Zapier

Zapier connects FormGrid to thousands of other apps. A Zap starts with the New Form Response trigger and then does whatever you want with the answers: post to Slack, add a row to a spreadsheet, create a CRM contact, send an email.

You start the connection in FormGrid and finish it in Zapier, which is also where you choose what happens to each answer.

Before you start

Publish your form. Zapier reads your questions from the published version, so an unpublished form gives it nothing to work with.

It also helps to have at least one response already, so the trigger test has something real to show you.

Setting it up

1. Open your form and go to the Connect tab
2. Click Connect next to Zapier. FormGrid shows you a connection key
3. Copy the key, then follow the Add FormGrid to Zapier link
4. Create a Zap and choose FormGrid as the trigger app
5. Pick the New Form Response event
6. Click Connect a new account and paste the key into Connection Key
7. Click Test trigger to pull in a recent response, then map the answers onto whatever the Zap does next

The link in step 3 adds FormGrid to your Zapier account. It only needs doing once, and it is what makes FormGrid available as a trigger app.

There is no form to pick in Zapier. The key belongs to the form you created it on, so the connection is named after that form and the trigger uses it automatically.

Note: The key is shown once, when you create it. If you lose it before pasting it in, disconnect the row in the Connect tab and connect again for a new one.

How it works

Every time someone submits your form:

1. FormGrid sends the response to your Zap
2. The Zap runs, with every answer available to the steps after it
3. The delivery is recorded in the form’s event log

A delivery that fails is retried 5 times over the following day: after 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, and 1 day.

What your Zap receives

Field	What it is
Response ID	The ID FormGrid gave the response
Form title	Your form’s name
Form version	Which published version was filled in
Submitted at	When the response came in
Response URL	A link to the response in FormGrid
Your questions	One per question, under the label you wrote

File uploads arrive as links Zapier can download, so they can be attached to an email or saved to cloud storage.

A question inside a repeat group is answered once per repetition, so the picker labels it (all repetitions) and every answer arrives as one value, separated by commas: Ada, Grace, Alan.

Connecting more than one form

A key works for one form only. To automate a second form, open that form’s Connect tab, connect Zapier there too, and add its key in Zapier as another FormGrid connection.

Each connection is named after its own form, so you can tell them apart when a Zap asks which account to use. It also means a Zap can only ever reach the form you connected it to.

Using more than one Zap

Each connection carries one Zap. To build a second Zap on the same form, connect the form again in the Connect tab for a second key, and add that as its own connection.

The form then has two rows in the Connect tab, one per Zap. If you reuse a connection that is already in use, Zapier tells you so rather than quietly taking the first Zap’s place.

Watching and pausing

Each connected Zap appears in the form’s Connect tab as its own row, showing what it is doing:

• Open in Zapier while responses are being delivered
• Inactive while nothing is, whether the Zap is not set up yet or has been switched off
• Check again re-reads the state, which is useful right after you switch a Zap on

The switch on the row is FormGrid’s side of it: Zapier decides whether the Zap runs, and this decides whether the form sends to it. Both have to be on. Switch the row off to pause a Zap without touching anything in Zapier.

Note: Turning the Zap off in Zapier and on again clears a pause you set here.

When something is not working

Open the row’s menu and choose Event log to see every delivery, including the exact data that was sent and the reason for anything that failed.

• The Zap is on but the row says Inactive. Click Check again. Zapier registers the Zap when you switch it on, and the row catches up from there.
• Test trigger finds nothing. The form needs at least one response before there is anything to pull in.
• Your questions are missing in the mapping. Publish the form, then reload the Zap editor.
• Responses stopped arriving. Check both switches: the Zap in Zapier and the row in FormGrid.

Disconnecting

To stop a Zap for a while, switch the row off in the Connect tab, or turn the Zap off in Zapier. Either way the connection and its key stay valid, so switching it back on resumes delivery with nothing to paste.

Deleting a Zap stops it too, and the row goes back to Inactive on its own.

To cut Zapier off for good, open the row’s menu and choose Disconnect. This revokes the key, and the Zap using it stops working. Connecting again issues a new key, which you would have to paste into Zapier.