If you're using Make (formerly Integromat) for your no-code automation needs, you may find yourself needing to work frequently with dates and times. Sometimes, you’ll need to transform a lengthy timestamp into a brief, readable format, or add a few days to a given date. In other cases, you may need to parse a timestamp from a string so your apps can work with the date. 

In this blog post, we'll walk you through the process of parsing, formatting, and adding dates using a few simple inline functions.

You can also follow along with the video embedded below. 

Formatting Dates in Make

Formatting dates will allow you to automatically rewrite any date into a format of your choice. This can help you to output dates that are easier for people to read, or just to make sure that every date in your automation is formatted the same way every time. 

To format dates in Make, start by selecting any text field in any module within your scenario. In our example pictured below, we’re using a Slack module that sends a direct message. 

Click on the calendar icon to access Date and Time functions, then click on the “formatDate” function to add it to your text field.

Insert the date you wish to format before the semicolon. You can enter a date directly, or use data retrieved by your scenario. 

Then, enter the format you wish to use after the semicolon. For instance, a format of “MM-DD-YY” would return something like “01/28/23”, while “YYYY/MM/DD” would return “2023/01/28”. 

Once you’ve entered the format you’d like to use, run your scenario to view and verify the output.

Adding Time to a Date in Make

Want to send a followup email two hours after someone reaches out, or set a timeline for a one-month project? Adding time with functions like addHours and addDays may be just what you need. 

To add time to a date in Make, select any text field in any module within your scenario. Click on the calendar icon to access Date and Time functions, then click on “addDays” to add a specified number of days, “addHours” to add hours, etc.

Enter your initial date before the semicolon. Enter the number of days you want to add after the semicolon. 

Run the module to view and verify the output. By default, “AddDays” and similar functions return a timestamp, but you can format this date in Make using “formatDate”.

Enter the entire “AddDays” function and its inputs as the initial date. Then, enter the date format you wish to convert it to. 

Run the module again to verify the output.

Parsing Dates in Make

Finally, let’s take a quick look at parsing dates from strings in Make. 

In many cases, the apps in your Make scenarios won’t be able to process a date that’s written as a string. Instead of “01/28/23”, you’ll need to provide a full timestamp. 

To parse dates from strings in Make, select any text field in any module within your scenario. Click on the calendar icon to access Date and Time functions, then click on the “parseDate” function to add it to your text field.

Before the semicolon, insert the string that you want to parse a date from. After the semicolon, enter the format that the date is in (e.g., MM/DD/YY, or YYYY-MM-DD). 

Run the scenario to verify the output.

Easily work with dates and times in Make

With these inline functions, you'll be able to work with dates and times in Make with ease. Whether you're formatting dates, adding time, or parsing dates, these functions will help you automate your workflows and get more done in less time.

If you’d like to learn more about no-code automation with platforms like Make, Zapier, Notion, and Airtable, be sure to check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Are you still creating all of your docs in Google drive, word, or text edit? Still managing your to-dos in a clunky app like Monday? Whether you’re managing documents for your entire company, or just keeping track of personal tasks and information, there's a better way. 

In this guide, we’ll show you the basics of Notion, one of the best apps for docs and notes available right now.

We’ll highlight the key features of Notion, and walk you through creating pages, databases, and more so you can start building your own Notion docs. 

What is Notion?

First, let’s cover the basics. What is Notion?

According to their own website, Notion is a tool that lets you put your wiki, docs, and projects together. 

In essence, Notion is a highly versatile platform that lets you create and customize nearly any type of document that you can think of. You can then share and edit all of those docs with your team, making it a great tool for collaboration. 

At its core, Notion is all about creating text documents and databases. But its greatest strength lies in its customization abilities. 

With Notion’s wide variety of content blocks, and the ability to nest documents within other documents, you can create nearly any type of layout that you want for your workspace. You can nest databases in pages, nest pages in those databases, create multi-column layouts, hide and show information with dropdown toggles, filter and sort the data in your databases to create custom views, and more. 

However you need to organize information, Notion can do it. It can handle project and task management, product documentation, content calendars or personal tasks like vacation planning or keeping a journal. 

To start building your own personalized workspace, all you need to do is learn how to use content blocks. 

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Notion’s Pricing Plans

But first, of course, you’ll need to sign up for Notion. 

The good news is most of Notion’s core features are totally free for individual users. Additionally, if you have an email address with a “.edu” domain, you may be able to qualify for a free pro account. 

If you want to use Notion to support your whole organization, team plans start at $8 per user per month. 

AI features are also available for an additional $10 per month. 

You can see more details on their pricing page, which you can find along with other key resources in the Workflow Board we’ve compiled for this guide. 

But a free account is all you need to follow along with our tutorial for creating pages and databases. Just go to Notion.so and make your account to get started.

Creating a Page and Adding Content Blocks

Once you’ve created an account and signed in, you’ll see a simple interface. On the left, you’ll see all of the pages you have access to. If you’ve just created your account, you’ll only see a set of example pages created by Notion. You’ll also see your Teamspaces on top of this panel, if you’re part of a team plan. 

Everything in Notion is built around pages, and any data you create has to be stored within a page. So to start exploring Notion, just click on “Add a page” to create a new page.

You can type directly in the page to start creating your content. To bring up a menu where you can access different styles or special blocks, type /. Here, you’ll see a long list of text types and blocks.

To quickly find what you’re looking for, just enter a search term right after the forward slash. We’ll search for “H1” to find a large heading that we can use as a title for this page. 

After we’ve added our title, we’ll hit “enter” to start a new block. By default, every new block will just be a plain paragraph. If you want to change the type or style of any block, just hover over it, click the dots on the left, and select an option under “turn into…”

There are a ton of options for content blocks, so we won’t cover them all right now, but there are a couple we want to quickly highlight. 

Bullets are convenient for jotting down some quick notes or making a list of instructions. 

Toggle dropdowns are a great way to hide or show lengthy lists with a single click. If you need to add a FAQ to your workspace, toggle dropdowns are the best way to go. 

Markdown Shortcuts for Content Blocks

Want to make blocks even faster? There are also a lot of markdown based shortcuts that you can use to bypass the block menu and instantly add the block you’d like with one or two keystrokes.

For example, you can use an asterisk * to start a bulleted list, or use two brackets [] to start a to-do list with checkboxes.

To quickly add a toggle, you can just use the “greater than” > symbol.  

For a larger list of shortcuts, check out the Workflow Board for this guide. 

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Multi-column Layouts and Images in Notion

Notion also makes it easy to create a multi-column layout. Just search for “column” to see your options. Notion will automatically divide the block into a few columns. 

Within each column, you still have access to all of Notion’s other block types. You can create headings, bulleted lists, toggles, and more here. To resize them, just click and drag on the edge. 

Next, you can add images to your page to give it a little visual appeal. Just search “image”, and select the appropriate block. Then, upload any image you’d like to use. Alternatively, you can just a drag and drop an image from your desktop into your Notion page. 

Notion AI

To finish out our quick overview of Notion content blocks, let’s touch briefly on Notion AI. 

Notion has recently added an AI assistant which you can use to generate or edit text with simple prompts. 

Just type “/AI” to get started, or hit the spacebar. We’ve created a separate guide for Notion AI which you can check out here if you’d like to see more of what Notion AI can do. 

Again, there are many more options for blocks, but they can all be accessed the same way by typing “/”, so we’d encourage you to explore those for yourself. 

For now, let’s take a look at nesting pages within pages. 

How to Nest Pages Within Pages in Notion

All of the blocks we’ve covered so far probably seem like nice features for a word processor, but they might not seem like anything too impressive just yet.

Here’s where things start to get a little more interesting: we can easily nest pages within other pages. 

Just type “/page” to create a new page. This creates a page within our original page, and opens it up so we can add content there. 

This sub-page has all the same features as our original page, so we can add any content blocks that we’d like here. We’ll also make sure to give it a title. Then, to get back to the parent page, we can just follow the breadcrumb menu in the top left. 

Now, we can see that the parent page includes a link to the subpage we created.

Nested pages are a great way to organize your lengthy text documents and company wikis. For instance, you might be creating an employee handbook, or some technical product documentation. With nested pages, you can separate your content into pages for each employee role, or pages for each use case for your app. 

This will make your documents much easier to navigate than a 50-page long Google doc, but much more contextually organized than a huge list of docs in a folder. 

If you need to find any of your pages, just hit Command + K on Mac or Ctrl + K on windows to search through all of your pages, their titles, attributes, and blocks. 

Creating and Linking Databases in Notion

Notion’s not limited to only creating text docs. One especially useful block type that it offers is the database.

You can create a database by typing “/database”.

This will add a fully functional database for storing and sorting data to your page.

This database is more than just a grid to arrange your text. Databases in Notion include several different field types, like date, single select and multi-select, checkboxes, and more. 

Linking Notion Databases with “Relations”

You can even use the “Relation” field type to create links between two different databases. A relation associates a record in one database with a record in another database

For example, you might want to link each project manager in your team’s directory with a client in your Clients database.

To create the relation, start by adding a new property and selecting the “relation” type.

Then, pick the other database that you want to create a relation to. 

Choose whether or not you want to show the relation in both tables, then add the relation. 

Now, you’ll be able to fill in the “relation” field with a link to a record in the related database. 

Then, you can also add rollup fields to display fields from the related record. For instance, you could include the client’s main point of contact, the project due date, project type, etc.

Whenever you update the data in the “Clients” database, any related records and their rollups will be updated automatically as well.

With relations, you can display the same data in multiple spots without messy copy and pasting, or needing to update separate databases every time you need to make a change. 

Using Filters in Notion Databases 

With filters, you can also display and hide data based on customized conditions. Then you can save that filter to a unique View, so you can quickly find data you need.

For instance, we’ll add a filter to this database of tasks so that we’ll only see tasks that aren’t marked as “Complete” or “Archived”.

In addition to filters, different views can also include completely different ways to arrange your data. 

For instance, you might want to use a kanban view to sort your tasks by status or triage them by priority.

Or you could use a calendar view to keep track of your planned blogs and social media posts. 

Just click on the “+” to add a new view, and choose the type you’d like to use. 

Creating Pages Inside of Databases

The last database feature we’ll cover in this guide is the ability to create pages within your databases. 

Each record in a database can be opened as a page. 

Then, you can add all of the same text, content, and blocks that you have access to in any page. 

This can be a great way to add notes to any database record, or to organize a long list of similar documents. 

For instance, if you’re creating a new “meeting notes” doc every day, it may make more sense to structure them as a part of a database rather than creating a new “Page” in Notion for each entry. 

Use Caution with Notion Databases and Nesting Pages

However, there are a couple areas where you should be cautious with Notion databases. 

If you try to share a page with a client or someone who is not part of your workspace, any relational fields that you’ve added will show up as blank.

That’s because your client, who will likely be added as a “view-only” user, won’t have access to the other database referenced by the relation. 

Additionally, if you nest pages inside of pages inside of a database, there's really no good way of knowing how deep those nested pages go within that database. You can’t filter for nested pages, or use any other method to know how many levels deep it goes, except for clicking on each subpage manually. 

Be careful about nesting too many pages within pages within pages. It might make things difficult for your coworkers. 

These really aren’t deal breakers with Notion; just a couple of words of caution for prospective power users!

Create Your Ideal Layout with Custom Blocks or Templates

Ultimately, with all of the options at your fingertips for customized pages and databases, Notion gives you the ability to create nearly any workspace you can imagine. 

With Notion, you can make your project management system, a content calendar,  a journal, or whatever else you’d like.

But if you’re not sure where to get started, you can always try templates. Templates let you copy a premade Notion layout with a single click. You can check out our blog about Notion templates for some recommendations, or browse the Notion template gallery to get started.

Where does Notion fit into a Software Stack?

So where does Notion fit in your software stack? Notion’s a very versatile app, so you can configure it to fit a lot of different use cases. 

But it primarily excels at building workspaces to manage your projects and tasks, and at creating any text documents that you or your company need to reference on a regular basis. As such, Notion can fully replace apps like Clickup, or Monday.

It also replaces many common use cases for apps like Google Docs and Microsoft Word, but there are still areas where those programs will be more appropriate for the context. Drafting copy, particularly for any long-form content, is often going to be easier in Google Docs. 

Additionally, formal documents that require fine-tuned formatting like contracts, proposals, or essays may be better suited to apps like Word. \

Basically, if you need pagination and footnotes, you’ll need to use a different app. And in those situations, you really won’t need Notion’s visual styling options. 

Sharing material with people outside of your organization is also far simpler in apps like Google Docs.  You just share the necessary doc or folder, and you don’t need to worry about issues with referenced tables or nested pages preventing your collaborator from seeing your content. 

However, if you need to quickly make a visually engaging doc, or a resource that your organization needs to access a lot, Notion will often be the preferable choice. Its search function also works much better than Google docs, as it lets you search the content of every block instead of just reading titles. 

Alternatives to Notion

If you’re looking for an alternative to Notion, you may want to look at Coda, Airtable, or Roam Research. Coda is very similar to Notion on the surface, but its structure is based more on databases than pages. Airtable also employs a database-focused approach, while Roam is generally similar to Notion as a document-focused app. 

Set Up a Custom Workspace for Your Team or For Yourself

Notion is a great tool for organizing docs and data for your company, or for yourself. Once you get familiar with creating pages and databases, there’s no limit to what you can build. And if you want to get started faster, just copy a template for inspiration. 

If you’d like to learn more about Notion and other no-code tools, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

In the last several months, AI has jumped to the forefront of mainstream software. With tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, we’ve all seen how AI can help us with our everyday writing, brainstorming, and planning. 

So it’s no surprise that many other tech companies are racing to add AI into their feature sets. Search engines, automation providers, and database apps are just some of the apps that are starting to incorporate new AI components. 

In this post, we’ll show you five of the most interesting apps that are adding AI functions into their software. 

Edit and Generate Text with Notion AI

First, let’s take a look at Notion. Notion is an app for building a highly customizable workspace for docs, projects, and more. You can create anything from a simple text document to a robust database for tracking your team’s tasks.

Recently, Notion has added several “Notion AI” options right alongside their main content blocks. The app provides about 20 options for AI prompts that help you create content faster, improve your writing, translate text, brainstorm ideas, and more. 

So if you’ve been struggling with writer’s block, or just want to tighten up your writing, you may want to check out Notion AI. 

Notion AI previously required you to sign up for a waitlist, but now, every Notion account has access to AI features. 

Each account gets 20 AI responses for free, but after that, you’ll need to pay an extra $10/mo to keep using Notion AI. If you’re curious about Notion AI but don’t want to use up all of your free responses at once, you can check out our video here for a deep dive into Notion AI’s features. 

Build Full Interfaces with an AI Prompt in Coda

Next, let’s take a look at Coda.

Coda is a very similar app to Notion, as it also allows users to create versatile documents, tables, and charts to manage their workspace. 

Currently, there are multiple AI integrations in Coda’s “pack” library that allow for a lot of similar functionality to what we just covered in Notion. 

The OpenAI Pack by Spencer Chang will help you to draft emails or blog posts, brainstorm ideas, and pretty much everything else that Notion AI does. 

You can already add the OpenAI pack to your Coda docs for free right now, but Coda is also working on their own native AI features which will unlock much more advanced possibilities. 

Coda AI aims to provide more technical abilities, rather than simply focusing on writing and language processing tasks. It will be able to generate formulas, create tables, and search for relevant data. 

It’s even going to be able to create entire interfaces based on a single prompt using the “Solution builder”. 

For instance, in their preview video, Coda demonstrates how users can give a single short prompt to their AI and have it build a task manager like Asana that even includes time tracking.

