Those who know me are aware that a good automation somehow makes me satisfied. For heaven’s sake, why else was the computer invented? It’s 2018 and certain routine tasks simply must run fully automatically without my intervention. Enter Zapier Integromat.
Until now, I’ve gladly used Zapier for all kinds of automations: read data from Service A, automatically process data, write data to Service B. For example, archive WordPress articles in Evernote or pass them to Buffer. Read a table in AirTable and reaggregate the data in Google Spreadsheet. Open a ticket in Trello and immediately enter the associated tasks in Asana. This works quite well with Zapier; you can even do quite a lot in the free version. However, the really fine automations are unfortunately only available in the full version, which is expensive.
Now I’ve come across Integromat. There’s also a free entry-level option there. And honestly: Zapier can pack up. At least for the services I need, Integromat offers many more triggers and actions. The editing possibilities are ingenious. Since switches and loops are possible even in the free version, complex automations can be achieved freely and easily. Integromat has a user interface that I really have to take my hat off to. You can see what you’re automating. Especially cool is the function that allows you to see which path a file takes through the entire automation network.
Within 10 minutes, I put together a script that converts an image I place in a special Dropbox folder into 4 different image sizes. The finesse is convincing: I can not only place the four newly created images in different folders, I can also rename them and could of course convert them to a specific format right away. And what I never managed to do in Zapier: I can delete the original file after the process. It’s now processed, I don’t need it anymore.
In the free version, the automations run every 15 minutes. If you want a higher frequency, you can choose one of the pricing plans.
