You no doubt use many different apps and tools in your day-to-day work. And you probably use more than one to manage your awards program. In addition to your awards management software perhaps you also use a CRM, an email marketing tool and an event management tool—just to name a few.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could connect these different tools and have them work together? All to save you time in tedious and repetitive tasks.
That’s where Award Force’s integration features come in. Use our powerful API, native integration with Zapier, two-way data exchange with Salesforce and much more to connect Award Force to the apps you use every day.
This is the first in a series of articles detailing a few useful ideas for using Zapier with Award Force. Sign up to our blog to get notified of future articles in this series!
What is Zapier?
Zapier is an automation tool that connects your apps and helps you create workflows (known as “zaps”) to save you time and money. It allows you to automate tedious and time-consuming tasks so you can focus on more important work.
Why use Zapier?
Zapier is one of the most widely used automation tools, which allows you to easily connect with thousands of apps like Eventbrite, Mailchimp, Dropbox, Instagram and more to create a streamlined work experience and save hours of work in the process.
And, the best part is that Zapier does most of the work for you—no developer skills required. Zapier, like Award Force, helps you work smarter, not harder.
What can I do with Zapier and Award Force?
There are many ways the Zapier integration with Award Force can help you save time. But here are just a few examples:
- Create archived copies of all submitted entries in DropBox
- Automatically create new contacts in your CRM
- Run voting contests on social media
- Synch data between Award Force and your favourite marketing tools
- Connect Award Force to your CRM
In the first article of this series, we’ll zero in on how to use Zapier to import entries from Google Sheets or Excel.
How to import awards entries from Zapier
One of the post powerful ways to use Zapier with Award Force is to import entries from Google Sheets.
For this particular integration, we have created a template in Zapier to save you even more time. This zap takes rows in a Google Sheet (or Excel), where each row is an individual entry and user, and imports them to Award Force automatically.
Note: The template we’ve created uses Google Sheets but this can be changed to Microsoft Excel in step 5 when you set up the Zapier template.
For this integration, you’d need an Award Force Pro account, a Zapier account, a spreadsheet with your entrant details and a Google Sheet with the entry information you want to import.
Step 1: Import users
Before importing entries, you first need to add the users to your Award Force account because every entry needs to be associated with a user.
Go to Users, click Import users at the bottom of the page and upload a spreadsheet with all your users.
Step 2: Create an API key in Award Force
Next, you’ll create an API key in Award Force.
Go to Settings > Developers > API keys.
Step 3: Configure the entry form in your Award Force platform
To make sure your entry form matches the data you have in your Google spreadsheet, your entry form fields need to match the fields (columns) in your spreadsheet.
If they don’t match, you won’t be able to import that data into Award Force.
Go to Settings > Entries > Edit form.
Step 4: Prepare Google Sheet
Now that your entry form is configured, you’ll need to prepare your Google Sheet. For each element to be imported (entrants, chapters, categories, fields and season) you’ll need to add the unique identifier to the spreadsheet (known as slugs). These can be found within your Award Force account in the relevant section.
For example, to find the field slugs, go to Settings > Entries > Fields and click Export at the top right. The spreadsheet will include the slugs for all of your fields. Slugs can also be found by adding the slug column to the table view. This helps match everything up neatly.
Step 5: Set up the Zapier template
Last, you’ll need to set up Zapier to import your entries. Log in to your Zapier account and use the template we have provided. Then all you have to do is follow the prompts to create your zap and get those entries into Award Force!
That’s it! You’ve imported your entries into your Award Force account. (For an in-depth guide from our award software experts, click here.)
Unlimited possibilities
Zapier is a powerful tool that can save you countless hours in what would have otherwise been a laborious and time-consuming task. Importing entries is just one example of how you can use Zapier to make your life easier.
Want to make importing entries even easier? We’ve got a service for that. Get in contact if you’d like to take us up on this offer.