Coda AI has the potential to do some amazing things, but for now, it’s still in Alpha. It likely won’t be ready for primetime until later this year, but you can join the Coda AI waitlist now to save your place in line. 

AI in Automation Apps like Tonkean, Zapier, and Make

Moving to the world of no-code automation, enterprise-focused Zapier alternative Tonkean has added an interesting GPT-3 integration to their feature set. 

Tonkean’s AI tools and automated workflows are focused primarily on enterprise use cases. They support workflows like procurement, handling legal requests, and responding to incoming invoices. 

Tonkean uses AI to analyze incoming data, surfacing key takeaways, and generating documents to respond to requests automatically. 

For instance, with their “LegalGPT” workflow, Tonkean’s AI sorts incoming legal requests, determines several key factors like the urgency and risk of each request, and alerts the team as needed. 

The AI tools Tonkean has put together are interesting, and could be very helpful if you’re running a large business with hundreds of employees. However, for smaller companies or startups, tools like Zapier or Make are likely going to be more accessible automation platforms. 

Building AI Workflows with Zapier and Make

Zapier and Make haven’t integrated any native AI features yet, but they can connect with AI software like OpenAI in the same way that they connect to any app. 

For instance, in Zapier, you can simply select the Open AI integration to configure and send an automated prompt and process the answer. 

If you’d like to see an example of how AI and Automation can work together, go to XRay.Systems to check out Debrief. This is a system we’ve built that lets users upload a recorded Zoom meeting and get an AI-generated summary, complete with any key action items they need to complete. 

Debrief relies primarily on no-code tools to create AI prompts for each uploaded video. 

Ultimately, one of the greatest benefits of no-code automation tools is that they can leverage virtually any app with an API. So even if they don’t develop native AI features, they can just integrate with an app that does. 

AI-Assisted Search in Microsoft’s Bing

Bing has been playing second fiddle to Google ever since its inception, but its quick adoption of AI just might help it to gain some ground against its competitors. At least, with the $10 billion they’ve already invested into OpenAI, that’s certainly what Microsoft is hoping for. 

At this point, you’ve probably already tried out OpenAI’s ChatGPT software, so to make it simple, you can think of Bing’s AI as essentially being a version of ChatGPT that’s actually connected to the internet. 

As a result, Bing can give faster, and - hopefully - more accurate responses to user questions. 

“Hallucinations” are still a huge problem in the world of AI, particularly with ChatGPT. It’s not uncommon for ChatGPT to give completely incorrect answers, and to insist on those incorrect answers when you try to correct it. 

By connecting to the internet, Bing’s AI may be able to use up-to-the-minute information to provide more accurate answers, but that remains to be seen. You can join Bing’s waitlist to find out for yourself (note: it appears that the waitlist is now granting instant access to “the new Bing”). 

Try Softr to Build Market-Ready Apps with AI Integrations

Finally, let’s take a look at Softr. 

Softr is a platform that enables you to build market-ready web apps with a no-code interface. 

In addition to several other content blocks for building your web app, Softr includes blocks that connect with DALL-E and OpenAI. 

For example, If you’d like to include AI prompts as part of your product, you can create a text box connected to OpenAI so that users can enter prompts and receive answers through your Softr web app. 

Softr’s OpenAi blocks are great for a first-time builder experimenting with an AI product.

Softr makes it very easy to create new data with integrations like OpenAI, and manage that data in a user-friendly app like Airtable. 

Overall, it’s one of the cheapest and fastest ways to build an MVP and start testing your idea on the market. 

Of course, Softr still has its limitations. Your web app must be connected to either Airtable or a Google sheet, so you don’t have many options for your backend. You also won’t have the same kind of granular control over your web apps’ design like you would in an app like Webflow or Wordpress. 

But if your priority is getting your AI product to market as fast as possible, Softr is a great choice. If you want to learn more about building a web app with Softr and Airtable, check out our video about working with a no-code tech stack right here, or try out Softr for yourself at softr.io. 

AI is Redefining the Way We Work

Through native features and third-party integrations, dozens of popular apps are already transforming the way people work with AI

This is only the beginning; there’s no doubt that we’ll be seeing AI features and tools added to countless web apps in the coming years. If you’d like to learn more about using AI and other tools to streamline your workflows, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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New AI tools are revolutionizing the way we work, and ChatGPT isn’t the only show in town. 

Every month, new software built on machine learning is emerging and becoming accessible to anyone, and popular apps like Notion are adding AI tools to an already impressive feature set.  

Now, with a simple command in Notion, you can ask an AI assistant to generate any text you can think of in a matter of seconds. 

In this post, we’ll show you how to start using Notion AI, and we’ll demonstrate what it can do with various prompts and options. 

Notion AI Pricing and Trial

Notion AI recently got out of beta, and is now available to all users. 

Unfortunately, you’re going to be limited to just 20 AI responses for free. You’ll have to opt for the AI add-on to keep using it indefinitely, and that’s priced at $10 per user per month.

But don’t worry; if you’d like to see what Notion AI can do without burning through all of your free responses at once, we’ve got you covered. 

We’ll show you all of Notion AI’s main commands, prompts, and options, so you can see what it’s capable of before you sign up for it. You can also check out the embedded video to see Notion’s AI working in real time. 

Exploring Notion AI: Summarize, Translate, Explain, and More

To access Notion AI, just type forward slash or hit space to bring up a list of options. You’ll see all of the familiar Notion commands, but you should also see several choices for AI-related commands in purple. We’ll go through these choices one at a time. 

You can also highlight a piece of text to see options for transforming the content with AI. When you select an item from the menu, Notion AI will generate an answer in the preview window.

If you’re happy with the results, you can click on “Insert below” to add the AI-generated copy underneath your original copy. You can also replace the original text with the AI’s response if you’d prefer, or prompt the AI to generate a new response. 

If you ask the AI to try again, you’ll likely receive a similar result, but it can offer up some significantly different approaches to the same prompt. If you’re not satisfied with the first answer, just give it another attempt and see what happens. 

Find Action Items

“Find action items” will analyze a piece of text, like an email or a Slack message, and return a short summary of any action items that the text asks for. 

Just highlight the text that you want the AI to analyze, click on “Ask AI”, then select “Find action items”. 

Within a few seconds, Notion AI should generate a list of action items. 

Translate Text to Any Language

“Translate” will translate the selected text into a language of your choice. Just like the “Find action items” option, just highlight the text you want to translate and choose the corresponding menu item. 

You’ll see Notion AI translate your text in a matter of seconds. 

Bear in mind that AI translation may contain errors. If you don’t speak the language that you’re translating to, we’d always recommend including a note that the translation in question was AI-generated when you share or publish the text. 

Explain This

The “Explain this” option will prompt the AI to offer a simple explanation of the highlighted text. For example, when we ask Notion AI to explain the text of Wikipedia’s article on machine learning, it returns a simplified paragraph that explains the basic concept of machine learning. 

You can also use “Explain this” to define a word or term you’re unfamiliar with. If we ask Notion to explain “neuromorphic”, it offers the following definition: “Neuromorphic refers to the design and function of computer systems or devices that mimic the behavior of biological neural networks, such as those found in the brain.”

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In this case, Notion AI’s definition lines up well with Wikipedia’s: “Neuromorphic computing is an approach to computing that is inspired by the structure and function of the human brain.” 

Again, like other AI tools, AI is not always going to give an accurate response. It can be a very useful shortcut, but still isn’t a substitute for real research. 

Improve Writing

The “Improve writing” prompt will attempt to polish the submitted text. It will typically correct spelling and grammar issues, but will also try to improve the flow and structure of your writing. For instance, when we enter a bit of text with a clunky, repetitive sentence, it simplifies with much cleaner phrasing. 

If your copy is a bit dull or awkward, try running it through Notion AI for some quick revisions. 

Spelling and Grammar

If you just want to fix any typos or grammatical mistakes in your writing, you can use the “Spelling and grammar” option instead. Notion has a built-in spell check feature, and you’ve probably seen the familiar red underline appear under your misspelled words in the past. 

However, Notion’s automatic spell check often won’t always catch grammatical mistakes like “to” instead of “too”, or “their” instead of “there”. 

A quick spelling and grammar check with AI can help to ensure that you catch every mistake. 

Make Shorter

“Make shorter” will reduce the length of the selected text. While Notion AI will make the text shorter, it won’t necessarily make it any simpler. If you’re looking to make a dense selection easier to understand, you may want to use “Explain this” or “Simplify language” instead. 

Make Longer

“Make longer” will add text to increase the length of your selection. It will try to add contextually relevant detail, but it’s quite likely to make your text redundant. If you’re not trying to reach a strict character minimum with your copy, “Make longer” probably won’t be that useful. 

Change Tone

If you want to switch your writing to a more professional or confident tone without changing the meaning of what you’ve written, you can use “Change tone”. 

When we apply a “professional” tone to our casually written example, we can see that it removes abbreviations and generally employs more formal language. 

Simplify Language

“Simplify language” will simplify your text to use more easily understood synonyms. It may also shorten verbose language to be a little more brief, or cut out unnecessary repetition. This is a useful function to try it out if you’re worried that your writing is getting a bit too dense for your audience. 

Custom Prompts

Under the “Draft with AI” section, you’ll see a long list of prompts, like “Brainstorm ideas…”, “Outline…”, “Press release…” and more. 

All of these options will open up a window where you can enter a custom prompt, and will prefill a start to the prompt like “Brainstorm ideas about”. 

You can also edit or delete the prefilled portion, so these options are essentially just a way to start a custom prompt. 

You can enter any prompt that you’d like, but a greater level of detail in your prompt will usually result in a better output. 

An Affordable AI Writing Assistant

Notion AI offers a helpful set of features for brainstorming, summarizing, or drafting content, and it puts all of these options right alongside your key notes and documents in Notion. 

At a price of $10 per user each month, and coming in at a quarter of the price of OpenAI’s premium plan, it’s an affordable option for anyone looking to make AI a critical part of their workflows. 

But even if Notion AI isn’t right for your tool belt or your budget, there are many more AI tools out there that you can explore - and we’ll be covering lots of them soon right here on the XRay blog. 

If you’d like to learn more about AI and workflow automation, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

No matter what your level of technical expertise is, you don’t need to waste your time on tedious, repetitive tasks. With no-code automation providers like Zapier, anyone can automate the mindless work that’s eating their time. 

In this post, we’ll show you everything you need to know to get started with Zapier and begin creating automated workflows of your own. 

What is Zapier, and What is No-code Automation?

To get started, let’s address a simple question: What is Zapier?

If you’re already familiar with what Zapier is, you can just scroll down to the tutorial section of this article and start building your first Zap. 

But for everyone who’s just discovering the application for the first time, Zapier is a no-code automation provider.

What that means is that Zapier lets you connect two or more web apps to move data between them automatically. 

As a no-code app, Zapier lets you create these connections without needing to write any code. That’s right; you don’t need to know the first thing about coding or software engineering to build automations in Zapier! 

Now let’s break down what an automation looks like piece by piece. 

Anatomy of a Zapier No-code Automation

In Zapier, an automation (or “Zap”) consists of one triggering event – which prompts the automation to run –  and one or more automatic actions that occur whenever the trigger is activated. 

For example, you could build a Zap that connects Google Drive to a database app like Airtable. You could design your automation like this: 

• Every time a new record is added to the “Clients” table in my Airtable base, create a new folder in Google Drive with the client’s name.

• Then, create a new Onboarding Agenda doc within that folder. 

In this simple 3-step Zap, the trigger is the creation of a new record in the specified table. 

The actions are to make a new folder in Google Drive and a new onboarding doc. These actions will run automatically whenever we add a new record to the table. 

There’s a lot more that you can do with different triggers, filters, and formatter steps, but you don’t need to worry about all of that right now. You can check out the other videos on our channel for more in-depth tutorials once you’ve developed an understanding of Zapier’s fundamentals. 

For now, let’s get back to the basics of Zapier. 

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Tutorial: Building Your First Zap

Now let’s take a look at actually building a Zap. 

For our example, we’ll be creating an automation that runs whenever a new file is added to a specified “Uploads” folder in Google Drive. 

Whenever a file is added, it will send us an alert in Slack as a direct message. 

This will be a simple two-step Zap, so you can follow along on Zapier’s free plan. If you’re not using Slack or Google Drive, you can either create free accounts, or use similar apps like Microsoft Teams or Dropbox. 

The exact configuration options will be a little different, but it will still largely involve the same concepts. 

First, go to www.zapier.com and create an account (or log in if you already have one). If you’re creating an account for the first time, Zapier will grant you a free trial of some premium features.

If your free trial has already ended, don’t worry; you can complete this tutorial with Zapier’s free plan. 

Organize Your Zaps with Folders

When you open up Zapier, it might be tempting to click on the big orange button to create your first Zap, but hold on!

First, click on “Zaps”. 

Then, create a new folder for your Zap. It’s always good to stay organized so you can easily find your automations later when you need to perform maintenance. 

In our example, we’ll choose our “tutorials” folder.

Once you have a folder selected, click on “Create” to make a new Zap. 

Make sure to give your Zap a descriptive name, like “Send Slack Alert for New Files in Uploads Folder”. 

Creating Your Trigger Event

Now, Zapier will prompt you to create a trigger. Like we outlined before, the trigger is the event that will prompt the automation to run. 

You’ll need to pick the app where your trigger will occur. For our example Zap, that’s going to be Google Drive. 

Zapier will put a small selection of commonly used apps in the trigger creation panel for easy access, but you can also search for your app with the search bar to find the thousands of other integrations Zapier has. 

Once you’ve selected Google Drive as the trigger app, you’ll need to choose the event. When you click on the dropdown, you’ll see two options that may both seem relevant: “New file”, and “New file in folder”.

“New file” would cause the Zap to run whenever a file is added to any folder in our Drive account. “New file in folder”, on the other hand, will let us limit the trigger to a specific folder. 

Always make sure to read the description of each trigger to find the best match for your planned automation. 

Authorizing Zapier to Access Google Drive or Other Apps

Once you’ve chosen your trigger, you can click on “continue”.

Now, Zapier will prompt you to choose an account for your trigger. This is the account that Zapier will use to actually access Google Drive (or whichever app you’re using for your trigger).

Click on “Connect a new account”, and sign in to your Google account in the window that pops up.

Zapier will ask for some pretty extensive permissions, but that’s OK. You essentially want Zapier to be able to act on your behalf while using this app, creating folders and files based on the automations you set up. 

Once you’ve signed in, you can select your account from the dropdown. 

If you ever want to manage the accounts you’ve connected to Zapier, you can just go back to the dashboard and select “Apps”. 

Configuring and Testing the Trigger Event

Now, click continue to start configuring your trigger. 

Next, you’ll need to choose the Drive and Folder that you want Zapier to watch. There’s usually only one option for Drive - My Drive.

But you’ll probably have many folders in your Drive to choose from. You could click through folders in Zapier to find the one you want, but we always recommend just entering the folder’s ID directly whenever you need to find a folder in Drive with Zapier. 

Just open up your Google Drive folder in another tab, and copy these characters after /folders/. To paste it in directly, click on “Custom”, then enter the ID into the field. 

Click “Continue”. 

Next, you’ll need to test your trigger. 

Whenever you’re building a Zap, you’ll need to use real test data. In other words, in order to build this Zap that checks for files in your “Uploads” folder, you need to have at least one file in your “Uploads” folder already. 

Upload a test file, like a .txt doc, then click on “Test Trigger”. When you test the trigger, Zapier will look for data that matches the conditions you specified - in this case, it will look for any file in the “Uploads” folder. 

