Zapier

Zapier lets you connect CATS to over 1,000 other web services. You can set up automated tasks, called Zaps, that trigger data to be sent between different apps and CATS, meaning you can create custom integrations with just about anything!

Zapier uses triggers to watch for specific events in one application, which in turn can cause an action to occur in another. In this article we'll go through building a Zap together, but below are a few helpful articles covering the basics of what Zapier is and how it works:

• Zapier - What is Zapier
• Zapier - How Zapier Works
• Zapier - Terminology

The triggers, actions, and searches currently available with the CATS Zapier integration can be viewed here.

Setting up the Zapier integration

Currently, the CATS Zapier app is in an invite-only state. To request access to Zapier you can email support@catsone.com or you can follow this link to be taken directly to the Zapier invite screen.

Once you follow the invitation link you'll be taken to a page at Zapier's website that explains a little bit about Zapier and the integration specifically with CATS. At this page you'll just need to click "Accept Invite & Build a Zap". 

You will need to log in to your Zapier account or create a new account if you do not already have one. Once logged in, you'll want to click Make a Zap! in the top right corner of Zapier.

Building a Zap

For our example, we'll build a Zap that adds a row to a Google Sheets spreadsheet called Placed Candidates every time we move a candidate in a job pipeline to our "Placed" status in our workflow.

As our Trigger app is CATS, we'll start by searching for and selecting that from the the Search hundreds of apps... dropdown. You should see CATS Applicant Tracking System as an option.

Once we've selected CATS, Zapier will show us the available triggers. We want our Zap to run every time a candidate's status is changed to a specific status in our workflow, so we'll select Pipeline Updated. 

After selecting our trigger event, you will be asked to connect and authorize Zapier access to your CATS account - just follow the prompts in the new window and when complete you'll be returned to Zapier. After connecting our CATS account, Zapier will ask us to select the workflow we wish to use and the status within this workflow that we want this Zap to trigger on specifically. In our case, that status is "Placed".

Zapier will fetch a sample event from our CATS account, which will include the various pieces of information about the job and candidate that we want to map into our Google Sheets spreadsheet. After we've selected our sample, we can click + Add a Step to add our action.

Next, we'll connect our Google account so Zapier can find our previously created Google Sheets spreadsheet.

Just like we did before, we want to use the dropdown to search for and select Google Sheets, select Create Spreadsheet Row as our action, and authorize Zapier access to our Google account.

Now Zapier will ask us to select our Google Drive account, our spreadsheet, and the worksheet within that spreadsheet we want to add our new rows too. Once we have those chosen, we can use the dropdowns to  begin to map the columns in that spreadsheet to the fields we received from CATS in our trigger event.

Once we've mapped all of our fields we can click Continue. Now we can send a test to verify our Zap is functioning as expected.

Looks like everything is working as expected - we can now name and turn our Zap on.

While our Zap is on, any time a candidate is moved into the "Placed" status in CATS, that information will be automatically carried over to our Google Sheets spreadsheet! This is just one example, but there are many different possible Zaps you could make to connect the apps you may already be using with CATS.