Ace College and Your Career with These 6 App Workflows
By Jamie Irish · July 20, 2017
There’s no denying it—software and technology play a massive role in pretty much every industry.
Yet even while software know-how is becoming a standard requirement for jobs, most colleges won't teach you even the basics of popular business software. It’s up to you to find and learn the software that will help you impress employers.
The good news is that many of the top business apps offer a freemium model, so you can start gaining skills with these tools right away, even if you're a broke college kid. As a bonus, you can use these apps to make yourself more productive and efficient with your studies.
That's where Zapier comes in. Zapier is a tool that helps you build code-free workflows between the apps you use every day, so you can spend less time on robot-work and more time on the skills you’ll take into your future career.
Experiment with workflows between hundreds of the Web’s most popular business apps. From G Suite to Slack to Trello, MailChimp, Asana, and Pipedrive—you name it, and you can probably build an integration with it.
And yes—put it on your resume. (In fact, many job openings these days even list experience with or knowledge of using Zapier as a requirement or a plus.)
The following Zapier workflows will help you get familiar with some of the best business tools on the market, while also helping you to organize and manage your schedule, tasks, notes, and projects.
[My Zaps] helped me stay on top of my work from week to week by making sure I was setting clear goals and reflecting on how the last week went.
Nat Eliason, entrepreneur, Carnegie Mellon Class of '15
Assignments, tasks, and deadlines—oh my! With so much to keep track of, it’s tough to stay on that "yellow brick road" leading to good grades. You know being more organized would help, but do you really have the time to step back, figure out, and set up a good organization system?
Yes! You do! Or, more accurately, the robots do. Set up an automated system for your notes, deadlines, and tasks—then forget about it and focus your energy on getting that paper done.
For example, entrepreneur and Carnegie Mellon alumni Nat Eliason set up a workflow of weekly Trello cards, new weekly and monthly Evernote notes, and a series of reminders to help him set aside time for reflections and goal setting in the midst of his busy schedule.
Whether you keep a journal or share Friday updates with the rest of the team at work, this Scheduled Evernote integration can make sure you've always got a fresh slate to work on. It will trigger every week at the time and date you choose and automatically create a new note for you (which can be named after the date). All you have to do is add your weekly content, and Zapier will make sure of the rest, keeping your ever-expanding repository safe.
Never forget those weekly repetitive tasks with this handy Zap! Set up this integration to automatically create a new card in Trello every week, at a time of your choosing.
Take notes on tasks and assignments in class via Evernote or OneNote and have them automatically create reminders, calendar events, even tasks in your to-do app of choice with these Zaps (our word for automated workflows).
Create Google Calendar events from Evernote reminders
Evernote is the perfect place to jot down reminders. Google Calendar helps you keep track of your busy schedule. This Zapier integration leverages both apps by automatically creating a Google Calendar event from your new Evernote reminder to keep you feeling organized and accomplished.
Automatically file your most important emails away along with the rest of your notes and research in OneNote with this Zapier integration. All you'll have to do is add a label to the email you want to save in Gmail, and Zapier will do the rest, copying it into a new note in your OneNote notebook.
If you're having trouble acting on all those notes and research, let this Zap offer some automated assistance. Once active, it will automatically capture every new reminder note you create on Evernote and add a matching task on Todoist. Never forget an important item again!
Use this Zap to automatically create Todoist tasks from new OneNote notes. Whether your notes contain handwritten to-dos or a bullet list of reminders, easily get those tasks into one place, so you focus instead on completing them.
If a lot of your class communication comes through email, leverage your inbox to trigger workflows that send relevant information to the place where you can actually act on it.
(For example: professor emailing you reading assignment PDFs or very detailed emails? Automatically send them to a Google Drive folder with the notes and materials from your class, so you don’t have to dig for the PDF later. You can even have Zapier text you when a new file hits your Google Drive, so you don’t have to obsessively check your .edu address.)
Get SMS alerts when new files are uploaded to Google Drive
Your time is too valuable to be spent digging through folders for new files. Use this Google Drive-SMS integration to get notified whenever there's something new to see: It will trigger with each new file added on Google Drive, automatically pushing an SMS message to your device so you can download or preview it when ready.
Save incoming files quickly and easily with this Google integration. Set it up, and when you label an email in Gmail, Zapier will save any attachments from that email into a specific Google Drive folder. This automation makes it easier to keep up with your most important files.
Get reminders about all your important classes, deadlines, and assignments—in the way that fits most naturally with your workflow. Whether you want to receive text message reminders or just want to make sure that your calendar (aka, second brain) is always 100% up to date, these Zaps can help:
Get SMS alerts for new approaching Google Calendar events
Never forget about your upcoming events again! Just set up this Zap to automatically receive an SMS alert before an event in your Google Calendar is about to start.