Each Zapier trigger will return some information about the file or object it found. 

In this case, you’ll see a plethora of metadata about the file in Drive. Some of it could be very useful, but a lot of it is basically just noise. 

If you scroll down, you should see the file name, which will confirm that everything’s working as intended. 

Once your trigger is all set, you can click on Continue. 

Adding an Action to Your Zap

Now, you’ll be prompted to add an action. 

Just like with your trigger, you can search for the app you want to use here - in this case, choose Slack. 

We’ll go with “Send Direct Message” as our event, since we just want to send a private alert - don’t want to make too much noise on Slack. 

And just like with Google Drive, you’ll need to add a Slack account in order to use it in Zapier. 

Configuring the Slack Message

There are several options here for creating and sending our Slack message, but only two are required - the username of the person we’re sending the message to, and the message itself. 

You can just copy and paste your user ID from Slack for the former. To paste it in directly, click on “Custom”, then enter the ID into the field. 

For the latter, you can compose a quick message directly in Zapier. 

Enter some alert text directly into the “Message Text” field: “A new file has been added to the Uploads folder. View it here:”

Then, by clicking on the “insert data” tab, you can use data that Zapier retrieved in the trigger. 

In this case, we want a link to the new file. 

Search for “Alt” to find the “Alternate Link” - that’s what Zapier calls the URL of a file in Google Drive.

Understanding Dynamic Data in Zapier

This link that we’re inserting is dynamic information - whenever the automation runs, it will use the data that’s currently triggering the automation. 

Dynamic data like this is one of the essential features of any automation provider. It’s what will make your automations adapt to the data they’re currently handling, instead of always regurgitating a completely pre-configured action or block of text.

In other words, if we have 5 different files enter our upload folder, we’ll get 5 different messages in slack. And each one will link to a different file.

This is what a dynamic automation looks like. 

Completing and Testing the Slack Action

To finish your message, we’d recommend customizing a few more of the available settings. 

Set the “bot name” to something unique, like “New File Frankie”. This is the name that the Slack bot will use to send the message. Giving it a unique name will help you to keep track of which automation is sending you an alert after you’ve set up several automations.  

Then, set the “bot icon” as a robot face or any other emoji that you’d like. You’ll need to configure it like this:

:robot_face:

Finally, set “Auto-expand links” to NO. Auto-expanded links will include a preview image, which can make the message take up far more real estate on your screen than necessary. 

If you’re curious about what the other fields and settings do, Zapier provides helpful descriptive text for each one. 

Now that your message is all set, click continue and test the action.

Instantly, you should get a message in Slack. 

We’re almost done setting up this Zap. But first, it’s always good practice to run a live test to see how it will actually work in practice. 

Giving Your Zap a Live Test

Publish the Zap and turn it on, then upload a file to the “Uploads” folder.

When the Zap is live, it will check for new folders on a set interval. On a higher-level plan, it will run every five minutes, but on lower tiers, Zapier may only run every fifteen minutes. 

So you may want to grab a snack or knock out a quick task while you’re waiting. 

After a few minutes, the alert should show up in Slack exactly as intended.

That means your Zap is all set and ready to use. 

If it didn’t work as you expected, you can try our troubleshooting tips here. 

Now let’s explore some of the other features that you can access from Zapier’s Dashboard. 

Zapier’s Interface and Other Features

While building Zaps is the main thing that you’ll be using and accessing Zapier for, it’s also good to familiarize yourself with the other options and features that you have at your disposal. 

Dashboard

In your Dashboard, you’ll see a few helpful choices. 

You can search for an app to start building a new Zap, or browse Zapier’s recommendations for new Zaps to build. 

And if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a few more resources. With these links, you can sign up for early access to new features that are still in-development, or check out the “Learning Center” for Zapier’s own tutorials. If you need more support, you can click on “Hire an Expert” to view the Experts directory, or select “Ask the Community” to visit Zapier’s forums. 

Zaps

Under “Zaps”, you can see all of your Zaps and the folders you’ve stored them in. Here, you can edit Zaps you’ve already built, create new ones, or delete Zaps that you don’t need anymore.

You can also turn Zaps on or off if you just want to pause them for a while. 

Transfers

Under transfers, you can build a different type of automation. In Zapier, a “transfer” is used to import a large dataset from one app to another. 

For instance, you might want to use a transfer to move your company directory from Google Sheets to Airtable. In this tab, you can see your existing transfers or create a new one. 

Frankly, transfers aren’t that great of a feature yet. They might become more useful in the future, but for now, you’re probably better off with a simple CSV export for a one-time migration, or using an app like Whalesync for automated syncing. 

My Apps

Under the “My apps” tab, you’ll see all of the apps that you’ve authorized for Zapier to access. 

You’ll see the apps that you’ve individually authorized, the apps that your team has shared with you (if you’re on a team plan), and any custom integrations you’ve built. 

Authorization for your apps will often expire after several weeks have passed, or after you’ve changed your password for the app, so it’s good to check in on this tab periodically for any issues. 

Zap History

Under Zap history, you can see a record of each individual run for every single Zap. This is a useful tab for keeping track of your total Zap runs and tasks, which can be limited based on your subscription plan. 

It’s also a helpful starting point whenever you have a Zap that isn’t behaving as expected. Clicking on a failed Zap run, or a run that’s considered “Successful” but didn’t do what you wanted, is a great way to see more detail and start troubleshooting. 

You can use the search bar in the top right to find specific data associated with any Zap run to make your troubleshooting quicker and easier. 

Explore

The “Explore” tab will take you out of the Zapier app and back to their website, where you’ll see more ideas and templates for Zaps you can build. 

Get Help

Under “Get Help”, you can get help. No surprises there!

Here, you’ll see a comprehensive list of guides and tutorials to help you learn the basics of Zapier or troubleshoot common errors. 

Once again, this takes you out of the Zapier app and back onto their website. 

Manage Plan

Finally, at the bottom of this panel, you can see your overall usage statistics and manage your plan. 

When you click on “manage plan”, you’ll see several options for managing your subscription, your payment methods, and more. 

Zapier Pricing Plans (March 2023)

While we’re on the subject - let’s quickly go over the available pricing plans for Zapier. 

You can see all of the details in the screenshot below or on the pricing page here, so we won’t bother repeating all of the information. We will give you a few quick tips, though.

Zapier’s Free Plan 

The free plan is only really useful for checking out Zapier for the first time. With the two-step limit, you won’t be able to build many useful automations, and you’re limited to five total Zaps anyway. 

Get the Most out of Zapier with a Pro Plan

The starter plan gives you a bit more to work with, but if you intend to rely on any Zaps in your day-to-day work, you’ll probably want to use the Professional or Professional plus tiers. 

Of course, if you’re hoping to make workflow automation a mainstay at your company, you’ll need to consider the Team or Company plans to get everyone at your organization on board. 

But as an individual user, the Pro or Pro Plus plans will probably be your best bet if you’re looking to get the most out of Zapier. 

Why Zapier is Great for Beginners

As you’re looking at those prices, you might be wondering: is Zapier worth it? Why would I want to pay $20 or more for this every month?

Zapier isn’t the only no-code or low-code automation provider available. There are tons of similar tools available, like Make or Workato, so you may want to consider them as well. 

However, there are three key benefits that make Zapier one of the best choices for no-code automation beginners. 

Zapier is Easy to Use

First off, Zapier is extremely easy to use. 

As we’ve already mentioned, Zapier doesn’t require you to have any kind of coding background at all. You don’t even need to have any experience with similar automation apps. 

As long as you’re generally comfortable with using modern web apps, you’re good to go with Zapier. 

If you do have some experience with writing code, you may actually want to check out Make instead. You can learn more about Make in this tutorial here. 

Zapier Has Thousands of Software Integrations

Second, in addition to being easy to use, Zapier has a huge number of software integrations. 

It supports thousands of popular web apps. If you check their list of integrations, you’ll see everything from Google Drive and Hubspot to Microsoft Office and Shopify. 

There’s integrations for CRMs, website builders, productivity tools, task managers and more. 

Really, unless you’re using custom software, the odds are very good that Zapier supports your apps. 

But you can always do a quick search for your app in XRay.Tools, a simple search engine that shows you what you can automate with the tools you already use. 

Getting Support for Zapier is Easy

Finally, Zapier is an extremely popular tool, which gives you lots of options for support if you run into any issues.

You can check out Zapier’s Experts directory to get one-on-one help from experienced pros like XRay. 

You can also check out a plethora of forums to get help from other users. 

Ultimately, if you encounter a problem when you’re using Zapier, you can probably find dozens of other people who have been there before and found a solution. 

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Start Automating Your Workflows Today

With Zapier, anyone can start automating their work, regardless of their technical experience or background. If you’d like to check it out for yourself, just go to www.zapier.com and follow along with this tutorial. 

If you’d like to take your Zapping to the next level, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Notion is an extremely useful application for managing your documents, notes, and more. With a wide variety of content blocks, you can build nearly any layout you can think of.

But one of the most convenient features in Notion is the ability to copy templates with a single click. Everything from task management systems and business strategy docs to notebooks and vacation planning boards are readily available in user-created templates that you can add to your own workspaces. 

In this post, we’ll show you five of the best Notion templates that you can use to help boost your productivity at work or at home. Most of the templates are free to use, and all of them can help you to get more done without having to spend lots of time formatting your Notion pages.

Manage Your Company’s To-dos with “Ultimate Tasks” by Thomas Frank

First, let’s take a look at Thomas Frank’s “Ultimate Tasks” template.

Thomas Frank is an expert in Notion and productivity, and he has a great YouTube channel that explores how you can use Notion to get more done. His "Ultimate Tasks" template is a great starting point for anyone looking to get organized and streamline their workflows.

The template allows you to create projects in Notion, and create tasks within those projects. You can assign tasks to specific team members, set due dates, view projects in different formats like Calendars or Kanban boards, or even add sub-tasks to each task. 

All of these features are included for free. 

To access the template, simply open it up in the link below and click "duplicate." If you're interested, you can subscribe to Frank's newsletter for even more productivity tips and tricks, but it is not necessary to access the template. 

Give it a try and see how it can help you boost productivity for you and your whole origanization.

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Try the Ultimate Tasks Template here

Stay On Top of Personal Tasks and Content Creation with Ali Abdaal’s Part-Time Productivity Planner

Next, let’s go over Ali Abdaal’s “Part-time Productivity Planner” template.

Ali Abdaal’s YouTube channel is another great resource for productivity and mindfulness tips and tricks.

His "Part-time Productivity Planner" template is an ideal choice for anyone looking for a simpler task management system that’s focused more on personal priorities rather than company or team tasks. It features a simple table for your daily tasks and weekly reflections, so you can focus on a few key priorities without getting overwhelmed by extra stats and data.  

This template is especially helpful for content creators, as Ali also maintains a YouTube Notion Template Repository, which is a useful resource for aspiring YouTubers or veteran content creators. 

These templates and associated videos offer great tips for planning, writing, and shooting YouTube videos. By following the templates and videos, you'll be able to get started with your own channel or make your existing production smoother. 

The part-time productivity planner is normally priced at $19.00, but at the time of publication is available for free. To access the YouTube repository, you’ll just need to subscribe to Ali Abdaal’s newsletter. 

Give some of Ali Abdaal’s templates a try and see how they can help boost your productivity and mindfulness.

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Part-time Productivity Planner

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YouTube Notion Template Repository

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Organize Your Startup with Hivemind by Optemization

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If you're looking for an alternative to Thomas Frank's "Ultimate Tasks" template for your startup, you may want to consider Hivemind by Optemization.

Hivemind bills itself as an "Operating System for Early-Stage Startups." While Ultimate Tasks is more generalized for any business, Hivemind is specifically focused on helping startups to organize their tasks and priorities.

The template framework includes a dozen databases and over 44 templates to organize your startup's goals, networks, and systems.

However, it’s not a particularly cheap option, with packages starting at $295 and going up to nearly $1,000. As you can probably guess, this template is not intended for casual users. Instead, it’s more ideal for startups looking to use Notion as a robust backbone for their entire infrastructure.

If you're interested in learning more, you can check out their website by the link in the description.

If the price is too steep for your budget, don’t worry; we’ve got a few more free and cheap templates in this post that can also help you to tackle your to-dos. 

But if you’re running a rapidly growing startup and need a solid foundation for organization and goal setting, Hivemind may be a solid choice for you.

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Learn more about Hivemind at Optemization’s Website

Create Business Strategy Docs with Landmark Labs

Next, let's take a look at Landmark Labs' selection of free Notion templates. 

These templates are specifically designed for frequently-used documents, and cover several charts and diagrams that are often used for strategy and planning in any business. 

They include RICE scoring, SWOT analysis, and a Customer Journey map among many other options. These are business oriented, technical documents, and incredibly helpful to think through details that are easy for anyone to miss. 

These templates are a great way to create a commonly used layout for meetings, workshops and more with just a few clicks. 

They can spare you all the time and effort of building a visually engaging document from scratch, while still making sure all the important details are covered in one place.

The templates for these docs are free through Landmark Labs, but they do require a signup to access. Landmark also offers a selection of more advanced templates that require a premium account.

 You can find them all and try them out at the link below!

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Explore Landmark Labs’ Notion Templates Here

Explore More Options with Notion’s Own Template Gallery

Of course, if none of the templates we’ve listed so far strike your fancy, you can always fall back on Notion’s own template gallery. 

These templates are created by Notion’s team and by the extensive Notion community. While you’re not likely to find anything as robust as Ultimate Tasks or Hivemind here, the large selection of free and low-cost templates covers a huge range of document types and styles. 

You can download a business model canvas to plan your next venture, create a task management system to get ready for job interviews, plan all of your household maintenance tasks, and much more.

Just start browsing their gallery to get started.

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Explore Notion’s Template Gallery Here

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Streamline Your Work with Notion’s Templates

Whether you're looking for a more generalized solution or something focused on a particular use case, there's a Notion template out there for you. Give these templates a try, and see how they can help streamline your workflow and boost your productivity.

If you’d like to learn about productivity and workflow automation tips, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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If you’re running a YouTube channel, keeping track of each video’s performance is essential for making sure that you’re reaching your audience with the right content. 

However, viewing all of your stats in YouTube analytics isn’t always enough. With limited options for sorting or running calculations, YouTube’s native analytics panel might not help you reveal the insights you’re looking for. 

In this post, we’ll show you how you can use a tool called Data Fetcher to import all of your YouTube channel stats into Airtable. 

This will let you view and sort your stats in a convenient location where you can take advantage of all of Airtable’s key features - like workflow automation, customizable data views, and more.

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Example: A Completed Data Fetcher Request

The image below shows what your table will look like once you’ve finished setting up Data Fetcher.

You’ll have a list of every video in your channel, along with key stats like views, subscribers gained and more. We’ve chosen a limited selection of fields from YouTube to keep things simple, but you’ll be able to add as many fields as you’d like.

Automatic vs. Manual Updates

With a premium Data Fetcher plan, you can schedule automatic updates. All of these fields would update automatically at whatever time interval you designate. If you’re using the free plan, you’ll just need to import the data manually each time to update your records. 

Now let’s take a look at how you can build the table and configure Data Fetcher step by step. 

Initial Data Fetcher Setup

First, create a table in Airtable where you’d like to import your YouTube data.

If you know all of the fields you would like to include in the final table, you can add them now, but it’s not necessary. In general, it’s easier to just leave the table blank for now, and simply let Data Fetcher create fields for all of the imported data instead. 

Adding Data Fetcher to Your Airtable Base

Click on “Extensions” in the top right. Add an extension, and search for “Data Fetcher”. Click on “add” to add Data Fetcher to your base.

