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What automations save you the most time?

Hey everyone, I'm trying to get more efficient in my workflows and have built a few automations on Integromat & IFTTT to make my life easier.

Would love if you can share any automations that save you a lot of time!

  1. 5

    I’m currently in the process of fully automating https://inboxstash.com/

    1. 1

      That's cool. What tools are you using? Show off your automation superpowers!

      1. 2

        So Typeform has a cool function to push submissions into google sheets. I then user Integromat to take a new row and tweet it out.

        So now I’ve automated part of the marketing by tweeting new submissions.

        What I need to now do is from the google sheet create another automation to push a new row into WordPress.

        Once I get that InboxStash will be fully automated pretty much

        1. 1

          That sounds awesome Yaro! Good to save those precious minutes, they all add up.

  2. 3

    I'm gonna start with a bad example, and then two good ones:

    ### Unito 👎👎👎

    At my last job, the dev team wanted to use Github and the other teams wanted to only use Asana for project management. We used Unito to sync tasks/issues between Github and Asana. It did work, but there were a few very annoying issues:

    • There was a significant delay in syncing. Sometimes we had to wait 5-10 minutes for a change on one platform to be synced to the other. And guess what: if during that time someone else made a change (any change) to the same task on the other platform, one change was gonna overwrite the other. This caused so many headaches so many times.
    • Sometimes the sync just didn't work properly. For example, one piece of info (like the assignee) wasn't synced. Completely random.

    ### Zapier 👍👍👍

    I used to have a pretty long consultation request form on a WP site. For every consultation request, I wanted to add most of the info to my CRM (HubSpot), add some info to a Google Sheet, create a Google Drive directory for that person, upload their files in there, and send an email notification to myself. I did all of that using Zapier. Zapier gets the job done quite well. And since I didn't have a ton of submissions, it didn't cost me much either. The entire automation took me a few hours to setup (including the WP part and figuring out how to integrate the form plugin with Zapier).

    ### Browse AI 👍👍👍

    (I'm the maker of this one! 😬)

    • I've been using Browse AI to monitor other apps in the automation space and competitors for a few months now. Every time they make any changes to their site (to one of the important pages I care about) I get a notification and I can see the change diff. It's quite interesting to see what experiments they run and which ones fail (for example, they get reverted back after a month or two).
    • I'm also monitoring Google (weekly) and ProductHunt (daily) search results for a lot of keywords in my space.
    • I monitor products that I'm interested in but are out of stock or too pricey on Amazon and BestBuy, so I know when they're back in stock or when they reduce their price.

    We're adding some new features to Browse AI to be able to do a lot more. I look forward to being able to scrape sites like LinkedIn and integrate them with Zapier so I can do things like: whenever someone fills out a form on my site or follows me on Twitter, find their LinkedIn profile and take a screenshot and post it on our Slack. The possibilities are truly endless when you can automate anything on the web and not just APIs.

    1. 1

      Thanks Ardalan for that detailed look into your automation processes. It's super cool how you use BrowseAI to monitor products, apps and all!

  3. 3

    On the airfield we occasionally lose a weak link, used to tow gliders into the air. When those break (because too much force is applied & to save the airframe), we need to recover those to prevent FUD (foreign object damage) from ruining another aircraft.

    The thing I built is something which recognizes winch launches, and present an estimation of where the weak link may have fallen, based on weather properties, aircraft speed and more.

    All in all it has happened that we've been searching with 20+ people for over an hour without success. This tool makes it possible for a single person to recover a weak link in 10 minutes tops.

    1. 1

      I love the super niching of this automation! It's amazing. You should definitely be adding your last paragraph about the hours saved to your landing page.

      I'm sure that will attract more customers to your product. It shows them the benefit, instead of just the features of your product.

      1. 1

        Thanks for the suggestion! That's a great idea, and I'm definitely going to add more like that to the homepage :)

  4. 2

    I am using Automatio.co in combination with Zapier and Google Sheets, to build no-code and no-api automation. It mean, that Zapier, Integromat, IFTTT and other tools works only with platforms/apps which have API.

    On another hand, Automatio let me create API out of any web site/app (theoretically), and then connecting it with Google Sheet, Zapier or any other automation platform it gives me ability to do something which you would not be able to do it before. It's blown mind 🤯.

    Btw, Automatio is tool I am building for last 3 years. It might look like self promotion, but you asked and I answered. Because I use it every day, and that is the first reason I started building it.

  5. 2

    One thing concerning automation that I am particularly happy about is how I managed to automate the full setup of my infrastructure based on Kubernetes and mostly using Pulumi. It took a while to learn all this stuff and more related things, but now I can literally rebuild everything from scratch or even migrate to another cloud provider in around half an hour or so. Doing all the required steps manually would take a considerably longer time.

  6. 2

    We are working on a Package for Laravel (PHP) to put automations on top of your existing app.
    I hope this will save a lot of people some time :)
    https://github.com/42coders/workflows

    1. 1

      That's nice Max! I know very little about code. Can people who are not well-versed in code use this as well?

      1. 2

        Its meant to be a bridge from the Code to the No-Code People. I think some programming basics are helpful but we will keep working on making it easier.
        In a lot of companies, the Developers are very busy. This tool can push some of their tasks to other people in the Team.
        But the foundation of it is always a real Laravel Code Project.

  7. 2

    I am using macrodroid app to automate some mobile tasks

    1. 1

      What kinds of tasks are those? Please share!

  8. 2

    Does automating my entire funnel for Zlappo count?

    1. Traffic
    Built-in virality + word-of-mouth

    2. Trial sign ups
    Automated drip sequence to nurture trial sign ups, instructional videos, guided product wizard, gamification, in-app upgrade reminders, etc.

    3. Upgrading
    Stripe webhooks ensure everything works smoothly once a user transitions from trial to paid.

    4. Maintenance
    Digital Ocean monitoring/notifications for system abnormalities + cronjob backups

    5. Support
    Admittedly this is still in the works, but it'll be a knowledge base of sorts once it's up and running.

    My goal in making my entire product self-serve isn't out of laziness, but out of a desire for focus and mental bandwidth to work on long-term marketing and product strategies. As a solo founder, I have to be very very choosy on what I spend my time on and only focus on the thing that moves the needle the most at this very moment.

    1. 2

      This was really detailed and insightful! Thanks for sharing. It's smart to spend your time on things that move the needle.

      What system are you using for your automated drip sequence?

      1. 2

        I wrote my own custom cronjob to send out specific emails to specific trial users, depending how many days they have left on their trial.

        These emails explain how they can best get value out of my product. I update these emails from time to time to keep things fresh and also incorporate new features.

  9. 1

    I've been collecting and curating examples from around the web and asking friends for their automation stories. https://automationcookbook.io/

    The latest post is about purposely adding friction to your automated signups to find clients that are good fits.

    If this sort of stuff is your cup of tea, subscribe! It'll encourage me to post more.

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