There are tasks we need to complete every day, but sometimes we just need a reminder of those tasks. With a little help from Zapier that scheduled task can get sent to you by text message at the same time every day.
Do you need a task to correspond with your new Google Calendar events? This Google Calendar Todoist integration makes it easy to automatically create a new tasks for each new Google Calendar event.
Asana is a fantastic project management tool, however, it's often helpful to see tasks in a calendar view. This integration makes that easy, automatically creating a new event on Google Calendar whenever a new task is created within your chosen Asana project.
You’re juggling a lot of credit hours. Hyper-organized though you might be, sometimes it’s just too easy for an assignment to slip through the cracks. So why risk that last-minute panic when you could make sure your assignments always make it into your inbox—automatically?
Here’s how it works. With Email by Zapier you can set up a custom @zapiermail.com address. Then set up a mail filter in your .edu mail client to auto-forward assignment emails to your new Zapiermail address. This custom email address then acts as the trigger for a workflow that you define in Zapier. Your forwarded emails will then go straight to your favorite to-do app as a new task, with the details you define in Zapier.
Want to quickly create a task in Todoist? This Email Todoist integration will let you create a task in Todoist by sending a quick email to a given email address.
It's incredibly easy to let action items slip by in the flurry of daily emails. Say goodbye to that productivity loss once and for all with this Zap. During its configuration, you will be provided with a custom email address. Any email you direct to that address (by forwarding or other means) will automatically trigger the creation of a new task on Week Plan when it is received, making task tracking for emails as easy as hitting 'Send'.
Do your teachers send emails with lots of assignment details in the message body—details you don’t want to miss? Or are your assignment titles not included in the email subject line? Use Zapier’s Email Parser tool as an extra step to extract key details from your professors' emails and send those details into your to-do app.
Create Asana tasks from new Zapier Email Parser emails
Need to turn template emails into todo items? Use this Email Parser Asana integration to parse out important data from a template email and turn it into Asana tasks.
Save time by utilizing this Zapier Email Parser integration to automatically create Todoist tasks from parsed emails that are received in your custom Zapier Email Parser mailbox. After you set up this integration, every time a Zapier Email Parser mailbox parses a new email, a task is created in Todoist.
Voila! Now your to-do list will automatically update with your latest assignments and what you have to do to complete them, so you can focus on actually doing those assignments.
Don’t Let Due Dates Sneak Up on You
Send your tasks directly to your calendar
Assignments, quizzes, exams, group project deadlines—there’s a lot to keep track of at school. Let Zapier help you focus on actually doing the work by taking over all of your reminders.
Simply track assignments in the to-do app of your choice, then set up Zapier to automatically copy task deadlines to your calendar. (Alternatively, you can set up your own deadlines in Google Calendar.)
You can even add a step to your Zap or create a separate Zap to text you a predetermined time before the deadline. A recommendation? Either add several reminders, or set your reminder a day or two before the deadline. That way, if you’re behind (and we all procrastinate), you still have some buffer time to get your work done.
Get SMS alerts for new approaching Google Calendar events
Never forget about your upcoming events again! Just set up this Zap to automatically receive an SMS alert before an event in your Google Calendar is about to start.
Asana is a fantastic project management tool, however, it's often helpful to see tasks in a calendar view. This integration makes that easy, automatically creating a new event on Google Calendar whenever a new task is created within your chosen Asana project.
Use Todoist to keep track of all you need to accomplish? But rely on Google Calendar to keep your schedule clear and accessible? Using this integration, you can automatically create a Google Calendar event from an incomplete Todoist task.
Track project ownership and progression with Trello.
Group projects often bring with them many heartaches and hurdles. But never fear—there’s an app for that (well, actually several). Two of the most important success factors for group projects are good communication and having enough check-ins and solid deadlines.
I've used Zapier to send me text/Slack notifications for new bug reports on group programming projects. That was always very helpful.
Nat Eliason, entrepreneur, Carnegie Mellon Class of '15
If we had to recommend just a couple of apps for managing your group project, we’d have to include Slack, Asana, and Trello. Slack is a team chat program that allows you to organize discussion channels and use notification bots. Asana is a free project management tool based around shared checklists. Trello is a kanban board project management tool that helps you track your tasks through stages.
With these apps and Zapier, you can build a streamlined workflow for your projects that supports communication, keeps your project on track, and monitors deadlines. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Send Slack channel messages when new Trello cards get moved to lists
The faster your sprints move, the harder it can be to keep up with the progress. We can call out every important update so you and the team never wonder what's going on. This Zap will trigger whenever a new Trello card is moved to a list, signaling the automation to post a new message with any details you need to a Slack channel.