To make configuration easier, hover over Data Fetcher in your extensions panel, and click on this square icon to make the panel fullscreen. 

Create a Data Fetcher Request to Import YouTube Public Data

To begin importing data, click on “Create Request”. In Data Fetcher, a “Request” is an action that imports data. 

Search for the app you want to use. 

When you enter “YouTube”, you’ll see two different options: YouTube Public Data, and YouTube Analytics.

To get all of your YouTube data into Airtable, you’ll need to create two separate requests - one for each of these options. We’ll start with YouTube Public Data. 

Under “Authorization”, create a new Connection to sign into your YouTube account and authorize Data Fetcher. 

The “Endpoint” dropdown will give you a few options for the type of data you want Data Fetcher to retrieve. Choose “List Channel Videos” to list all of the videos that have been published to a specific channel. 

Click on “Save and Continue”.

Get Your YouTube Channel ID

Now, you’ll need to enter the ID of the channel you want to get data for. You can enter any public channel into this field, but if you want to expand on this data with YouTube analytics info, you’ll need to choose your own channel.

Open up your YouTube channel in another browser window, and copy the string of characters after “/channel/”

Paste this into the “Channel Id” field. 

Configure Your YouTube Public Data Request

Choose a field to sort by, like date or view count. 

Then, you can add a search query if you’d like to limit the results to videos on your channel that match certain keywords. In our example, we’ll just leave this blank since we want to import data for all of our videos. 

Next you can choose the table and view that you want to import your data into. By default, this will be set to the table and view that you already have open, so you probably won’t need to change these. 

Finally, if you have a paid plan, you can schedule your plan to run automatically at regular intervals. Schedule your request as desired, and click on “Save & Run”.

Map Your Imported Fields

Next, you’ll see a table of the information that Data Fetcher retrieved. In this window, you can choose which fields you want to use, and which fields you want to map them to in your Airtable base. 

Just uncheck fields you don’t want to import. For instance, we’ll uncheck “Default thumbnail width”, since it’s not really useful for much of anything. 

NOTE: You must include the “Video ID” field to successfully update this data with YouTube analytics data in the second part of this tutorial. 

Once you’ve configured all the fields to your liking, click on Save & Run to finish the import. Your table will now be populated with data for every video uploaded to your channel. 

Adding YouTube Analytics Data to Your Table

To add statistics like video views to the public data, you just need to add a second Data Fetcher request for YouTube Analytics data. 

Go back to the Extensions panel, and add a new Data Fetcher request. This time, you’ll choose “YouTube Analytics” as the application. Connect with your YouTube account, and click “Save & Continue”.

Configuring Your YouTube Analytics Request

Choose a date range that you’d like to request data for. You can pick from several preconfigured options, or enter a custom date range.

Then, pick the fields you’d like to import. There are dozens of options here, including likes and dislikes, shares, annotation impressions and more. You can choose any number of fields you’d like here. 

The “Split by” field lets you determine how records will be divided. So if you choose “Day”, there will be a record for each day. If you choose “Video”, it will create a separate record for each video, and so on.

To ensure that this data maps accurately to our existing YouTube data, choose split by Video. Next, you can add filters to limit your results. Again, we’ll be leaving this field blank to make sure we get all of our channel’s videos. 

Updating Your Existing Data

To make sure that this request will update your existing records instead of creating new ones, click on “Advanced Settings”. 

Make sure that “Update” is selected instead of “Append”. Then, under “Update Based on Field”, select “Video Id”.

Click “Save & Run”, then map your fields. Click on “Save & Run” once more, and your table will be updated with new fields.

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Manage Your YouTube Stats with the Features of Airtable

Now that your YouTube data is in Airtable, you can view and manage it in one convenient spot. You can use views and filters to easily sort your data, use formulas to run calculations and discover insights, or even trigger automations to run. 

Everything from simple data comparison to workflow automation will be easier with all of your data in Airtable. 

If you’d like to learn more about workflow automation, be sure to check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Looking to build a digital product, but don’t know how to code?

With the right software, you can build a fully-functional no-code product for your customers, and you can get it done in a tenth of the time it would take to code it from scratch, and half the time it would take to build with Bubble. 

In this post, we’ll show you some examples of the no-code apps you can use to build a database and a customer-facing frontend. We’ll also show you a couple of automation platforms that can make your app perform any action you might think of. 

Understanding Tech Stacks

If you’ve ever explored software engineering and application development, you’ve probably heard the term “tech stack” before.

In software development, a “tech stack” refers to all of the coding languages, frameworks, and tools that the engineers use to build a product. Even though we’re going to be talking about no-code tools in this article, the concept is still useful for understanding the different roles that each piece of software performs. 

Store and Process Data on the Backend

First, you have the backend of the application. 

The backend of an app is where data is stored and processed behind the scenes. It’s where the app actually performs the key functions that are prompted by the user’s commands.

Build a Frontend for User Interaction

The Frontend is where the user interacts with the app. In most applications, the frontend is usually accessible as a web page or an application on desktop and mobile devices. 

A No-code Tech Stack

Knowing where your no-code tool falls in your tech stack will make it much easier to look for alternatives and improvements. 

The no-code stack that we’ll look at in this video will use Airtable as the backend, along with automations built in Zapier and Make. To build a polished frontend interface for your users, you can employ an app called Softr. 

Now let’s take a closer look at each part of this stack. 

Use Airtable to Create a No-code Backend

We’ll start with the backend. To build the backend database of your no-code product, we almost always recommend using Airtable. 

If you’re not familiar with Airtable, it’s essentially a spreadsheet app on the surface. However, when you take the time to learn how to use Airtable, it can go much further than a simple spreadsheet. 

You can find several videos on our YouTube channel that demonstrate Airtable’s capabilities, but we’ll give you a quick idea of what it can do here. 

Filters and Views in Airtable

Airtable has customizable filters and views that let you control exactly how your data is sorted based on your own configured settings. This makes Airtable a very convenient way to analyze your data, but it also makes it an ideal database to support no-code automation. 

No-code Automation in Airtable

Airtable supports automation with dozens of popular apps, so you can automatically gather data from different sources or send out instant updates with the tools that you’re already using. 

Features like filters and views help Airtable to work extremely well as a database that supplements apps like Zapier and Make. 

For instance, you can create a view that only contains all of the users who signed up for your product in the last year. As soon as the user’s signup date is older than a year, they’ll be removed from that view automatically. You won’t need to do anything to update it.

Additional features like linked tables, form views, and extensions also set Airtable apart from other similar spreadsheet apps, but we’ll let you explore the rest of Airtable’s functionality on your own.

In short, Airtable is a highly sophisticated but very intuitive database app that makes for an ideal no-code backend. 

Build a No-code Frontend with Softr

Next, let’s move to the frontend and take a closer look at Softr. 

Softr is a great tool for building a polished web app for your product. Softr enables user signup, account creation, and payment right out of the box; no plug-ins required. 

Payment Processing, User Signup and More

Payments are done with a native Stripe integration, so your product will have a reliable payment processor that your customers can trust. 

Softr uses a one-time code system to let users sign in, eliminating the need for them to remember another password - and eliminating the need for you to securely process user passwords. 

Perhaps best of all, Softr connects with Airtable, making it easy to manage all of your product’s data through Airtable’s simple visual interface. 

And while we’re on the subject of simple visual interfaces - all of this can be designed and implemented through a drag-and-drop portal, similar to other wysiwyg editors like Webflow, Shopify, or Wix. 

Debrief: a Softr App Built by XRay

At XRay.Systems, you can see the Softr app that we built for Debrief, an automated system that lets users upload any meeting recording to get an AI-generated summary, and full transcription.

Once the user logs in, they can see all of their current recordings, upload a new one, view their billing info and more. 

With Softr and Airtable, you can build fully-functional, highly polished web apps like Debrief in a matter of days or weeks. Of course, you may need a few more tools to finish the product and add all of the functionality that you want.  

Add Automated Features with Zapier, Make, and More

Finally, you can flesh out your no-code tech stack with automation providers like Zapier and Make.  These tools will facilitate the business logic that actually creates value for your product.

In other words, they’ll let you move data where you want it to go, and perform any action you want to with it. 

Moving Data with No-code Automation

For example, in our Debrief app, we use Zapier to send a customer’s recording to Trint and transcribe it. Then, Airtable sends the transcript to OpenAI to get a summary. Once the summary is complete, Zapier sends that back to Airtable. 

Finally, Airtable connects with Softr to give access to the right user.

Unlock More Integrations and Flow Control

While Airtable has some decent support for built-in automations, providers like Zapier and Make have many integrations and abilities that Airtable doesn’t. Additionally, they offer extensive no-code logic to perform complex actions within your automations. You can add loops, if/then statements, routers, formatters, and more. And you can use all of them without writing any code. 

Zapier, Make, and other similar tools like Workato are essentially supplements for your Airtable backend. Whenever you need to do something that Airtable can’t do – or can’t do without writing code – you can turn to tools like these. 

Easily Update Your Tech Stack With New Tools

You can get to know these tools in greater detail with the tutorials on our channel.Once you’ve become familiar with them, you’ll find that you and your team can build virtually any web app that you come up with. 

However, the tools we’ve mentioned are not your only choices for building a no-code app. 

A key advantage of using a tech stack like this is modularity. Understanding how each tool fits into the bigger picture makes it easy for you to swap out and adapt to new software in the futureYou might want to try switching Softr for Blaze, or switching out GPT3 for another language model. 

By clearly defining your frontend, your backend, and your supplemental automations, you can easily isolate the parts of your product that you want to update without having to change the rest. 

Build With No-code to Get to Market Faster

Whichever specific tools you use, a no-code tech stack is the fastest way to set things up. In entrepreneurship, speed is often more important than perfection. 

With these no-code tools, you can move much faster than you would with traditional code, and even faster than building a Bubble app. So start using Airtable, Softr, Zapier and Make to begin building right now.

If you’d like to learn more about no-code automation, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Having your inbox bombarded every day with lengthy emails is just part of the modern workplace. But you don’t have to read through every message yourself.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how you can automatically summarize all of your long emails with AI and no-code tools. 

We’ll start with a quick overview of how it all works, then we’ll give you detailed step-by-step instructions so you can build it yourself. 

Automation Overview

The automation consists of three simple steps.

First, we send any email we want to summarize to this customized Zapier inbox. That triggers the automation to run. 

Then, the automation sends a prompt to OpenAI to get a summary of the email.

Finally, we can send the resulting summary to Slack, another Email, or anywhere else we’d like to get the output. 

With the complete automation, all you have to do is forward an email to the Zapier inbox. Wait just a moment, and you’ll get an AI-generated summary in your inbox. 

Now let’s take a look at building this automation step by step. 

Trigger: Send an email to a Zapier inbox

First, create a new Zap, and choose “Email by Zapier” as the trigger. Using Email by Zapier will allow you to trigger the automation immediately whenever you forward an email.

If you use Gmail or Outlook or a similar app as the trigger, you’ll have to wait 5 to 15 minutes for the automation to actually trigger. You’ll have to wait longer if you’ve got a lower subscription tier. 

But we don’t build automations with AI tools because we want to wait! So select Email by Zapier as the app for your trigger, and choose “New Inbound Email” as the event. 

Now, you can create a Zapier inbox where you’ll forward any email that you want to summarize. Give the inbox a name, like “summarizebot”, and copy the address to your clipboard. Click “Continue”. 

Then, in another window, send or forward an email to the Zapier address, and test the trigger. 

Action: Send a Prompt to OpenAI

Next, add a new action to the automation and select “OpenAI (ChatGPT)” as the app. 

Choose “Send Prompt” as the event. 

You’ll need an OpenAI account with a payment method on file to use this step. Go to Openai.com, click on “API”, then click on “Signup” to create an account. Note that each account with a unique phone number will come with $15 worth of free credits. 

To add a payment method and set usage limits, click on your profile in the top right. Under billing, you’ll see several options. 

OpenAI’s API Pricing

While you will get charged for using OpenAI’s API, the rates are pretty reasonable. The exact price will depend on the language model you choose, but even our heavy use at XRay has only ever cost us $15/mo or less.

OpenAI’s pricing uses a “token” system, and charges between $0.0004 and $0.02 per 1,000 tokens. When using language processing, 1,000 tokens is equivalent to about 750 words. 

Connecting Your OpenAI Account to Zapier

To connect your OpenAI account to Zapier, click on “API Keys” under “User” on the left of the screen. Create a new secret key and copy it to your clipboard, then paste it into Zapier to authorize your integration. 

Select your newly authorized account, and click “Continue”. 

Before you start configuring the step, note that sending prompts through the Zapier integration will use tokens and be added to your monthly bill, even if you’re using Zapier’s testing functions. 

The charges probably won’t amount to much, but if you want to avoid racking up a bill while you’re building this automation, we recommend testing out the prompt directly through ChatGPT instead. 

Once you’ve crafted the prompt you’d like, you can just copy and paste it into Zapier.

Writing a Prompt for OpenAI

For our example prompt, we’ll stick with something simple:

“Briefly summarize the following email. Make a bulleted list of any action items required by the email.” 

After you enter your prompt into the field, make sure to insert the body of the email retrieved from the trigger. 

Then test the step to get the output. 

Email the AI-Generated Summary

Finally, you just need to add one more step that will send your summary wherever you’d like it to go. 

For this tutorial, we’ll just send the summary as an email back to the original sender.

Add a new action, and pick the email app that you use, like GMail, Outlook, or Email by Zapier and choose “Send email” (or a similar option) as the action.

Then, fill out the necessary fields to compose your email. To send the summary back to whoever requested it, just set the “To” address as the address of the original sender from the trigger. 

Then, add the AI-generated summary from Step 2 into the body of the email. When you test the step, you should see the summary appear in your inbox. 

Use AI to Start Saving Time

AI is quickly becoming an extremely useful tool to speed up anyone’s workflows, and it’s more accessible than ever. By combining a platform like OpenAI with no-code tools like Zapier, you can tear through a bloated inbox in a matter of seconds. 

If you’d like to learn more about workflow automation and AI tools, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Delivery of your work as a freelancer is just as important as the actual work you do. A smooth delivery means more repeat business and less questions from your client, and XRay Workflow has all the tools you need to prepare for delivery.

XRay Workflow is a tool-agnostic homescreen for your everyday work. It’s a versatile tool for saving and sharing resources from all over the web.It lets you save and immediately access websites, web apps, text, and even webhooks.

In this post and the accompanying video, we’ll show you a few examples to illustrate what XRay Workflow can do. Download XRay Workflow for free at xrayworkflow.com to follow along with this post in your own workspace. 

Saving text in a pin for easy one-click copy and paste

First, let’s take a look at making a simple text pin. You can just click on the plus sign to add a new pin to any section.

Then, you can give the pin a name, a description, and a color. 

Next, you can pick the pin type. To save a snippet of text to copy later, select “Text”. 

Now you can add the content that you want to store and access in this pin, like how we’ve added a text snippet that promotes our latest case study. 

Click on “Add Pin” to finish. Now, you can just click on “Copy” to grab this text whenever you want to add it to an email or message.

Everyone on your team will have easy access to that same pin, so everyone can find and copy the correct link with a single click. 

Embedding Google Slides presentations and other web apps

Saving text is convenient, but it’s just the start of what you can do with XRay Workflow. XRay Workflow lets you embed most popular web apps, so you can also embed Notion pages, Airtable bases, CRM portals, and so much more. 

For instance, you can embed a Google Slides presentation so it can be viewed directly from XRay Workflow.

