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Store data and create digests with Zaps

Compile data in a digest in Zaps

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Digest by Zapier lets you queue up items from triggers into a batch over time before sending them to an Action, like an email or Slack message. This means that instead of having a Zap run for every small event that may happen multiple times in a day, like a new message, you can have it trigger once a day, week, or month.

Example

Each week I want to keep tabs of leads I receive from Facebook Lead Ads by email, but I don’t want to receive an email each time one comes in. In setting up a Digest, I can get one email per week with all my leads for that week. This cuts down on email notifications but ensures that I get all the information that I need.

Tip

You can use digests to collect data from a single trigger in one Zap, or you can have multiple Zaps send data to the same digest.

Limitations with Digest

There is a limit to how much content you can put in your Digest:

  • The title of your Digest can only be 32 characters long.
  • Your entire digest can have a maximum of 25,000 characters.

If you exceed either of these limits you'll see a message that says: Secrets and keys can only be 32 chars in length, value must be smaller than 25000 bytes.

1. Add a digest step

Once you’ve established what Trigger or previous Action app data you wish to use for your digest, you will need to add an additional Action step. In the App & Event Selected section, set the fields to the following:

  • Search and select Digest by Zapier as your Choose App
  • Select Append Entry and Schedule Digest as your Action Event
  • Click Continue

2. Customize your digest step

Now you’ll need to input what text from the previous step you want in your digest. Here is how to fill out each field:

Title - The name of your digest. The title will be used to identify your digest in later steps or other Zaps. Note you have a maximum of 32 characters for this field.

Entry - The text that you wish to append to your digest. To add text from your previous step, click the + and from there, select the data from your previous trigger/action step that you wish to include.

Frequency - From the dropdown, select how often you wish to receive this digest of information. This is the frequency at which the Zap will continue and the digest will be “released”. You have options for:

  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Threshold - This setting will allow your digest to release when it reaches a certain number of entries. If it doesn't reach this count within a month of the first entry, we'll release it then.
  • Manual - This allows you to create a separate Zap to then release your digest, rather than setting a set time. In order to use this feature, you will need to use the Digest Action of "Release Existing Digest" to release it.

Here is an example as to how to fill out your digest if you want your digest to run each week each Friday at 9am

3. Test your digest step

On the Test your Connection step, click Send Test to Digest by Zapier. Here you can see what the output will be.

4. Add your digest to your next action

Now that you’ve added your Digest step, you can then add your digest output into your next step. When your digest releases, this is the Action that will run with the digest data.

Example

With your digest, you wish to send an email, so your next Action step would be a Send Email action using the app Gmail.

To do this, follow these steps:

  • Add an action to your Zap.
  • In your action step, click the + and then scroll to Append Entry and Schedule Digest and click the arrow which will then reveal the output of Current Digest and select this field.

Tip

The styling of your content depends on the action app you will eventually be sending your digest content to. Here are some popular apps formatting tips:

Once you’ve set your output from your Digest, you’re ready to continue setting up the rest of your Zap.

Digest and Task History

In Task History, you’ll see an individual task for each time the zap was triggered, as you would with other triggers. The first task in the Digest will show a status of “Delayed” until the Digest releases (per the Add to Digest frequency settings). It’ll look like this in Task History:

Example of a delayed task

At that time, when the action runs, all tasks will show as successful.

Holding digests on weekends

If you want your digest to release on every week day, make sure to set the Trigger on Weekends option to No. When you do this, you'll receive three days worth of digests on Monday.

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