With this integration, you can kick off a workflow by sending a Slack message, just by tagging a task in Asana. For example, when you finish a draft of your blog post, simply can tag the task "edit" and, with this Zap, your editor will automatically get a Slack message that it's ready for feedback.
Google Drive is great for collaborating with others but it's easy to miss when a new file is added to a shared folder. This Zapier integration between Google Drive and Slack solves this, automatically posting a notification in the channel of your choice when a file is added to a specific folder in Drive.
"Heads up! Team meeting starts in 10 minutes." This Zap will be sure you and your team are ready for the next event with a Slack notification, automatically sent ten minutes before any new scheduled event starts on your Google Calendar.
Keep teammates on task at every stage of a project, without overwhelming them with a long to-do list from the start. This Zap will automatically add checklists to existing Trello cards whenever the cards reach a certain list. That way, your team will only see the checklist at the relevant time.
Google Docs is a powerful collaborative tool. Get a 365º view of your classes by comparing notes with your friends and classmates—automatically. Take notes in Evernote or OneNote, then let Zapier use those notes to create Google Docs that are shared with your friends (since everyone has a Google account, right?). Then it’s easy to comment or collaborate within Google Docs, to share ideas, perspectives, and discuss the material.
Need a simple way to move the attachments on your Evernote notes to Google Docs? This Zapier integration can watch your Evernote notebook for new file attachments, then copy them over to Google Drive automatically. You can add your files easily to Evernote, and still be able to quickly open and edit them in Google Docs.
Quickly send mass emails with Google Sheets and Gmail.
Getting involved in one or more student organizations is a good idea for many reasons, including developing crucial soft skills, building your network, and buffing up your resume. But it’s also a lot of work.
Take a good hard look at the work you do every day in your organization. Does all of it really require your unique human skills and oversight? If the answer is "no," take a look at some of the ways you can automate the repetitive and time-consuming parts of your role, so you can focus on the parts that you really care about.
Do you do marketing for your student organization? Zapier can lend a hand, from helping you automate social media, to managing forms and subscribers, to helping you curate your blog or newsletter.
Create Mailchimp subscribers from new Typeform responses
When people fill out forms on your site, you'll want to maintain communications with them in the future. A good email list with a service like Mailchimp makes this simple. And this integration is a breeze for just this sort of situation. Set it up to automatically generate a Mailchimp subscriber from the details of each new Typeform response.
This integration makes it easy to trigger an email via Gmail for updates in a Google Spreadsheet. You can trigger an email based on any update or specific updates to a certain column. Get step-by-step directions in our
Rather than constantly exporting CSV files, use Zapier to automatically add new attendees to a Google Sheets spreadsheet. Once you set up this Eventbrite-Google Sheets integration, new attendees from that point forward are automatically added to your spreadsheet.
It doesn't matter if it's your company blog, personal blog, a popular news site or some special, private RSS feed. With this Zap you will have all new RSS items automatically sent to Buffer!
Are you an administrator in your student organization? Zapier can help you manage club finances, recruitment, and project management with free tools like Paypal, Google Sheets, Trello, Gmail, and many more.
Add rows to Google Sheets spreadsheets for new PayPal sales
When business is booming, slowing down to keep records is the last thing you need. Scale effortlessly with this integration. Once active, this Zap will be triggered by every new sale on PayPal, automatically sending those details to a row in a specified Google Sheets spreadsheet.
Forms are great at capturing user information, but exporting their results takes time. Zapier can help you analyze those entries in a spreadsheet automatically with this integration. Once you set it up, it will catch every new entry you receive on a Typeform, saving the results to a new row on Google Sheets so you don't have to do it yourself.
If you're collecting data via form software like Typeform, often you want to create follow-up items. This Typeform-Trello integration automatically creates new Trello cards when someone completes your Typeform form.
Keeping up with emails can be difficult, but this integration lets you create a new Trello card for follow up later. After you set this integration up, this Zap will automatically create a card in Trello for you when you start a specified email thread in your Gmail account.
With 6 months of free Zapier and access to hundreds of great free apps, there’s a lot you can automate on a limited—or even no—budget. For more ideas, visit our Zap Templates Collection for quick ways to automate social media, project management, file management, human resources, and more.
As with many things in life, the best way to get started is to dive in and start experimenting. Try new app combinations while building your own workflows.Have fun with GIFS. Find new ways to build efficiencies into your schedule. Automate your way around daily hurdles.
And when you finally step into that shiny new career, you can be confident knowing that the robots work for you.
Want more tips to help you succeed in college? Here are some of our favorites:
