sms77 is now integrated into Integromat
Attention: Integromat became Make at the beginning of 2022.
Integromat is a platform that – similar to Zapier – links different apps and services and automates processes. sms77 is now also part of it.
Integromat – the glue of the internet
At any rate, this is the slogan of Integromat. The service belongs to the Czech company Integrators. The development of Integromat began in 2012 and the platform has been publicly available since 2016. Currently more than 250 apps are included and this number is constantly increasing. In addition, there is the option of addressing almost any API via Webhook or OAuth2 request and integrating it into a “task”.
Since both platforms offer a similar service, the comparison with Zapier is obvious. First of all, Zapier is better known and contains more apps. On the other hand, some of the apps in Zapier are only accessible with a premium account. In Integromat, all apps and most functions are also available with free access. Also in the other limitations of free accounts there are certain differences.
Integromat offers more work steps per month, and unlike Zapier you can create complex scenarios without premium access. Since Integromat is strongly focused on data processing – another difference – maximum monthly data volume and file size are also limited.
sms77 in Integromat – this is how it works
Unlike the Zapier integration, the sms77 app in Integromat is available as a full version since January 2020. This means that you can simply find the app via search and add it to your apps. In the same way it is now possible to select the app when creating an automation without having added it to the account before.
Once activated, the sms77 app offers all the features you get through the API as well. For example, you can validate phone numbers directly for new Google contacts – and then automatically integrate them into your sms77 contacts.
Want an example?
We select Trello as the trigger for this example. If you do not want to scroll through the list of available apps manually, you can use the search function. Then enter your access data. This will open a popup asking you to confirm. You also specify the event for which Trello should be checked – we will select a new notification here.
Now that we have a trigger, what’s missing is an action that follows. In this case we specify that the sms77-API should send an SMS. This can be useful in a number of scenarios: For example, if you are outside the office and don’t have permanent access to Trello on the road, if you want to alert your colleagues to news, or if you’re worried that you won’t notice something happening when you’ re in the workflow.
We set then how the sms77-API should handle our request. For a better analysis we can define a label, for example. As you can see: in Integromat sms77 can do everything you might already know – just linked to a trigger.
Before we finish editing, we start a test run by clicking Run Once. This checks whether the data required for processing is retrieved correctly. If there is an error in the sequence, such as a reaction to a trigger that does not logically work, this is reported. We can then save the scenario, exit processing and activate the scenario. And voila: From now on we receive an SMS whenever something changes in Trello.
In order not to charge the sms77 account excessively, it can be useful to limit the number of observed boards on Trello to those that are really relevant. Or we can set a filter that only triggers SMS notifications from certain team members. There are hardly any limits to the possibilities for customization.
Conclusion
Integromat is not only visually appealing. The functionality speaks for itself. If you need more inspiration for linking your apps together, take a look at the many different templates provided by the manufacturers. You can simply try them out and adapt them to your wishes.
Compared to Zapier, the big advantage is that the functionality of the free version is not as limited. This allows you to create complex processes without paying for them, as long as you comply with the restrictions on data volumes and work steps per month. The limited number of integrated apps is offset by the ability to integrate additional services. And the number of integrated services is constantly increasing.
Update 24.01.2020: Section “sms77 in Integromat – this is how it works” changed, because the app is now available as full version.