
during our fundraising brainstorming Ilja de Coster found Zapier, and suggests adding CiviCRM. I can definitely see the attractions, but also have some questions about data integrity, privacy and supplier dependency. And I would love to hear all your thoughts!
Erik

[SarahG (FountainTribe)]

I read a bit about Zapier (and heard about it from another company that asked if CiviCRM could use Zapier, as they plan to use that as their integration strategy)

What I observed: It seems like "Zaps" are a lot like Drupal rules. ie an end-user can configure "when X happens, do Y".   I am thinking a consultant would do the configurations of the Zaps.

I think its a good idea as it gives people more choices as to how to integrate with CiviCRM and it has the potential to eliminate a lot of point-to-point integration projects for CiviCRM.

My concerns:  Seems like it would be time-consuming to configure "zaps" needed for each environment for a common use case. ( ie such as ConstantContact integration. Then again, Drupal rules are time-consuming too.

Also, if anything happens to the company running Zapier (ie they shut down, change prices, etc) then any CiviCRM integrations that depend on Zapier are no longer viable.  Seems like this kind of risk would be smaller with an established PHP integration library that provides integration into other SaaS products.  (ie like OmniPay for payment processors, that in theory eliminates one-off payment processor projects)

[Donald Lobo]

+1 for integration with tools outside our ecosystem

I think we've been lagging in this regard and exploring the new set of apps / services out there is definitely worth it

lobo

[Laryn]

Just to tag on to this, another service similar to Zapier is If This Then That, which also has apps for iOS and Android. Though I'm not sure how easy it is to define custom channels on services like this.

[bcromie]

There is a fairly reasonably ifttt webhook library here: https://github.com/captn3m0/ifttt-webhook

Additionally, webhooks in general seem to be a fairly lightweight integration pathway.

Take a look at the https://wordpress.org/plugins/hookpress/ plugin, which turns all of the wordpress hooks into webhooks. It would instantly open up a world of integrations.

Just my $0.02