Just create a new pin, grab the presentation’s embed URL from Google Slides, and paste it in the “Embed URL” field.

Save the pin. Then, you can view the slide deck without needing to open up a new app or tab in your browser.

This is especially useful when sharing resources with a lead or a client, since you can make sure that you and your team are always using the most up-to-date presentation. 

Try building a board that’s all about engaging with new leads. Embed your presentations, your case studies, your contact forms, and your booking calendar. You’ll have everything you need for lead calls and follow-up in one convenient spot.

Trigger actions and automations with webhooks

For our last Pin example, let’s take a look at push pins.

Push pins let you save a webhook with URL encoded data and trigger it with a click. 

For instance, at XRay, we use a time tracking system built in Airtable and Google Calendar. To create a new event, any of our team members can just click on a pre-configured push pin, like the one pictured below, and the webhook triggers the automation to run.

You can use push pins to run anything that accepts webhooks. That includes everything from starting your roomba and turning on your lights with Google Home to logging your time.

Anything you can do with IFTTT, Zapier, or Make, can be launched with a simple push pin to initiate the trigger. 

Delivering automated workflow and other projects

XRay Workflow is great for organizing resources for any purpose, like delivering automated workflows and systems. 

As a freelancer or an agency, you can use XRay Workflow to put everything your client needs in one place. You can save practical documentation right alongside the tools and resources your client needs to run the automations you produce. 

For example, let’s say you’ve built an automation to help your client onboard new employees. The automation starts whenever a new record is added to a specified Airtable view.

With XRay Workflow, you can create embed pins for the Airtable form that launches the automation, the Asana tasks that the automation creates, the Notion documentation that explains how to use it, and a flow chart to bring it all alive. 

All of those resources can be sent to your client with a single URL. Just convert a board into a public board, copy the URL, and share it with your client. You can even add a password to the board for extra security. 

Forget about sending a long email with a dozen links that just gets lost in your client’s inbox. XRay Workflow lets you complete delivery with a single link.

Download XRay Workflow today

XRay Workflow is currently in beta development. Right now, it’s free to download for individual and team accounts.

If you’d like one-on-one support and custom configuration for your workspace, just contact our team here. 

XRay Workflow is built with enterprise grade security, runs as a desktop and web application, and can even be used on mobile devices - making all your resources just a click or tap away. 

Make Project Delivery Seamless with XRay Workflow

Sharing several links can make it difficult for your clients to find everything they need to use your automations, and a messy delivery can undermine even the best projects. 

Try XRay Workflow for the easiest, fastest, and most intuitive delivery that your clients will have ever experienced. Just go to www.xrayworkflow.com to get started.

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Notion Buttons have received an update! All of the basic template features described below are still accessible, but you can also add new automations and AI features to your buttons. Check out XRay's blog post about the new and improved Notion buttons for more info.

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Templates are some of the most useful features that you can use in Notion. Templates let you quickly recreate documents or content blocks that you need to use frequently, like meeting notes, tasks, or reports. 

In this post, we’ll show you three different kinds of templates that you can build in Notion: Template buttons, template pages, and public templates. 

Create a Template Button in a Page

First, let’s take a look at template buttons. With a template button, you can duplicate a predefined set of content blocks with a single click.

Template buttons have to be created within a specific page, and will always be found within that page. However, duplicating the page will also duplicate the template button. 

Add a template button

To get started, open up the page that you want to add your template button to. Type “/template”, and select the option that reads “template button”. 

This will immediately create a new template button titled “Add a new to-do”, and will open up a module where you can configure and customize your template. 

Configuring your template button

The default template button will just include a single checkbox, but you can replace this with whatever you’d like and add your own content. 

In our example, we’ll configure a simple template for meeting notes. The title will be “Add new meeting notes”. Then, we’ll convert the checkbox into an H1. We’ll add text that says “Meeting notes on Today”. Under that, we’ll start a bulleted list with a bit of placeholder text. 

Once you’ve finished editing the contents of your template button, just click on “Close”. Don’t worry; you can always edit the button later if you’d like to make changes. 

Click on your template button to use it

Now, you can click on your button whenever you’d like to generate a set of blocks on this page. When we click on the button, it generates the H1 and bulleted list that we configured in our template. 

To edit your template button, just mouse over it and click on the gear to open up the configuration menu again. 

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Create a Template in a Database

If you want to create templates as separate pages, then you can create your template within a database instead.

To save time later, start by making a page with all of the content that you want to include in your template. Copy all of this content to your clipboard. 

Pick a database to save your template in

Then, create a new database where you want to store your template, or choose an existing database. Create a new record in your chosen database, and open the record as a page.

You should see an option to “create a template”. Click on that to create your new template.

Configuring your database template

Now, you can paste all of the content that you copied earlier into this template. Alternatively, you can just create all of the content within the template instead. 

Once you’re finished, be sure to give your template a title, then click on the “Back” button to return to the database. 

Whenever you create a new item in this database, you’ll now have the option to use the template that you created. 

You can also create additional templates within the same database to give yourself some options.

Just bear in mind that all of these templates will only be accessible within the database that you create them in. 

Create a Public Template to Share

Both of the options we’ve covered so far are great for creating templates for you and your team. But what if you want to share a template publicly?

For instance, you may have seen Notion templates from creators like Thomas Frank, or you might have browsed Notion’s gallery and perused all of their helpful templates. 

Sharing a page as a template

If you want other users in other workspaces to be able to copy your page as a template, you just need to set the sharing settings appropriately.

First, prepare your template as a page. Make sure you’re comfortable with publicly sharing all of the content that you’ve added to the page. 

Once your page is all set, click on “Share” in the top right, and turn on “Share to web”. Make sure the option “Allow duplicate as template” is checked.

Now, anyone with the link can just click on “duplicate” to add your page to their Notion workspace. This is a great way to share a Notion template with your audience, clients, or customers.

Block visibility on public templates

Keep in mind, if your page contains references to other databases or pages from your workspace, these blocks may not be shown. That’s because the referenced databases and pages are not shared to the web. As such, only blocks created within the page itself will be visible publicly. 

For instance, in this page that we’ve shared as a template, we have an inline database that we created on the page, and we also have a linked database that references content from our XRay workspace. 

When we make it public, only the inline database is visible. 

Use Notion More Efficiently with Templates

Notion is a great app for taking notes, drafting documents, and keeping track of your company’s critical information. Its versatile blocks let you arrange and display your content in nearly any format you can think of, but building a document from scratch every time can get a bit tedious.

With templates, you and your team can create the layouts you need instantly and get right back to work.  If you’d like to learn more about using Notion and other no-code tools in your everyday work, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Ensuring that your databases are accurate and consistent is essential for preventing errors in your workflows. However, manually updating the same records in different spots is a tedious process, and it’s liable to introduce even more mistakes into your records. 

Instead, you should keep your databases in sync with no-code automation tools like Whalesync. When you connect two databases in Whalesync, any updates to either database will be automatically reflected in the other table, making sure that your data will be accurate no matter where you access it. 

In this post, we’ll show you how to sync Notion and Airtable databases in Whalesync in a few simple steps. 

Preparing Your Databases in Notion and Airtable

First, you’ll need to have two similarly structured databases in both Notion and Airtable.

Having the same fields in both databases will ensure that your data syncs properly between the two apps.

At the very least, you should make sure that both tables have fields for all of the attributes that you want to sync. If you want one of the tables to include extra fields that aren’t synced, that’s fine; you can simply configure the automation to ignore those fields. 

Create a New Base in Whalesync and Authorize Your Apps

Next, open up Whalesync and create a new base. This base will automatically synchronize your Airtable and Notion databases. 

To connect your Airtable and Notion databases to Whalesync, you'll need to authorize both services. 

To do this, simply pick your two apps from the list and follow the instructions to grant Whalesync access.

Authorizing Airtable

For Airtable, you'll need to provide your API key and your base sharing link. 

To get your API key, go to your Airtable account settings and scroll down to the API section. Click on the API key to reveal it and copy it, then paste it into the API key field in Whalesync. 

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To get the base sharing link, click on the Share button in Airtable and enable base sharing. 

Then, copy the link and paste it into the appropriate field in Whalesync. Save the connection to complete the setup for Airtable.

For Notion, you'll be redirected to a window where you can authorize Whalesync. 

Simply pick the specific pages that you want to grant access to and save the connection.

Mapping Your Tables and Fields

Now that your Airtable and Notion databases are connected to Whalesync, it's time to map your tables. 

Click on "Map tables" and select the two tables that you want to sync. 

Then, click on “Map Fields” and identify the specific fields that you want to sync between your databases. 

Whalesync will automatically match up fields with the same name, but you can manually map additional fields as needed. 

For instance, since one of our databases has a field called “full name” while the other is just “Name”, we’ll have to map them together manually. 

Set Your Sync Direction and Turn on the Base

Now you’re nearly ready to turn on the sync. You just need to pick whether your base will operate as a 2-way sync or a 1-way sync. 

2-Way Syncs

With a 2-way sync, both databases will be updated to reflect changes made in either app. Changes you make in Notion will appear in Airtable, and changes you make in Airtable will appear in Notion. 

1-Way Syncs

With a 1-way sync, the base will only update records to reflect changes in one of your apps. If you select the arrow pointing towards Notion, then any edits you make in Airtable will be reflected in Notion. If you select the arrow pointing towards Airtable, then any edits you make in Notion will be reflected in Airtable.

Pick the syncing method you want to use, and turn your sync on. Now that it’s live, any updates you make to your database should be synced within a few moments. 

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Save Time and Reduce Errors with Whalesync

Using Whalesync to keep your Airtable and Notion databases up to date can prevent costly errors caused by inaccurate or duplicate data, and it can save you some time on copying and pasting information from one app to another. It only takes a few minutes to get started, so try it out today!

If you’d like to learn more about building no-code and low-code automations, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Airtable boasts a wide range of features that make it the perfect database for no-code and low-code automations. 

One of the simplest but most effective of these features is the ability to create linked records. 

Linked records let you establish a 2-way relationship between records in different tables. It’s a great way to associate two related pieces of data - like connecting project managers to all of the clients they’re working with. 

Once you’ve got a linked record in place, you can also add lookup fields, so you can see additional detail from the record that you’ve linked. 

In this post, we'll show you how it all works step by step.

Creating a Linked Record

Before you create a linked record, you’ll need to have two tables within the same base.

In our example, we’ll be linking our “Project Managers” table with our “Clients” table. Since they’re both in the same “Tutorials” base, we can do this with a linked record field type. 

To create a linked record, start by adding a new field. 

Then, select the option that says “link to another record”. 

Choose the table that you want to link to. In our example, we’ll choose the “Clients” table.

Airtable will then give you a couple of options: “Allow linking to multiple records”, and “Limit record selection to a view”. 

Linking Multiple Records

If you check “Allow linking to multiple records”, you can associate each record with multiple others. For example, this would allow you to associate one project manager with as many clients as you’d like. 

If your data should only support a one-to-one association, then you should turn this option off. Otherwise, you can leave it on.  

Limiting Record Selection to a View

Checking “limit record selection to a view” will ensure that you can only choose records from a specified view. Once you’ve set your options accordingly, create the field. 

Now, you can reference a record by just clicking on this linked field and selecting one of the options that comes up. 

Once you’ve linked one record to another, you’ll see the association in both tables. In our example, you can see a “Clients” field in our Project Manager table, and a “Project Manager” field in the Clients table.

Note that if you change the names of the linked table, the new name will not update in the other table. So if you change your “Clients” table to “Customers”, the Clients field in the Project Manager table will still be called Clients.  

Adding Lookup Fields

One of the most practical benefits of creating linked records is the ability to add lookup fields. Lookup fields let you display additional fields from your linked records. So instead of just seeing the name of the record, you can see any other attributes that you’d like to add. 

In our example, we’ll add lookup fields for the client’s email address, and their project type.

To add a lookup field, add a new field and select “Lookup”. You can also click on the linked field and select “Add Lookup”.

If you have multiple linked records in this table, you can choose which linked record you’d like to use. Then, choose the field from the linked record that you’d like to include. 

In our example, we’ll start with Email, then we’ll add Project Type in the same way. 

Note that lookup fields populate automatically, and can’t be edited directly. You’ll have to update the record in its original table instead.

You can add as many lookup fields as you like to see all of the data you need in one place. This is also super handy if you’re automating with Zapier or Make.

Using Linked Records and Lookup Fields in No-code Automations

If you’re a no-code automation builder, linked records and lookup fields can be a vital tool to have at your disposal. 

With linked records, you can put all of the data an automation needs in a single table, so you can gather it all with just one trigger or search step. For instance, we can quickly put together a Zapier automation that runs every week to send an email to one of our Project Manager’s clients.

We’ll use “schedule” as a trigger, so the automation runs every Monday at noon.

Then, we’ll add an Airtable step to find our project manager’s record. We’ll search the “full name” field for “Sarah Smith”, and test the action.

Now that Zapier found this record, we can use every field in future steps.

When we add a Gmail step, we can retrieve the client’s email from Sara Smith’s Project Manager record. No need for an additional search step in Zapier. 

And if we ever need to update the client’s email address, we don’t need to manually update it in the Project Manager record. It will happen automatically once we update the clients table. 

Use Airtable as Your Automation Database

Airtable is a great spreadsheet app for building no-code automations. Tools like linked records make it easier to build and maintain efficient Zaps and scenarios in Make. 

If you’d like to learn more about using tools like Airtable to support your no-code and low-code automations, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Airtable and Google Sheets are both popular tools for storing and organizing your data. But while these two spreadsheet apps may look quite similar at first glance, a closer inspection reveals some key differences that set the two apart. 

In this post, we’ll take a look at how both apps let you display and organize your data, how well they support no-code automation, pricing, and more. 

Field and Data Types

First, let’s look at the available field types in both apps. Airtable features several customizable types for each field. You can use standard short text and long text for generic data like names or labels, but they also provide email fields, URL fields, phone numbers, formula fields, single and multi-select fields, checkboxes, and a whole lot more.

Linked Records in Airtable

There’s also one particularly useful field type that you should definitely know about if you’re considering Airtable: linked records.

Linked records let you reference a record from another table.

For instance, let’s say you have a table with all of your personnel, and a separate table with all of the clients you’re working with.

With linked records, you can easily create two-way associations between each of your team members and the clients they’re working with.

You can also use Lookup fields to include additional data from the linked record. For example,  you could add in fields like project due dates, or the client’s email address.

Linked records get updated automatically whenever the original is updated, so you don’t have to worry about them getting out of sync.

Few Options for Field Types in Google Sheets

In comparison, Sheets doesn’t really offer many different field types.

You can use formatting options to make sure numbers are correctly laid out as currency or dates, but this doesn’t change the field type. 

As part of a recent update, you can also turn fields into “People Chips”, which are objects that reference someone’s Google account. 

But that’s about all that Google Sheets offers for diverse field types. 

If you’re looking for the convenience and versatility having different field types affords, then you’ll probably want to check out Airtable.

Organizing Your Data with Custom Views

Now, let’s compare how both apps let you organize your data.

In Airtable, you can create several customized views to choose how your data is displayed.

You can use precise filters to determine which fields or records are hidden, and you can use different view types to display your data in different formats and layouts. 

You can stick with a basic grid, create a gallery of image attachments, make a kanban board for your team’s tasks, or make an interactive form for people to submit data - among other options.

On the other hand, Google Sheets doesn’t have many options for how you display your data. You can create and save filters for your columns, but setting them up isn’t nearly as intuitive as Airtable’s filters menu. 

And there are no built-in tools to reorganize your data into visually engaging formats like galleries or Kanban boards.

