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Basics of creating a Zap

Set up your Zap trigger

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A trigger is the event that starts a Zap. Once you’ve set up a Zap, Zapier will monitor for that trigger event.

Example

You want to send a Slack direct message to yourself every time you receive a new email in Gmail. In this workflow, the trigger would be the new email in Gmail.

There are two types of triggers:

  1. Polling Trigger: the majority of triggers are polling triggers. When using a polling trigger, Zapier will check for new data from your trigger every 5 or 15 minutes in order to start your workflow, depending on your subscription plan.
  2. Instant Trigger: when using an instant trigger, your trigger app will send Zapier an instant notification whenever there's new data. Zaps with instant triggers are labeled Instant on your dashboard.

Zapier relies on a few methods to make sure that your Zap does not trigger multiple times for a single "new" item. Learn more about how triggers are deduplicated in Zaps.

1. Choose your app and event

  • Under Choose App, select the app that you want Zapier to watch for new data. If you don't see it in the list, you can search.
  • Under Choose Trigger Event, select the specific event that you want to cause your Zap to run.
  • Select Continue

In this example we are using Trello as our trigger app and we want our Zap to run every time there is a new card.

2. Connect your account

  • If you already have an account connected to Zapier for the trigger app, select it from the account menu
  • If not, select Add new account and follow the instructions to connect your app to Zapier
  • If the connection is working, select Continue

3. Customize your options

This step may not always be applicable, depending on the trigger app and trigger event combination that you’ve selected. If that's the case, move on to the next step.

Here, you can customize your trigger to fit your needs. Make sure to select any fields which are required in order to complete the step. Once completed, click Continue.

In this example, we want to trigger the Zap whenever a Trello card has been added to any board, on any list.

4. Test your trigger

  • Test your connection by selecting the Find [item] button. The label of this button will change depending on your trigger.
  • If Zapier found an example item, you will be advanced to setting up the rest of your Zap

In some cases, you may need to go add new data while Zapier is checking in order for it to show up. If Zapier is having trouble finding data for your trigger, that is often the problem.

By clicking "Find Card", Zapier will check our Trello board for a new card.

If you want to test your Zap with different data, open your Trigger step and select a different sample item. If you want Zapier to get more samples, select Get more samples.

These are the cards that Zapier found when we tested. If we want to test our Zap with a different card, we can select it here.

Once you’ve set your Trigger up you’re ready to continue setting up the rest of your Zap, whether that’s setting up your action, or adding a search step.

Tip

If you'd like to control when your Zap runs, consider using a scheduled trigger.

Heads Up

Polling is distributed across Zapier's servers in a queue, and polling times are not always exact. This means if you try to time multiple Zaps to happen in a specific order closely together, it may not happen as you expected. You might also not be able to time your Zaps to happen at an exact minute.

Since instant triggers are not on a cycle, their timing should be fairly predictable. However, if you are sending a large number of webhooks within a few seconds of each other for example, Zapier will distribute the load across multiple servers. If you expect webhooks that closely follow each other will be processed exactly in the order in which they are sent, between network and processing factors this might not always be reliable.

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