Why you should know Zapier as a community manager

Zapier is a web-based utility allowing users to link different web applications together. Simply put, this will enable you to create automated workflows - and save a lot of time that you can use for more important things.

Since the company was founded in 2011 by Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig, and Mike Knoop, it has written an impressive success story. The benefits are exceptionally high, and the idea behind Zapier is conceivably simple: Many of us - including managers of coworking spaces - use various web applications daily, such as email, calendars, project management tools, and more. But because these applications often have their user interfaces and features that don't interact with each other, we spend a lot of time switching back and forth between different applications.

Often, these are simple community management tasks that Zapier or a comparable app can handle automatically. So there are some advantages to getting this support for the organization of a coworking space. We have compiled a few concrete application examples to illustrate the benefits.

Automatically bring user content to the website

Coworking space Hafven uses Zapier to bring user content to its website. "At Hafven, we always had the challenge of explaining what takes place at Hafven," says co-founder Hardy Seiler. "So the Hafven team had to put content on the website manually, and more often than not, chase down members even to get the content. That was super time-consuming."

If your community has a lot of activities going on in parallel and someone has to maintain all the data of the different events, the effort is naturally high. However, Hafven has reduced this significantly by automating these processes thanks to a Zapier integration via coapp. New members, projects, events, or jobs are created and maintained on coapp by community managers and members and transferred to the Hafven website via Zapier.

In this way, the corresponding information on the platform and the website remain synchronously updated in each case, and people interested in Hafven can get a better overview.

Set room temperature and light automatically

Smart home features are not only in vogue for home use but also for coworking spaces that want to become more and more energy efficient. Here, Zapier can help connect different devices and services.

For example, you could create an automated workflow triggered when a sensor registers a change in room temperature. This - perhaps noticeable - temperature fluctuation would be forwarded to a service like Slack or Microsoft Teams to notify you, as the community manager, that an air conditioner may need maintenance.

Tiny Space's coworking space has connected its smart home features from Loxone via Zapier with coapp and created its building automation. When a member books the meeting room, the room is automatically brought to temperature in advance, and even the lights are switched on and off in time.

Send automated messages to new members

In an ideal world, you always have time to devote to each new community member. But that's only sometimes available. With Zapier, for example, onboarding can occur automatically by sending the new user a direct message via coapp. The automated but still personal welcome message could contain basic instructions and information about the community.

Because the whole thing works in the chat function, new users can reply directly to the message and immediately have a contact person for individual concerns or queries.

Of course, you can apply the same can to lead generation or potential new members: For example, when someone fills out a contact form on your website, you could use Zapier to automatically send an email to the prospect or send a notification directly to your team to follow up.

Switch machines on and off automatically

Of course, there are no limits to your imagination, and it can play a role in individual features of your community. For example, Hafven has laser cutters you must book in advance. With some technical know-how, the team created an automation that only feeds the laser cutters with power when there is a booking via coapp. For this, interfaces were created between laser cutter, coapp, and Google Calendar, connected by a product from Shelly.cloud and IFTTT.

"We found that some of our members were using the laser cutter without booking it, or they didn't register the overtime on the machine," explains the person in charge, Miguel. "This caused us to lose money. We wanted to avoid this without much effort, so we came up with the idea of putting a relay from Shelly.cloud somewhere on the line." As the best place for this, he identified the housing before the toggle switch yield so that the functionalities do not bridge. So five minutes before the booking starts, the power is turned on, and ten minutes after the booking ends, the power is turned off.

The experience is good, as Miguel is already thinking about the subsequent uses for the applets. "For the future, we want to continue using the services and apply relays with multiple channels, so we could also, for example, put light signs in our Spaces with the labels Free or Booked, a reminder to water plants, and so on."

Save a lot of time with coapp and Zapier

The free version of Zapier allows up to 100 actions per month, which is even enough for many users, while the paid plans offer additional features and endless activities.

As you may notice, we are excited about the many uses Zapier has to offer. Do you have any questions about using coapp and Zapier? Or you already know which case in your community management it could be helping. Feel free to contact us!