Automation and the Cloud

If you want to truly take control of the Cloud, you’ll want to do more than sign up for a bunch of individual services and use them independently. You’ll want them to work together, often in ways that require no manual interaction. And there are some excellent ways to make that happen.

Entire books have been written about automation. (In fact, I wrote one myself: Take Control of Automating Your Mac!) In this short chapter, I can’t offer any of the nuts-and-bolts details, but I do introduce you briefly to the two most common and popular tools for automating cloud services: IFTTT (for If This, Then That) and Zapier.

It will come as no surprise, I’m sure, that IFTTT and Zapier are, themselves, both cloud services! Although their features differ somewhat, their underlying purpose is roughly the same: to serve as the glue that connects other cloud apps and services. Each service looks for a user-specified condition in one cloud service and then takes action involving one or more other cloud services. For example:

• Each time a new graphic appears in your Twitter feed, save it to a specified Dropbox folder.
• Create a new card in Trello whenever a message is starred in Gmail.
• Send yourself an SMS message whenever you’re tagged in a Facebook post.
• Automatically add release notes from your favorite iOS apps to a Google spreadsheet.

And, because your home automation gadgets and other smart devices connect to the Cloud too, they can often serve as either triggers for, or recipients of, the automated actions you set up.

IFTTT

IFTTT is a free service that’s extremely easy to use, and geared primarily toward consumers. It starts with several hundred services, which include most major cloud services and apps, social media and blogging platforms, home automation products, generic tools like email and SMS, and much more. You specify which of the available services you want to use and, where appropriate, fill in your credentials or other account details. Each service offers one or more conditions or actions that you can then use to build simple automations that IFTTT calls applets.

You can set up and create IFTTT applets either on the Web or in a mobile app. In its most basic form, an applet involves filling in just two blanks: “If __, then __.” That is, the applet checks for a condition somewhere in the Cloud, and if that condition is met, it takes a single action. (IFTTT provides many prebuilt actions; you can also build your own from scratch, use actions other people have created, or edit an existing applet to meet your needs.) Here are a few examples of prebuilt actions:

• Back up your new Facebook photos to Google Drive.
• Post to Trello when a specific tag is added to an Evernote note.
• Whenever you add a new iOS contact, mark it in your Google Calendar.
• Turn on your lights automatically as you arrive home.
• Automatically post a reminder to a Slack channel 15 minutes before a calendar event starts.
• Receive a mobile notification when your Whirlpool Dryer cycle finishes.

As you see, applets are customizable to include things like time, date, and location, among other attributes.

If you need more power, however, you can turn to the (also free) IFTTT Platform, which lets you create applets with greater complexity. For example, an applet can have not just one action but several—If this, then that and that and that. And, the starting condition can run through a filter that you write (using JavaScript) that overrides or skips actions depending on certain variables.

Zapier

Unlike IFTTT, Zapier is designed primarily for business. As such, it integrates with a much larger number of cloud apps and services, including many that are strictly for enterprise use. Zapier refers to its automations as Zaps. In the basic, free plan, you can create Zaps with only two steps (a trigger and an action, just like IFTTT’s basic applets), using a subset of the available cloud services. To access the full range of services and multi-step Zaps, you’ll need a paid plan; prices start at $20 per month.

If you need to automate business-related cloud services that IFTTT doesn’t connect to, such as Infusionsoft, Zoho CRM, Basecamp, or QuickBooks Online, Zapier is the tool to use. Some example Zaps:

• Add new WooCommerce orders to QuickBooks Online as customers.
• Create Infusionsoft contacts for new successful sales in PayPal.
• Post new Basecamp 2 activity to Slack.
• Start or stop instances on Amazon EC2 on a daily schedule.
• Copy new Facebook Lead Ads leads into Zoho CRM as leads.

If those names don’t mean anything to you, don’t worry! You’re probably just not the target audience for Zapier, and IFTTT will likely be more suitable for your needs.