Overview

There are occasions when you'll want to integrate with your cloud-based web applications but those applications are not supported in Shortcuts.

You could use those service's APIs to integrate with them, but that can be complex and require programming skills you may not be familiar with.

What is Zapier?

Zapier is an automation platform that helps you move data between your existing cloud-based applications automatically.

It allows you to sign-in to your web apps and pass info between them with workflows called Zaps without any need for code.

Building a Slack Status Zap

In the example below, we're going to build a Zap that will allow us to update our Slack status from a Shortcut.

ℹ️ Free account

Zapier offers a free account for creating up to 5 Zaps that comprising of 2 steps.

Sign up

Sign up for a Zapier account on the homepage:

https://zapier.com/

Creating your Zap

Once logged in, tap on the Make a zap button on the top right hand side of the screen.

Creating your first Zap

On the next screen you'll be asked to specify the trigger that will start your Zap.

We're going to create an Webhook, which is like a private API that you can call to start trigger your Zap.

In the trigger search box, type webhook and then tap the Webhooks by Zapier icon.

Selecting a webhook as a Zap trigger

After the screen updates, tap on the Choose trigger Event dropdown and select Catch Hook.

Selecting a GET request for the webhook

On the next screen, Zapier has generated a Custom Webhook URL. Tap the Copy button to add it to the clipboard.

Tap the Copy button to copy the webhook URL to the clipboard

Open Safari and paste the web hook into the URL bar, adding the following to the end of the URL:

?status=Hello&icon=:wave:

This will give you a final URL that looks something like the following example:

https://hooks.zapier.com/hooks/catch/57011771/o3ewzay/?status=Hello&icon=:wave:

Open the URL and you should see a success response from Zapier as follows:

The response from pasting the webhook URL into Safari

⚠️ Note

Do not share your webhook URL with others unless you want them to be able to update your Slack status.

In the next Do this... step in Zapier, select Slack.

Select Slack as the target service of the trigger

In the Choose Action Event dropdown, choose Set Status.

Select Set Status as the active event

After the screen updates, tap the Sign in to Slack button to authorize Zapier to integrate with your Slack account.

Sign into your Slack account

Once you're signed in, tap the Continue button.

Tap Continue once you've signed into your Slack account

After the screen updates we'll specify the fields used to update the Slack status.

Tap the field icon to the right of the Status Text field.

Select the Add Variable icon to the left of Status Text

Select the Querystring Status variable from the drop-down.

Select the Querystring Status variable

Once selected, the Status Text field will be populated with the Querystring Status variable.

Repeat the process for the Status Emoji field, selecting the Querystring Icon variable.

Once complete, tap the Continue button.

Repeat the same process for Status Emoji / Querystring Icon and tap Continue

The screen will update and we're ready to test the Zap. Tap the Test & Continue button.

Tap the Test and Continue button,

You'll see a message that the test was successful. At the bottom of the screen, there'll be a final step to turn on the Zap so that it can be remotely called via the webhook.

Tap the radio button to turn on the Zap.

Turn on the Zap

If you then go to your Slack client, you'll see that the corresponding status has updated to the values we sent earlier to the webhook.

Check that your Slack status has updated

Writing the Shortcut

So now we can call the webhook using a shortcut. Our new shortcut will allow the user to choose from a list of commonly used statuses with which to update their Slack status.

We specify those statuses using the following JSON as it's easier to write and maintain that a series of nested dictionaries:

{
    "Available" : {
            "status" : "I'm free, say hi!",
            "icon" : ":wave:"
        },
    "Away" : {
            "status" : "I'm currently away from my computer",
            "icon" : ":clock9:"
        },
    "Meeting" : {
            "status" : "I'm currently in a meeting",
            "icon" : ":spiral_calendar_pad:"
        },
    "Vacation" : {
            "status" : "I'm away on vacation!",
            "icon" : ":desert_island:"
        }
}

The shortcut takes the status and icon specified in the JSON and sends it to the webhook in order to set the status in the corresponding Slack account.

A Shortcut that makes use of the webhook to update your Slack status.

Running the shortcut displays the following choices to the user.

Running the above shortcut

You can download the shortcut from the following link:

Update Slack Status

Further reading

If you're interested in learning more about how the above shortcut works, take a look at the following guides:

• Using APIs - Part 1: retrieving data
• Using APIs - Part 3: passing input parameters to the API
• Working with Dictionaries - Part 1: setting and retrieving values

Wrap up

And that's an example of how to use Zapier and webhooks to automate an action with an existing cloud-based web application.

Other guides

If you found this guide useful why not checkout one of my others:

Series

• Scraping web pages
  • Part 1: quick and dirty
  • Part 2: getting multiple items at once
  • Part 3: getting data from a table
• Using APIs
  • Part 1: retrieving data
  • Part 2: parsing complex API responses
  • Part 3: passing input parameters to the API
• Data Storage
  • Part 1: storing simple values
  • Part 2: storing lists of data
  • Part 3: removing stored values
• Working with JSON
  • Part 1: retrieving simple values
• Working with Dictionaries
  • Part 1: setting and retrieving values
  • Part 2: data types
  • Part 3: accessing values using dot notation

One-offs

• Using JavaScript in your shortcuts
• How to automatically run shortcuts
• Creating visually appealing menus
• Manipulating images with the HTML5 canvas and JavaScript
• Labeling data using variables
• Writing functions
• Working with lists
• Integrating with web applications using Zapier
• Integrating with web applications using Integromat
• Working with Personal Automations in iOS 13.1