Zapier is a popular online, no-code automation tool that enables businesses to create workflows by linking applications and services that they are already using together. Companies don’t need to build those complex integrations themselves or hire developers to build them; instead, Zapier helps to simplify the business processes and reduce the requirement for any form of manual intervention, creating a smarter workflow and saving companies tons of work hours.
Zapier allows companies to automate their workflow across 5,000+ apps and can handle a lot of automatic tasks within different platforms. That’s why Zapier has become an essential tool for many companies, regardless of their size.
Companies create connections to transfer data from one platform to another by using triggers and actions. Each connection that includes a trigger and an action is called a “Zap.” When companies set up and publish a new Zap, it will run actions every time the trigger event occurs.
SpreadsheetWeb is a platform designed to give businesses the ability to turn their spreadsheets into full-blown web applications, including complete support for the spreadsheet’s calculations and a variety of extensible features, such as customizable user interface design, database integration, and forms generation. These applications conceal the entire calculation algorithm, protecting sensitive proprietary logic from end users.
The combination of SpreadsheetWeb and Zapier offers businesses a cost-effective and flexible solution to automate their business operations. SpreadsheetWeb can convert spreadsheets into web applications, which can then be fully integrated into Zapier, with all their calculations and formulas intact.
In this article, we will show you how you can use SpreadsheetWeb's Zapier integration across two common use cases.
Connecting an Online Calculator to a CRM System
The first use case is to connect a SpreadsheetWeb application to another system via Zapier. A common goal is to have an online calculator that is built using SpreadsheetWeb with the ability to push user-submitted data and calculation output to a CRM system as a new lead.
Below is an online calculator build on SpreadsheetWeb to calculate cost savings for replacing traditional light fixtures with LED.
Many businesses build similar interactive calculators and use them as lead generation tools on their web sites. Converting the user-submitted calculator data into a lead is a central aspect of automating this process.
This calculator can be connected to any CRM system with Zapier support. The Zap will be triggered by the creation of a new record in SpreadsheetWeb. The record is a collection of user inputs and values from select formula cells in the underlying Excel file. The record creation event is typically triggered through a button-click event in the calculator application but could also be generated natively through a separate interaction with our SpreadsheetWeb API.
The Zap is triggered once a record is created and the data from the record is transferred to the configured CRM system as a new lead.
Embedding Pricing Calculations into a CRM System
Creating a sales quote for a customer can be complex: the final quote may depend on various factors including unit price, quantity, product combinations, discounts, and customer location. Many businesses use Excel to build quoting applications, which leaves them decoupled from their CRM systems where they otherwise manage their entire sales process. Typically, sales team members would copy pricing information from the Excel spreadsheet into the CRM system manually.
Using Zapier, those pricing spreadsheets can be connected directly to their CRM systems. Salespeople can produce quotes without even leaving the CRM system.
This is a two-step Zap, where the submission of quote data into the CRM system acts as the trigger. This results in the first action executing, which is to send the relevant data to the pricing spreadsheet hosted on SpreadsheetWeb. The results of this calculation are then sent back to the CRM system in the second action. Since both actions are connected within the same Zap, the system will insert the pricing data calculated by the spreadsheet into the mapped custom fields on the lead.
These are only two scenarios that showcase the potential of connecting SpreadsheetWeb calculations to external systems through Zapier. Most businesses use Excel spreadsheets across their various business processes. Integrating those spreadsheets and their formulas into Zapier automations can empower companies to better automate their processing quickly and cost-effectively.