If you’re strictly working with simple numerical data, the limited display options in Sheets likely won’t be an issue. But if you’d like to create different views and tools with a diverse and dynamic dataset, then Airtable will probably be the better choice. 

No-code Automation Support

Next, let’s talk about one of our favorite subjects at XRay: no-code automation.

Building no-code automations in Airtable

Airtable includes native support for some simple automations. If you’ve ever built no-code automations, the interface for Airtable’s automations will be very familiar and easy to use. 

You just need to pick a trigger - like a new record getting added to a specified view - and configure the actions you’d like to run whenever the trigger happens. 

For instance, you can automatically send messages in Gmail or Slack, create issues in Jira or Github, create additional records in Airtable, and a lot more.

Supporting Zapier and Make Automations with Airtable

Airtable is also a great app to use with no-code providers like Zapier or Make.

Linked records let you use Airtable to build flexible datasets for your automations, while the extensive view options give you easy ways to trigger your automations. And because Airtable generates a unique ID for every single record, it’s easy to find and update any given record with your automations from any automation provider. And if you ever reorder or rename your columns, the automation providers can still locate the records by using the same ID. 

Automation with Google Sheets

In comparison, Google Sheets isn’t nearly as well suited to automation. 

Sheets doesn’t have any built-in no-code automation tools, though you can use macros or Google Scripts to build some automations if you’re familiar with their syntax. However, like most popular SaaS tools, Google Sheets can be automated with apps like Zapier or Make. 

That being said, Sheets isn’t as convenient of a tool for no-code automation.

Without views and forms, you don’t have as much control over triggering your automations. And since every cell is identified by its row and column, rearranging a spreadsheet will produce unexpected results in your automations. 

Data could be retrieved from -or added to- the wrong cell, making your automation work incorrectly. And worst of all, it could take a long time before you notice the issue, as the automation may not return an error - even if you rename or rearrange the columns. 

If you’re trying to choose a spreadsheet app to use as a no-code automation database, Airtable is the clear winner. 

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Handling large datasets

Most of our comparisons so far have given a clear edge to Airtable, but this next category is something that Google Sheets handles much better than Airtable.

If you’re dealing with very large datasets, Google Sheets is likely the better choice. 

A single spreadsheet in Google Sheets can hold up to 5 million cells, while each base in Airtable is limited to 50,000 rows for Pro accounts, and 250,000 rows for enterprise users. 

So if you’re working with millions of records in a single database, Google Sheets is certainly a better choice than Airtable. 

However, if you’re using datasets that are that large, you may also want to consider enterprise-caliber databases like Google Cloud, AWS, or Postgres instead. There are even no-code enterprise database tools like NocoDB, Backendless, and Xano - but we won’t be covering those apps in detail in this post. Just bear in mind that all of these options will be more expensive than the free Google Sheets.

Pricing

Speaking of price, let’s finish up by comparing the pricing options for both apps.

Google Sheets Pricing

Google Sheets itself is totally free to use. You just need to make a Google account to start creating spreadsheets. Every free Google account comes with 15 gigabytes of cloud storage. 

Of course, spreadsheets don’t take up a lot of space, but if you do need more than 15 gigabytes, you have a couple of options.

For businesses, Google Drive offers 2TB of storage for $12 per user per month.

For individual accounts, Google One starts at $2 per month for 100Gb of cloud storage, and goes up to 2TB for $10 a month.

Airtable Pricing

Airtable offers a free plan which can be great for individual users, but does have its limitations. It only supports 1,200 records per base, 1 extension per base, and doesn’t have any snapshot history - among other restrictions.For a pro plan that unlocks nearly all of Airtable’s features, you’ll need to pay $20 per user per month. 

If you want every feature that Airtable has to offer, like 3 years of revision history and on-premises Jira and Salesforce syncing, you’ll need to contact Airtable for an enterprise plan. 

These are annual contracts that can cost upwards of $10,000 per year. But when your entire organization runs on Airtable, it's well worth the cost, security, privacy, and enterprise-grade support. 

If you’re just looking to make some small databases for individual use, you can easily use either app for free.

However, if you plan to work with large databases with hundreds of thousands of records, then Sheets will definitely be the cheaper option. 

Choosing the right app for your team

Ultimately, Airtable is easily the better choice if you’re looking for a spreadsheet app that supports your automation efforts.

It’s also better if you’re just looking for an app that gives you flexibility and control over how you arrange and display your data.

Of course, if you’re already comfortable with Google sheets and its formulas, or if you have a huge dataset to work with, sticking with the totally free app may be the better choice. 

For many, Google sheets is also a familiar testing ground to prototype your ideas. 

At XRay, we prefer Airtable for its extensive automation support, but we can also see the value in using Google sheets as well - Especially to clean or re-organize messy datasets.

If you’d like to learn more about choosing software for no-code automation, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Testing your no-code automations is an essential part of the building process. With most no-code platforms, you’ll need to build your automations around test data from the very start, and you always need to confirm that your automations work correctly before sharing them with your team or your clients. 

 In this post, we’ll explain why testing is so important, and we’ll show you how to test your automations in no-code platforms Zapier and Make. 

In the world of no-code automation, testing isn’t optional

Testing your automations isn’t just a best practice. To put it simply, testing is not optional in automation apps like Zapier and Make. You need to use test data to even build the automations in the first place. 

Using test data to build automations

For instance, if you want your automation to run every time you add the ‘URGENT’ tag to an email, then you must have a message in your inbox with the ‘URGENT’ tag. 

When you test the trigger, Zapier or Make should find that email and return a long list of relevant data which you can then use to build the rest of the automation.

If your trigger step finds nothing when you test it, then that’s a sign that something wasn’t configured correctly. 

Without test data from your trigger, you will have a very difficult time building your automation. In many cases, it won’t even be possible at all, since you won’t be able to reference the data that you want to manipulate in your automations. 

Testing automations before delivery

Much like traditional software, no-code automations need to be thoroughly tested before they’re ready to use for everyone. The last thing you want is for your critical automated workflow to perform hundreds of inaccurate actions before you catch the problem. 

Unlike software development, testing your no-code automations is just as simple and intuitive as building the automations themselves. Apps like Zapier and Make both make it easy to test your automations, and we’ll show you to use both step by step. 

How to test automations in Zapier

In Zapier, you’ll be prompted to test every step that you build with a clearly labeled button, but it looks a little bit different based on whether you’re testing the trigger or the actions.

Testing triggers in Zapier

Once you’ve configured your trigger for the first time, you’ll see a button that says “Test trigger”. Just click on it to grab your first round of test data.

You can then see the information that Zapier found. In our example, we’re looking at an Airtable record that was added to our specified base and table. 

If your trigger step found several pieces of data, you can just click on the dropdown that says “Record A” (or B, C, etc.)  to choose a different one. 

In that same menu, you can also click on “load more” if you don’t see a record that you think should have been found, or if you’ve created new data to test with since the last time you ran a test in Zapier.

Once you’ve reviewed the test data and confirmed that everything looks right, you can click on ‘Continue’ to add an action to your automation. 

Testing actions in Zapier

In our example, we’ll create a simple step that sends a brief message in Slack with the name of the new contact in our directory. 

Once your Zapier action is configured, click on “Continue”, and you’ll see a button that says “Test Action”. 

Before you click on that button, bear in mind that testing a step in Zapier will actually perform that action, and it will do so immediately. 

In our case, clicking on “Test Action” would send a Slack message to the designated channel right away. 

Testing your automations safely

When you’re testing your automations, always make sure that your test data is safe to use. You probably don’t want to send a bunch of test messages to clients, leads, or other contacts. 

If you need some fake data just to test with, we’d recommend checking out Mockaroo. It’s a great free resource for creating a CSV or XLS file with any data type you want - names, fake company names, dates, even numbers formatted like IP addresses. 

Alternatively, you can also just alert your client or your team that you’ll be testing the automation, and that they may see some messages or alert pop up that they can disregard. 

Once you’re all set to test, just click the button and your configured action should happen immediately. In our example, we see the Slack message pop up shortly after clicking on the “Test” button.

We can also see additional data about the message that was sent in Zapier. 

If your automation is configured how you want it after testing, you can click on “Publish” to turn it on. 

Testing automations in Make

Now let’s take a look at testing an automated scenario in Make. 

Testing an automation in Make is a little different, as Make gives you the option to test the entire scenario at once. But first, let’s just start with testing the trigger.

Testing triggers in Make

Once you’ve set up your trigger module, click OK to close the configuration window. Save your changes, then, right click on the trigger module. 

You could select “Run this module only” to run it, but you’ll get the most consistent results by selecting “Choose where to start” first. 

Then select “Choose manually”. From here, you can just pick a specific piece of data to use as you’re building your automation. 

With a piece of data selected, you can right-click again and select “Run this Module Only”. You should see a number appear over the trigger module. Click on it to see the data retrieved by the trigger, and confirm that Make found the correct data.

Testing actions in Make

When you add an action module, you can test that module alone by saving your changes, right clicking on the step, and selecting “Run this module only”. 

However, depending on the integrations you’re using, you might see some unexpected results when you test one step at a time in Make.

If your action module uses data from previous modules, you’ll be prompted to provide that data manually instead, which might make it hard to tell if the automation will actually work correctly when all of the steps are running in sequence. 

In many cases, the safest approach is to test the entire scenario by returning to the trigger step, choosing a starting point manually, and then clicking on “run once”. 

It can be a little tedious, but it gives you the most consistent and reliable test results. If you’ve seen some of our Make and Integromat tutorials on our blog or YouTube channel, you may have noticed that we typically use this method to test.

Just like with Zapier, testing a step or a scenario in Make causes it to run, immediately creating, updating or deleting data as you’ve specified, so make sure that it’s safe to run your automation with the test data you’re using before you start testing. 

Performing live tests with your Zapier and Make automations

With both Zapier and Make, we’d recommend running a live test before you consider an automation complete.  With a live test, you won’t use either app’s testing functions; instead, you’ll just perform the actions required to trigger the automation and confirm that it runs correctly in real time. 

Live tests in Zapier

In Zapier, publish your Zap to save it and turn it on. Then, perform whatever action you’ve specified as your trigger. 

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In many cases, nothing will happen immediately. Most Zaps only run on 5 or 15 minute intervals, depending on your subscription plan. Just wait for a few minutes, and you should see the configured action occur. 

Live tests in Make

In Make, you can configure your trigger to run as often as you’d like (though bear in mind that this will use data, which will count against your monthly limits). Then, click on the “Save” icon to make sure all of your changes are committed, then click on the “On/Off” switch to turn the scenario on.

Perform the automation’s trigger action, and your scenario should run as configured. 

Once you have a successful live test, you can let your team or your client know that the automation is ready to use. 

Building effective, reliable automations with thorough testing

Testing no-code automations in Zapier and Make is a necessary step to ensure that your automations are functioning properly and delivering the desired results. 

By taking the time to test your automations, you can identify any potential issues and make any necessary adjustments before they impact your business. 

If you’d like to learn more about no-code automation, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

AI is making huge leaps forward every day. 

Gone are the days of simplistic chatbots that could only echo what they were told without any semblance of context or interpretation. 

Right now, there’s a free AI tool that can simulate realistic conversation, draft entire essays, compose poems, and even try its virtual hand at writing code. 

In this post, we’re going to tell you about ChatGPT, an AI tool that’s going to completely change the way you write content for your company. 

It’s called ChatGPT, we’ll show you how to use it to quickly write blogs, social media posts, and more. 

A Free* and Powerful Chatbot Tool from OpenAI

ChatGPT is a tool developed by OpenAI. It uses natural language processing powered by GPT3 to create an extremely sophisticated chatbot. You can ask ChatGPT questions or give it prompts in plain language, and get stunningly realistic answers in return.

Right now, ChatGPT is totally free to use. Just go to the link in the description below to try it out and give it as many prompts as you’d like. It can be a little slow at times due to heavy traffic, but there are no strict limits on how much you can use the tool for now.

We don’t know when OpenAI will start charging for ChatGPT, but it’s extremely likely that they will at some point. 

Given that it may not be freely available for much longer, we strongly encourage you to make an account and start exploring ChatGPT right away, before it’s locked behind some kind of a paywall.

Rapidly generate ideas and break writer’s block

One of the great things about using ChatGPT for writing content is that it can help to take some of the pressure off of coming up with ideas on your own. 

If you're feeling stuck or uninspired, or if you’re just too busy to brainstorm a long list of ideas, ChatGPT can help spark your creativity and provide new concepts to explore.

For instance, you can give ChatGPT a prompt like: write me ten motivational tweets about productivity, and it will respond accordingly with ten short statements about productivity.

If you take a look at the results, you’ll see that they’re pretty well written messages.

Several examples caution readers against aiming for perfection, like #8: “Strive for progress, not perfections. Small wins add up to big success over time."

Others focus on more practical tips, like #4: "If you want to be productive, start by setting clear goals and breaking them down into manageable tasks."

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If we leave these Tweets as they are, they’re maybe a little bland and vague, but they’re a great jumping off point. 

We can just add a quick tip about using a task management app to #4’s recommendation about breaking up larger goals into smaller tasks, and it’s a solid post. 

And ultimately, even if you reject a large part of ChatGPT’s output, it can be a valuable exercise to determine what you don’t want to write.

Diversify your content and your writing style

Of course, you shouldn’t just stop with one prompt. A key advantage of using ChatGPT is that it can help to diversify your content. By using ChatGPT to generate text, you can cover a wider range of topics, ideas, and styles, which can help to keep your audience engaged and send exactly the right message. 

Earlier, we asked ChatGPT to give us ten motivational tweets about productivity. We can just swap out “motivational” for “funny”, and we get a few jokes about productivity formatted like Tweets. 

Many of these center around the theme of trying to be productive, but ultimately struggling to get anything done, like #2: “Just spent an entire hour organizing my to-do list... and now I have no time to actually do any of the tasks on it #priorities"

#4 follows a similar pattern: “Tried using the Pomodoro Technique to increase my productivity, but all it did was make me really good at playing with a kitchen timer #fail"

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Tweet #3 takes a slightly darker turn: "Productivity tip: if you want to get things done, just pretend the world is ending tomorrow and you have to save it #motivation"

Comedy writers probably don’t have much to fear from ChatGPT – yet – but these aren’t half bad. 

If you’re struggling to come up with a few funny or silly comments to lighten up your company’s social media feed, this is a great way to get the ball rolling. 

Write more content in less time

The output of ChatGPT isn’t perfect. We wouldn’t recommend blindly copying and pasting your content directly from the chatbot – especially if you’re asking it to write code. 

Its linguistics model is highly advanced, but it can still spit out some awkward or incorrect sentences, and very frequently, it will be a little bland and straightforward. 

Instead, think of it as a tool that you can use to speed up your writing process. Use ChatGPT to generate more ideas, more outlines, and more content overall in less time

Let the chatbot shoulder the burden of generating long lists of posts, or creating an outline, or just drafting a conclusion to a post that you’ve already nearly finished. 

If you’ve ever written and edited content, you know how difficult it can be to write something and polish it all on your own.

ChatGPT gives you decent brainstorms and rough drafts to start from in a matter of seconds - as long as the servers aren’t overloaded by everyone playing with this awesome new toy. 

With ChatGPT, you can spend less time writing line after line of copy, and more time editing for tone, for precision, and for style. 

Ultimately, ChatGPT is like any other workflow automation tool that we work with at XRay. It’s not about replacing people; it’s about letting them do more with their time. 

AI isTransforming the Workplace

The advances that we’re seeing these days in AI are extraordinary. No matter how you feel about AI, there’s no doubt that this tech is going to disrupt and transform the way that we all work. 

