Video Hub

When it comes to collaborative project management apps , Trello is usually at the top of the list. And for a good reason. Trello is based on a very simple, yet powerful, productivity system called Kanban. You can think of it as a digital version of Post-it notes on a whiteboard. You create cards for your tasks and move them between lists as the task progresses through your workflow. There are hundreds of ways to use Trello , as it scales from a personal task manager to something that can be used to run a project in a large company. As you use Trello to manage your tasks and projects, you may find yourself wishing the other tools you use to manage your business could automatically make things happen with your cards or lists. For example, you might want to automatically create a card in Trello from certain emails in your Gmail account, or see your Trello notifications in Slack. This is where Zapier can help. Using Zaps— Zapier's automated workflows —you can link Trello with popula

A good to-do app helps you keep on top of your personal and professional obligations—and Todoist is one of the best. It’s totally online, so you can access your tasks from anywhere, and collaborative projects mean that whether you want to share a grocery list or run a business with someone else, you’re both working from the same page. If you want one to do app for your personal, family, and work lives, Todoist is hard to beat. Todoist users have completed more than 1.5 billion tasks across over 150 million projects , including at companies like Amazon, Disney, and Facebook. If you’re one of the many Todoist fans who wants to integrate it even more tightly into your life, here are some ways you can use Zapier to do just that. Link your life to Todoist While Todoist is an awesome way to manage your to-do lists, it’s hardly the only app you ever use. Some of your tasks will end up in your email or calendar app. If you remember to, you can use Todoist’s Quick Entry option to add these t

You’ve just made a sale! Now is the time to celebrate…and then promptly get down to a whole lot of work. Whether it’s signing up for a subscription, purchasing a new item, or cleaning out your whole warehouse, customer purchases are the very beginning of a long to-do list for people within your company. You’ll want to send your customer an acknowledgment email. You’ll need to start a fulfillment process or schedule a service. The sale should be logged with a billing and accounting system. That single transaction sets everything in motion. Zapier can automate that process, ensuring there’s never a missed step and that nobody gets bogged down as the go-between. The following four Zaps—Zapier's automatic workflows—run the communication process for you so all team members who need to know about a purchase receive word and can get down to business. We’ve used PayPal, Stripe, Slack, and Trello in our examples, but feel free to mix and match from the more than 1,500 apps on Zapier to s

The way companies communicate with their customers—whether it be for support, marketing, or sales—is changing rapidly. One of the most modern forms of frontline communication comes from the ever-growing and increasingly popular chatbot. In fact, some estimates suggest 80 percent of companies will be using a chatbot by 2020 . The growth in chatbot use shouldn’t come as a surprise. Chatbots save on company overhead and provide a quick and effective solution for customers through a comprehensive web of responses based on commonly-asked questions. For companies looking to add a chatbot to their team, choosing which chatbot builder to use is crucial. A bot is a software program. To chat is to talk, usually in a friendly manner. Combine those two things, and you get a chatbot—a program designed to communicate and interact with users. What you may consider the best chatbot builder largely depends on what your business requires. No matter what kind of business you run— a startup, SMB, or la

2020 is almost here and knowledge workers are thinking about their New Years resolutions. We were interested in learning more about what they want to change about their careers, and the factors driving those changes—from stress to work-life imbalance. So Zapier commissioned a survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll among over 880 U.S. knowledge workers (those who primarily work in a professional setting and use a computer as part of their job) to find out how people really feel about how they spend their weekdays, and what they resolve to do in the new year for their careers. The answers might surprise you. About Zapier: Zapier helps more than 4 million customers grow their businesses with the power of automation by connecting over 1,500 apps. Founded in 2011, Zapier has always operated as an entirely remote company, and today has nearly 300 employees working in 27 countries around the world. Nearly three-quarters of employed Americans (74 percent), and almost 9 in 10 employed c

A quick Google search yields 306,000,000 results for "setting work goals." I haven't read all of those results (yet), but the ones I have read are chock full of tips for how to set better goals—but they won't tell you anything about what to do if, like me, you've failed to meet the goals you set three months ago. At Zapier, all new hires set 30-, 60-, and 90-day goals. These goals are generally related to your specific job and don't include onboarding tasks, which are managed separately. I'll be honest: my goals didn't help me as much as I thought they would. I actually wound up missing a couple significant ones. After a bit of reflection, here are a few reasons why I failed—and some things I would have done differently. Set goals early, set goals often If you want to achieve your goals, you need to give yourself enough time. If you set goals at regular intervals (such as every quarter), don't wait until two weeks into the period to finalize t