Don’t just sit on the sidelines. Explore this amazing tech for yourself, and start using AI tools to do better work in less time. 

If you’d like to learn more about boosting your productivity with workflow automation, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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A few simple calculations can be the difference between a perfect workflow automation and a frustrating tool that doesn’t do what you need it to. 

Make (formerly Integromat) gives you an extensive selection of math operations that you can use in any text field in your scenarios. 

You can use these functions to add numbers, round off a decimal point, find the average value in a set of numbers, or even generate a random value. 

In this post, we’ll show you how to perform each of these functions with short, step-by-step tutorials. We’ll use a Slack module as an example, so the result of every function will be sent as a Slack message. 

Add numbers together

With the “sum” function, Make will calculate the sum of every number you enter between the parentheses. Here’s how it works:

• Open any text field in your scenario

• Select the X¹ symbol to access math functions

• Click on the ‘sum’ function to add it to your selected field

• Enter the numbers you want to add together, separated by semicolons

• Alternatively, you can enter an array of numbers to add together

• Run the module to output the sum 

Round decimal values to whole numbers

Make’s “round” function will round any number with a decimal point to the nearest whole integer. For example, 3.7 would be rounded to 4, while 7.23 would be rounded to 7. To use the round function:

• Open any text field in your scenario

• Select the X¹ symbol to access math functions

• Click on the “round” function to add it to your selected field

• Enter the number you want to round between the parentheses

• Run the module, and the output will include the number rounded to the nearest integer

Find the average of a set of numbers 

Make lets you easily calculate the average of several numbers with this simple function. Just enter an array of numbers or values separated by semicolons to calculate the mean. For example, the average of 5, 6, and 7 would be 6. 

• Open any text field in your scenario

• Select the X¹ symbol to access math functions

• Click on the “average” function to add it to your selected field

• Enter the numbers that you want to use, separated by a semicolon

• Alternatively, you can enter an array of numbers 

• Run the module to output the average

Generating a random number

Generating a random number can be a useful technique for many automated workflows. To create one in Make, all you have to do is use the prebuilt variable called “random”. Here’s how it works:

• Open any text field in your scenario

• Select the X¹ symbol to access math functions

• Click on the “random” variable to add it to your selected field

• Run the module to generate a random number between 0 and 1

Generating a number between 0 and 100

In many cases, it will be more appropriate to generate a whole number between 0 and 100 rather than a decimal value between 0 and 1. To do that, you just need to multiply the “random” variable by 100 and round the result. 

• Open any text field in your scenario

• Select the X¹ symbol to access math functions

• Click on the “round” function to add it to your selected field

• Add the “random” variable between the parentheses of the “round” function

• Click on the green multiplication symbol to multiply the “random” variable by 100

• Run the module to check your result

Build more advanced scenarios with math functions

Using Make’s math functions will let you build more sophisticated automations that transform your data and respond effectively to different circumstances. The functions in this post are just a sample of what’s available; try exploring the rest to discover everything you can do with these tools.

If you’d like to learn more about workflow automation with tools like Make and Zapier, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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For startups and growing companies, managing your team’s data and documents can be a headache. Scattered resources in Google Drive, Slack, and everyone’s personal devices make it difficult for everyone to find what they need to get their work done. 

In this post, we’re going to take a look at two web tools that can help you to organize and access your company’s critical information: Notion and Airtable.

Both of these apps are great solutions for managing your company’s data and resources, but they each fill a somewhat different niche.

In this post, we’ll explain the relative strengths and weaknesses of both tools, and I’ll share my thoughts on which use cases are best suited to each app.

Notion and Airtable: Key Use Cases and Differences

First, let’s take a look at the overall differences between the two tools.

Create rich text documents and simple databases with Notion

Notion is a piece of software that is all about creating documents. It has extensive formatting and styling options for your text, and a huge array of blocks that you can add to any document. 

If you want to create user guides, or an employee handbook, or a training curriculum, or any text-based resource, then Notion is a great app to do it in. 

Notion also allows you to create tables and databases which can include some impressive features like linked records. 

Build versatile, functional databases in Airtable 

Airtable, on the other hand, is essentially a highly sophisticated spreadsheet app. It’s somewhat similar to Google Sheets or Excel, but with far more features for organizing and using your data. 

For instance, you can use filters and views to display any subset of your data that  you want; you can use form views to let your team or your clients easily contribute to your database; and you can use automations and extensions to build workflows around your data.

Using Airtable and Notion together

With complementary strengths and weaknesses, Airtable and Notion work great together. By creating your text documents in Notion and managing your data and automations in Airtable, you can get the most out of both tools. 

However, dividing the two into distinct use cases isn’t always so straightforward. Notion can also create databases, and you can create interfaces in Airtable to give context to your data.

And in many cases, you may prefer to consolidate everything into a single app. 

So let’s dive into the more specific distinctions that really set these apps apart from each other and explore how you can use them in your workflows. 

Interfaces and structure

First, let’s compare one of the primary aspects that you’ll interact with in both apps: their interfaces and visual organization. 

Notion’s interface

Notion’s layout is highly customizable and modular. It allows for almost endless nesting of your data and documents. Any page or table can be nested within another page.

This kind of flexibility allows for nearly any organizational system that you want to create, but it can make it difficult to quickly surface a specific piece of data. 

It might also be overwhelming for first time users since you never really know how deep things are nested.

Airtable’s layout and structure

In comparison, Airtable has a more strictly defined organizational hierarchy. All of your data is stored in individual bases. Each base can contain several tables, and each table can be organized into different views that sort and filter your data. 

The workspace holds bases, bases hold tables, tables hold records, and records have fields. That’s it; no nesting, no changing the existing hierarchy.

Comparing interfaces

Notion’s customization makes it great for creating specific, guided paths with your documents, while Airtable’s more standardized layout makes it much easier to search for data. 

Notion’s search functions can help you to find whatever you’re looking for, but if your databases have over a thousand records each, its indexing will likely make it hard to sift through any redundant or similar entries. Making search slow and less useful. 

Again, the key distinction between these two apps is that Notion’s interface makes it more ideal for creating docs for people to read, while Airtable is better at organizing databases and analyzing data.

Formatting and styling text in Notion and Airtable

In terms of formatting and styling text, Notion easily has the advantage over Airtable. You can add headings, dropdown toggles, background colors, columns and more to customize the layout of any given page. 

By contrast, an Airtable spreadsheet is mostly just a typical spreadsheet - albeit with a little more color and visual depth. In a standard table, you’re limited to a single font and no significant style options. However, you can color code records based on rules and add rich text to a Long Text field.

Airtable’s interfaces offer you more choices for customization, but these only exist as separate views to explore your data. 

If you need lots of options for visually formatting information for your team or clients to read, then Notion will probably be the better choice.

Workflow Automation in Notion and Airtable

Any SaaS tool can be used for automation, and that certainly includes both Notion and Airtable. You can easily automate data into and out of your Notion pages and Airtable databases using tools like Zapier or Make, as you can see on XRay.Tools. 

However, if you’re not already using third-party automation tools, then you’ll find that Notion and Airtable aren’t on the same page when it comes to native automation abilities. 

Airtable includes some pretty useful features for building automations right within the app. 

Its native automation capabilities aren’t as widely integrated as what you’d find in Zapier or Make, but it can still write scripts, build if-then flows, and automatically send information to popular apps like Slack, Gmail, and Salesforce.

Notion, on the other hand, lacks any built-in automation features. You can still automate Notion using other tools, but it doesn’t offer those capabilities right out of the box. 

Reports and analytics

What if you want to look at reports and analytics about all the data that you’re creating and storing?

Airtable has reporting features for generating visualizations via their extensions library, such as the “Charts” extension developed by Airtable themselves. It’s also pretty easy to set up a data pipeline into more robust reporting software like Tableau or Google Data Studio if you’d like more control over the details.

Notion, on the other hand, simply does not have any natively supported reporting. There are third-party add-ons available, but these focus on ‘views’ of individual pages, not necessarily analyzing the data points of your Notion workspace. 

For instance, they won’t let you see the number of records changed, or meta-statistics about your team's usage or project completion statuses. If reporting is essential for your team, then you’ll probably want to use Airtable.

However, you could also use Notion and Airtable together. 

Connecting Notion to Airtable for reports

At XRay, we actually built an Airtable-based analytics system for Notion. We manage all of our tasks and projects in Notion using a custom system of templates and automations. Then, to view analytics and reports on our tasks, we turn to Airtable. 

By connecting the two, we know how many tasks were created per project, when, and by whom. 

We know how many tasks were completed, we know who is assigning tasks and what percentage of tasks are completed before their due date. 

Note that neither Airtable or Notion will natively give you these granular usage analytics, but it is possible to create a system that can capture how your team is working, not just providing them a structure to work within. 

If you want to get usage analytics for your Notion workspace, just click here to schedule some time to talk. 

Pricing plans in Airtable and Notion

No software comparison would be complete without bringing up the issue of price. 

Airtable’s pro plan costs $20 per user per month, while Notion’s Team plan costs $8 per user per month. These plans include all of the features that both apps offer. There are also enterprise plans available for both tools, but you’ll need to talk to their sales teams to get a quote. 

You don’t need a seat for everyone on your team

At only $8/mo, Notion is obviously the more affordable option.However, It's more likely you’ll want to pay for more of your team to access and contribute to Notion. With Airtable, it’s common for a smaller subset of your team to need edit access to your bases. 

Depending on the skillset and needs of your team, a combination of both tools may be the most affordable and appropriate option for you. 

In any case, you don’t necessarily need to pay for a seat for everyone on your team with either app. Both apps let you control permissions on a granular level, and offer alternatives to granting full edit access.

You can just share an Airtable form view with people who need to contribute entries to a database, or share specific pages in Notion rather than adding another seat to your workspace.

Ultimately, if price is a major concern, Notion will clearly be the better choice, but neither app is prohibitively expensive for a small team. 

Using Notion and Airtable to support your company

To sum it all up, if you’re looking to create verbose documents primarily intended for people to read, then Notion’s probably the better choice. If you’re looking to create large databases, particularly for use in automation, Airtable is the better pick.

However, both apps do work well together. The two are not mutually exclusive. For many companies, the best choice will be to adopt both and use each one as needed in specific circumstances.

If you’d like to learn more about web tools that can help your company to be more productive, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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With dozens of  platforms that support thousands of popular SaaS tools, the possibilities with no-code automation are nearly endless.

However, confirming that each app in a given workflow is supported by your preferred provider can be a tedious process.

To help streamline automated workflow design, we’ve created a resource called XRay.Tools.

XRay.Tools is a free search engine that we at XRay.Tech have built to help people automate their workflows.

It lets you search for the apps you use every day to discover what you can automate within them.

In this post, we’ll give you a detailed overview of how XRay.Tools works. 

Search for your frequently used web tools

To get started, just open up your browser and go to www.xray.tools. 

Right at the top of the page, you’ll see a simple search bar. In this search bar, you can enter the name of any app that you’d like to look up. 

For instance, if you search “Google”, you’ll see results for apps like Google Ads, Google Chat, Google BigQuery, Google Calendar, and more.

In our example screenshot below, we’ve selected Google Calendar to add it to our toolbelt.

We also use Airtable frequently at XRay, so we’ll add that app as well. As you can see in the image below, adding a new tool doesn’t replace the old one. You can keep adding as many tools as you’d like to create an accurate selection for your workflow. 

At a glance, we can see that both Airtable and Google Calendar have automation support in Zapier, Make, and Workato. To get more detail, we can just click on this button that says “View Automation Abilities” for either app.

View automation abilities for your apps

When you click on “View Automation Abilities”, you’ll see a detailed breakdown of every trigger, action, and search that you can automate with your chosen app.

Automation Abilities: Triggers

If you’re not familiar with these terms, triggers are the events that launch your automation.

Each automation includes a single trigger that kicks everything off, and it usually gathers some key data as well. 

For instance, if you used the ‘New Record’ trigger listed for Airtable, Zapier would start the automation whenever a new record was added to the specified base. 

The trigger step would include all of the data in the Airtable record itself, as well as some metadata - like when the record was created and the record ID. 

Automation Abilities: Actions

You can use all of the data gathered in your trigger step to perform automated actions.

“Actions” is a general term that refers to basically any event that automation providers like Make and Zapier can automatically perform with your app.

Typically, you can automate nearly any action that you would perform manually in your software. You can create or update objects, draft and publish posts, copy documents, etc.

Unlike triggers, an automation can include as many actions as you’d like. 

As you can see in the example pictured below, Zapier, Make and Workato all offer pretty similar actions for Airtable, but there are a few differences.

For instance, Make and Workato both support automatic deletion of records, but Zapier does not.

Automation Abilities: Searches

Finally, XRay.Tools also indexes  “Searches”. 

Searches are automated steps that find data. 

With a search, you can look up an object by its name, its ID, or some other attribute. Like actions, you can include several searches within a single automation. Searches are a useful way to find additional data that wasn’t included in your automation trigger. 

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Planning your no-code automations

By checking the available triggers, actions, and searches for each app in your toolbelt, you can plan your automations before you start building. You can figure out which providers support the actions you want to automate, and choose your platform accordingly.

And if none of the providers have the options you’re looking for, XRay.Tools can help you to find an alternative app instead.

For instance, If you’re looking to automate your CRM, you might find that Hubspot has automation capabilities that Salesforce is missing, or vice versa.

XRay.Tools can be especially useful if you’re building automations for a client. Just ask them to search for all their SaaS tools and to send their toolbelt to you, so you can see everything they’re working with.

They can just click on “Get Shareable Link” to copy a URL that will save all of the tools currently searched. 

With a single link, you can see all of the apps that your client wants to work with, so you can start designing automated workflows right away. 

Search thousands of tools supported by 3 of the biggest no-code providers in the industry

XRay.Tools has indexed thousands of the most popular SaaS tools available, but we’re still adding more. If you can’t find your software in XRay.Tools, just click on “Request [your app] as a new tool” to let us know. 

You can also add the tool as a temporary placeholder. This won’t let you see any of the available triggers, actions, or searches for the app, but it will at least let you include it in your toolbelt for reference, when shared.

Currently, XRay.Tools supports three prominent automation providers: Zapier, Workato and Make (formerly known as Integromat). 

We plan to add support for more providers soon, and if there’s a specific automation app you’d like to see included, just click on the button to request it.

Get in touch with XRay

XRay.Tools is developed by our team at XRay.Tech. As workflow automation specialists, we want to make it easy for everyone to explore automation and discover ways to improve their workflows.

If you’d like to chat about starting a project with XRay, or if you’d like to join our Workflow Study, you can click on the buttons at the bottom of the page to get started. 

A resource for no-code creators

If you’re a builder planning an automation, XRay.Tools is a great place to start. It lets you see every event you can automate with every app in your toolbelt. It quickly gives you an idea of what’s possible, and lets you confirm your software’s automation capabilities before you start building. 

XRay.Tools is totally free and doesn’t require an account. Try it today, and let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

If you’d like to explore more tutorials and resources for building no-code and low-code workflow automations, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Make is a highly versatile low-code automation platform that gives you a wide range of tools to build automated workflows.

In a recent tutorial, we gave a brief overview of how you can use functions in Make to reformat your automation’s data or perform useful calculations with it.

In this post, we’ll take a look at a few specific text functions available in Make and share step-by-step walkthroughs for using them.

All of the functions in this article can be accessed by selecting a text field, and clicking on the “A” icon.

Capitalizing Text and Changing Case

Using consistent capitalization can ensure that your automation produces easily legible text, and will help your automated systems to find and use the correct data.

Make offers several options for changing the case or capitalization of a piece of text. 

Capitalize capitalizes the first letter in a string of text. “hello world” would become “Hello world”. 

Startcase capitalizes the first letter of every word in a string, so “hello world” would become “Hello World”. 

Upper changes the entire string to uppercase letters, while lower converts every character to lowercase. 

All of these capitalization functions work in essentially the same way, so you can follow the steps below to use any of them. 

How to Use Capitalize, Startcase, and other Capitalization Functions

• Select a text field in any Make module

• Click on the “A” icon

• Click on the function you want to use, such as “capitalize”

• Enter the text that you want to capitalize between the parentheses

• When you test the scenario, you should see correctly capitalized text

Replacing Text

Automatically replacing text can make your workflows more versatile and precise, or let you update a snippet of text without having to edit the original document. 

How to Find and Replace Text in Make 

• Select a text field in any Make module

• Click on the “A” icon

• Click on the “replace” function

• Before the first semicolon, enter the text that you want to edit

• Before the second semicolon, enter the text that you want to replace

• After the second semicolon, enter the text that you want to use as a replacement. 

• Our example will replace “Old Company” with “New Organization”. Note: this function is case sensitive

• When you test the scenario, the output should contain correctly replaced text

Finding the Length of a String

Finding the length of a string can help you to set a character limit, or warn users if they’ve exceeded one. 

How to find the length of a string in Make

• Select a text field in any Make module

• Click on the “A” icon

• Click on the “length” function

• Enter the string that you want to find the length of between the parentheses

• When you test the scenario, the function will output the length of the string

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Build advanced automations with text functions

Using text functions in Make will enable you to build more precise and flexible automated workflows. If you’d like to learn more about functions in Make, stay tuned for our future posts about date/time functions and calculations. 

If you’d like to learn more about no-code automated workflows, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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When building no-code or low-code automations, a few simple calculations or reformatting steps can go a long way towards producing the right results.

Whether you need to reformat a lengthy timestamp into an easily read date, capitalize every name in a list, or run some mathematical equations, you can find all of the functions you need in Make (formerly known as Integromat). 

In this quick tutorial, we’ll show you where you can find all of Make’s functions and we’ll show you a couple of examples of how to use these functions. 

Accessing functions in Make

Formatting text and numbers in Make is very simple, and you don’t need to add any special module to do it.

You can format your data within any module in Make just by accessing the functions tabs. 

For example, you can see a Slack module in the scenario pictured below that sends a message to a “tutorials” channel.

When you click on a text field in any Make module, a window pops up. 

By default, the window opens to a tab labeled with a star. In this tab, you’ll find all of the data gathered in previous steps in the scenario.

Function categories and tabs

Each of the other tabs in this window contains several functions that you can use to reformat text, process dates and times, run mathematical calculations, or perform other useful actions.  

All of the functions are grouped into broad categories.

Under the gear, you can find general functions. The X with an exponent denotes math functions.

The tab with the letter A contains text functions. Under the Calendar icon, you can find functions for working with date and time.

The icon that resembles a table contains functions for working with arrays. Finally, the curly brackets include some variables that refer to the scenario itself, like the scenario’s URL. 

Using a function in Make: Capitalize

Now let’s take a look at how you can use these functions. 

For example, open up the text functions and examine the “Capitalize” function.

When you hover over any of the functions, you’ll see additional details describing the function along with some examples.

If you want to use the function, just click on it  to add it to the active field. Then, insert the data that you want the function to use within the parentheses. 

With the “Capitalize” function, you just need to insert the text that you want to capitalize inside the parentheses. 

In our example pictured below, we want to make sure that everyone’s first name is capitalized, so we’ll enter the “first name” data block between the parentheses. 

Once you’ve added your Capitalize formula, save your scenario and run it once to test your setup.

When we test our example scenario and check Slack, we can see that the message sent with the name properly capitalized.

Using a function with arguments: Add Days

Some functions will require you to provide additional data or parameters.

For instance, you may want to add 3 days to a date in your scenario. 

Under the Date and time functions (calendar icon), choose “addDays”. 

When you click on it, you can see that it inserts the function into your active field, along with a semicolon between the parentheses. 

When a function includes a semicolon, that typically means you’ll need to insert data before and after the semicolon. 

You can usually find instructions for how you need to complete the function along with examples when you hover over the function in question.

In this case, you’ll need to insert a date before the semicolon, and the number of days you want to add after the semicolon. 

In our example, we’ll insert the date retrieved in our trigger (October 12th), and we’ll specify that we want to add 3 days by adding the number “3” after the semicolon.

When we save and run the scenario to test it, we can see the correct date in the Slack message - October 15th. 

Experiment with more functions in Make

Now you should be all set to start using functions in your Make scenarios. If you want to know more about any particular function, just hover over it for details and try it out. We’ll also post some additional tutorials soon with walkthroughs for specific functions.

If you’d like to learn more about building no-code and low-code automations, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Keeping a database up to date can be a tedious task, and missing or out-of-date entries can make the database less useful to your team as a source of truth.

In this quick tutorial, we’ll show you how to use Make (formerly Integromat) to automatically update existing database records. With an automated workflow like this, you can ensure that your databases stay current without having to add extra tasks to your workload. 

Updating a Notion Database item

In our example scenario, we’re going to automatically update our “Clients” database record every time that there’s a new meeting notes doc created for them in the “Meeting Notes” database.

The module pictured below watches the “Meeting Notes” database for new entries. 

You can check out our previous tutorial here for more information about setting up these “Watch database items” modules. 

Providing an ID for Your Database

Next, we’ll add an “Update Database item” module. 

In the “Database item” field, we need to provide the ID of the parent database that the item is stored in. 

Whenever you need to provide the ID of a Notion Database or Database item in Make, you have a couple of options. 

You can either enter the ID as a static value, or you can retrieve a dynamic ID from a previous module. 

The approach you choose will depend entirely on the context of your automation. If you always want to update the same database item with your automation, then it’s fine to just copy and paste the ID directly from the URL bar. 

If you want the automation to update different database items, then you’ll need to make sure you can dynamically retrieve that ID in a module before you can use it. 

Using the “Watch database items” module along with a filter can be a great way to do that, and we’ve covered that module in a previous tutorial.

In our example, our automation will only run for “FakeCo” in the client directory. To do that, we’ll add a filter after we finish setting up this second module.

In our example, since we’ll be updating the same database item, we’ll just enter it as a static value. 

You can find the ID by opening the database in Notion, and copying the string of text between your workspace name and question mark V. If you don’t have a workspace, the ID will start after Notion.so/

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Providing an ID for the Database Item

Then, enter the ID of the specific database item you want to update. Just open the item as a page in Notion, and select the characters after the last hyphen in your record’s name. 

Once you paste that ID into your Notion module, you can start filling in every property in that database as needed. 

If you leave a property blank, Make will leave that property as-is. If you enter data into a property, Make will overwrite the existing data with whatever you entered. 

Since our “Latest Meeting Notes” field is a Relation, we can enter the ID of the meeting notes doc retrieved in our first module. 

This will replace the current relation to last week’s meeting doc with a relation to this week’s meeting doc. We’ll leave all of the other fields blank to leave them as they are.

Adding a filter after the trigger

Before we can test the scenario, we just need to add a filter after the trigger module. The filter will make sure that this module only runs for the “FakeCo” client. 

We’ll set it so the “Name” of the “Clients” property must be equal to “FakeCo.”

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Now that we’ve added the filter, we’re ready to test the scenario.

And we can see that the record has been updated with a relation to the latest meeting notes doc. 

Keep your databases current automatically

Updating Notion databases with Make is pretty simple. All you need is the right IDs, and you can update any records you want automatically. 

If you’d like more no-code tips and tutorials, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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Automating your document templates is a great way to save a little time and create consistency with a simple task that you perform every day. 

Adding a few simple variables to a Google doc will let you use that document as an automated template for automation platforms like Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat). 

By just filling in a form with all the values you want to insert into your variables, you’ll be able to generate new docs in a matter of seconds. 

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to format the variables in Docs so that Zapier or Make can recognize and use the variables.

Then we’ll show you how to set up simple automations that actually create new documents, using either Zapier or Make.

Creating variables in your Google Doc

To create an automation-ready variable in Google Docs, you just need to enclose the text of your variable in two sets of curly braces. 

For example, in the doc pictured below, we want to change “John Smith” into two variables: First Name, and Last Name.

We’ll replace “John” with {{firstName}}, and we’ll do the same with “Smith” and {{lastName}} 

Formatting your Google Docs Variables

If you plan to use Make or Integromat to create documents, then you can use any format you want for your variable names.

However, if you’re using Zapier, we’d recommend avoiding hyphens, spaces, or other special characters in your variable names. 

Variables with spaces and hyphens aren’t currently recognized and supported in Zapier. They have supported these characters in the past, and they may update this later, but leaving them out of your variable names is the safer choice for now.

Preparing your doc for automation

Add all of the variables you want to your document. In our example, we’ll add several variables to our Meeting Notes documents like {{date}} and {{clientName}}

Once you’re finished adding all of your variables, copy your document ID. The ID can be found in the URL bar. It starts after /d/, and ends at the next forward slash. 

You’ll need this ID later when we build the automation. 

Building a Zapier Automation

Now let’s see how these variables work in practice. 

First, we’ll demonstrate how to make a simple Zap that creates a Google Doc from a template, then we’ll show you a similar scenario in Make.

We’ll create a Zap that uses our example doc as a template. When it triggers, it will automatically make a copy that fills in all of the variables with actual names, dates, etc. 

Creating the Zap

First, you’ll need a trigger step that gathers data to insert into the variables. In our example, we’re using a simple Airtable form to collect the information. 

Then, add a Google Docs step to your Zap. Choose “create a document from template”.

Click “continue”, and log into your Google account. 

Paste your document’s ID that you grabbed earlier into the “Template Document” field. Give your new doc a name, and specify the folder where you want it to be created. 

Mapping your Google Docs Variables in Zapier

Then, you should see all of the variables that you created as fields. If any of them are missing, just go back to your template and make sure that every variable has two sets of curly brackets and no spaces. 

Map each piece of collected data to the appropriate variable, and test your Zap.

You should see a new doc in the specified folder, with all of the variables replaced with real data. 

You can also look for the “alternate link” in the Zapier output to find the doc’s URL. 

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Building a Make Automation

Creating the Make Scenario

To automatically create a document from your template in Make, start by creating a new scenario.

Just like with Zapier, you’ll need a trigger module that can gather data to replace your variables with. Once again, we’ll use an Airtable form in our example, but you can use any application that collects the necessary information.

Mapping variables with Make with Tags

With the trigger set up, add a new Google Docs module and select “Create a Document from a Template”.

Under “Create a document from a Template”, select “By mapping”.

Copy and paste your Google doc’s ID into the “Document ID” field. 

The “values” field is where we’ll identify and replace our variables. 

Click the “add item” button to add a new Tag. Tag is the term that Make uses to describe variables in Google Docs.

Create Tags for Each Variable

In the field that says “Tags”, enter the name of your first variable exactly as it appears in your doc, except without the curly braces.

Then, in “replaced value”, enter the data from your trigger that you want to use. 

If possible, make sure the names for your variables are similar or identical in both sources. It’s much easier to map all of your variables when they’re clearly named. 

Repeat this process for every variable in your doc. Then, run the scenario to test it. 

You should see a new doc with each variable replaced by the appropriate data. 

Save time and make your work more consistent with templated docs

Now you’re all set to create automation-ready templates with your Google docs. It just takes a few minutes to set up, and then you can create error-free documents in seconds with either Zapier or Make.  

If you’d like to learn more about building no-code workflow automations, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

The repeater module in Make (formerly Integromat) lets you repeat actions in your scenario as many times as you specify.

Essentially, it’s a tool for building loops within your scenarios. This could be useful for sending out repeated reminders, creating several similar pieces of data, or any other situation where you need to repeat an action multiple times. 

If you’re looking to loop through the contents of an array or list, you’ll probably want to use the iterator instead. Check out our tutorial on using the iterator in Make here.

Setting up the repeater module

Create a scenario with a trigger and an action

Before you add a repeater, you’ll want to build a scenario that has a trigger module and at least one action module. 

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In our example, our scenario will run whenever it receives a webhook, and will send two Slack messages. The first will say “First repeater message”, while the second will say “Second repeater message”. 

If we run it now, we’ll see both of those messages appear in Slack - just one time each.

Add a repeater from “Flow control”

To add a Repeater module, click on the green “Flow control” icon and select “Repeater” from the list. 

Place your repeater module before all of the actions that you want to repeat. We’ll place ours before both of the Slack modules, so they will both be part of the loop. 

Click on your repeater module to configure it. You’ll see two options: “Initial value”, and “Repeats”.

“Initial value” is the number the repeater will start at. This defaults to 1, which is what you’ll usually want to use. 

In the “Repeats” field, you can set how many times the loop will repeat. The default is 3, but you can choose any number you’d like. 

(Optional) Adjust the Steps interval under “Advanced Settings”

There’s also one more option that you can access by clicking on “Show Advanced Settings”.

The “Steps” field lets you determine how much your initial value will increase each time the loop runs. 

If you leave your “Steps” value at the default of 1, then the repeater will generate the number 1 with your first repetition, the number 2 with your second, three with your third, and so on. 

But by changing the value, you could have the number increase by any amount you want. You could even use negative numbers to subtract from your initial value with each repetition. 

For instance, you might want to send out reminders at 5 minute intervals. So you could set the initial value to 15, then set the step to -5, and send a message every 5 minutes using those values. 

Configure and test the repeater

For now, we’ll just keep things simple. We’ll start at 1, and increase by 1 each time, with 4 total repetitions.  We’ll also add the “i” value from each repetition into our Slack message, just so we can see how it increases each time. 

When we run the scenario, we see 8 messages. Both of the Slack messages got sent 4 times, with the ‘i’ value increasing by 1 in each loop iteration of two messages. 

That covers all the basic info you need to know about the repeater module itself. But what if you want to include an action in this scenario that doesn’t get repeated?

How to add actions outside of the repeater loop

In many scenarios with a repeater, you may also want to include actions that only run once. There are two simple ways to add actions that only execute a single time. 

Add actions before the repeater

First, you can just add the actions before the Repeater module. Anything that’s placed before the Repeater in your diagram will only run once. 

For example, we’ll add another Slack message before the repeater that sends the message “This module runs before the repeater”. 

When we run the automation, we can see that we got our “before’ message only once, while the subsequent messages still repeated as intended. 

Add actions after the repeater loop with a filter

Your second option is to place the action after your repeated modules, and use a filter to prevent the scenario from executing the action until the repeater has completed. You can check the screenshots below for an example.

We’ll add one last Slack module at the end of the scenario, and the message will simply read “This module runs after the repeater”. 

Then, we’ll add a filter right before this module. We’ll give it a label that says “Repeater Finished”. In the “Condition” section, we’ll specify that the i value from the repeater must be equal to 4 for the scenario to continue. 

In other words, the scenario will only continue past this filter if the repeater has run 4 times, raising the initial value (or i) up to 4. 

Note: If you’ve changed the initial value or the step value, make sure to consider that when you’re setting up a filter like this. 

We’ll run the scenario one more time, and we can see one “before” message, 4 repeated pairs of messages, and just one “after” message. 

Build efficient automations with repeater loops

Now you should be all set to start adding repeaters to your Make or Integromat scenarios. They’re easy to implement, and they’re a simple way to add useful loops to any of your automations. 

If you’d like to learn more about building no-code automations, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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