It goes like this: I install a journaling app, intending to use it. I learn how the interface works, maybe even write entries for a couple days. Then I forget the app exists entirely. Two months later I notice I installed the app, briefly feel guilty for never actually writing any entries, and then delete it. Rinse, wash, repeat. Until now. I've found a solution that works for me: I built my own journaling system which lives in the application where I do all my writing and note-taking. Here's how you can do the same thing. Don't want to build your own app? Here are the best journaling apps , which I will personally never use. What I wanted in a journal Journaling is, by nature, a very private thing, which is part of why it's so hard for me to find a system that works. I had a few requirements. My journal needed to: Create new entries automatically . You know how video games have quest logs, which basically amount to a list of things that need doing? I love those.

A quick Google search yields 306,000,000 results for "setting work goals." I haven't read all of those results (yet), but the ones I have read are chock full of tips for how to set better goals—but they won't tell you anything about what to do if, like me, you've failed to meet the goals you set three months ago. At Zapier, all new hires set 30-, 60-, and 90-day goals. These goals are generally related to your specific job and don't include onboarding tasks, which are managed separately. I'll be honest: my goals didn't help me as much as I thought they would. I actually wound up missing a couple significant ones. After a bit of reflection, here are a few reasons why I failed—and some things I would have done differently. Set goals early, set goals often If you want to achieve your goals, you need to give yourself enough time. If you set goals at regular intervals (such as every quarter), don't wait until two weeks into the period to finalize t

Wunderlist, the beloved to do list app, shuts down on May 6, 2020. Microsoft bought Wunderlist in 2015. They would very much like you to migrate your tasks to Microsoft To Do, a spiritual successor to Wunderlist that integrates with Outlook and other Microsoft tools. That's not your only option, however: most of the best to do list apps offer some kind of option for migrating Wunderlist tasks, and there are ways to migrate to other apps. Feeling confused? Let's go over what, exactly, is happening, and explore all of your options. What happens now? In the short term, nothing changes: Wunderlist will continue to work. New users can't sign up for the service, but existing users can still sign in to the web, desktop, and mobile versions. What happens when users try to use Wunderlist after May 6, 2020? Here's the official info, from the Wunderlist blog post announcing the shutdown: You can keep using Wunderlist while we keep supporting it. You’ll still be able to ac

Wunderlist, the beloved to do list app, shuts down on May 6, 2020. Microsoft bought Wunderlist in 2015. They would very much like you to migrate your tasks to Microsoft To Do, a spiritual successor to Wunderlist that integrates with Outlook and other Microsoft tools. That's not your only option, however: most of the best to do list apps offer some kind of option for migrating Wunderlist tasks, and there are ways to migrate to other apps. Feeling confused? Let's go over what, exactly, is happening, and explore all of your options. What happens now? In the short term, nothing changes: Wunderlist will continue to work. New users can't sign up for the service, but existing users can still sign in to the web, desktop, and mobile versions. What happens when users try to use Wunderlist after May 6, 2020? Here's the official info, from the Wunderlist blog post announcing the shutdown: You can keep using Wunderlist while we keep supporting it. You’ll still be able to ac

Four of my co-workers get work done sitting in bed. Three work regularly at their local Whole Foods. Another loves working in airport terminals. This might sound odd, but think about it: where are you most productive? There's a good chance it isn't the office. We recently compiled the Remote Work Report by Zapier , a survey of American knowledge workers. Our data shows 32 percent of American knowledge workers feel most productive in an office. The rest feel most productive working other places: 42 percent get the most done at home, 11 percent find productivity at a co-working space, and 9 percent are most efficient while working outside. Most people don't get to pick where they work: they are assigned a desk at the office and that's the end of it. That changes if you get a remote job—you can work wherever you want. Zapier is a remote-only company, and everyone comes to a realization a few months in—you can get work done anywhere. Here's my co-worker Morgan: Emp

Four of my co-workers get work done sitting in bed. Three work regularly at their local Whole Foods. Another loves working in airport terminals. This might sound odd, but think about it: where are you most productive? There's a good chance it isn't the office. We recently compiled the Remote Work Report by Zapier , a survey of American knowledge workers. Our data shows 32 percent of American knowledge workers feel most productive in an office. The rest feel most productive working other places: 42 percent get the most done at home, 11 percent find productivity at a co-working space, and 9 percent are most efficient while working outside. Most people don't get to pick where they work: they are assigned a desk at the office and that's the end of it. That changes if you get a remote job—you can work wherever you want. Zapier is a remote-only company, and everyone comes to a realization a few months in—you can get work done anywhere. Here's my co-worker Morgan: Emp