How to Use Zapier Next Gen Zaps (Step-by-Step Tutorial) transcript

Today, I'll show you how to use Zapier's new Next Gen Zaps. Zapier lets you connect your favorite apps and automate repetitive work. And with Next Gen Zaps, instead of building automation step by step in a visual editor, now you simply describe what you want and an AI agent builds the workflow for you. These new Zaps are code-based behind the scenes, which means they can handle much more powerful and complex automations than before.

And you don't need to know how to code. Thanks to Zapier for sponsoring this video. I'm Kevin, and let's dive in. To get started, head to the following website. You'll find a link right here at the bottom of the screen. On this website, either log in or set up a new account. Now, at the moment, Next Gen Zaps are still in early access, so you'll need to request access before you can use them. You could do that right here on this page.

You'll also need to be on a paid plan to use Next Gen Zaps. Once you have access, over on the left-hand side, hover over the option that says More. And right here at the bottom, you'll see the option for Next Gen Zaps. Let's click on that. This takes us to the Workflow Manager, and here you'll see any of the Next Gen Zaps you've already created. Now, I don't have any yet, so right down here, let's click on Create Next Gen Zap.

Now, we could simply describe the workflow that we want to build. For this example, let's build an automation for my small business, the Kevin Cookie Company. Customers can submit this form when they're interested in placing a catering order. If they request 50 cookies or more, I want our sales team to follow up personally. For smaller orders, I want to automatically send the customer an email. And also, regardless of which path they choose, I want every request to be added to a tracking spreadsheet.

Before we build this, though, we first need to make sure that Zapier is connected to all of the apps that we want to use. To do that, let's open up Zapier in a new tab. I'll go right up here to the Home icon, and then I'll click to open a new tab. Now, right up here, let's jump to that new tab. And over on the left-hand side, you'll see an option for App Connections. Let's click on that. For this workflow, we'll be using Gmail, Google Sheets, Google Forms, and Slack.

Now, I already have most of these connected, but you'll notice here that I'm missing Slack. So, let's quickly walk through how to connect a new app. Now, right here in the top right-hand corner, you'll see the option to create a connection. Let's click there. Now, right over here, I'll search for Slack, and here I see it. I'll select that and then let's click on Add Connection. Then I'll follow the rest of the prompts to sign in and give Zapier access.

Right up above, you'll now see that I have access to Slack. You'll want to do the same for any other apps that you plan to use as part of your automation. Once your connections are all in place, let's head back to the Next Gen Zap tab. Now, right here, we can describe exactly what we want to automate. I'll start typing. You'll notice that Zapier provides some helpful tips. For example, when should the workflow start, what apps do we want to use, what actions should we take, and the result that we're looking for.

I'll just describe what I want to have happen, and you'll notice when I type in my full prompt, here we get a green check mark next to each item. So, it's a good check just to make sure your prompt is comprehensive. Now, I've included my exact prompt in the description if you'd like to follow along. Now, let's submit this and see what Zapier builds for us. As it builds out our automation, it may ask a few follow-up questions.

Here, as an example, it wants to know which Google Sheet that it should use. In this case, I’ll select Create a New Sheet for this. Now, I'll answer any other questions as they come up. And just like that, Zapier built our automation. Over on the right, we can see the entire workflow that it created. Right at the top, it starts with our Google Form, pulls out the details from the catering request, and then uses a control flow to decide what happens next.

If the customer requests fewer than 50 cookies, it follows this path and sends them an email through Gmail. If they request 50 or more, it follows this path and notifies our sales team in Slack. And here's where Next Gen Zaps gets especially interesting. These two paths converge at the end. So regardless of which path the request follows, it gets added to our Google Sheet at the very bottom. And we built all of this just by describing what we wanted.

Now, right here in the bottom right-hand corner, we can also switch between the visual view and the underlying code. Here, we see the TypeScript that powers this workflow. And if I click on any of the steps, it brings me to where that is in the code. That's pretty cool. Now, of course, you don't need to know how to code to use this, but the code is there if you want to see exactly what it's doing at each step. Now that our workflow is built, let's make sure that everything is working as expected.

Here, I have the Google Form open, and I'll fill in an email address, my full name, how many cookies I'd like, and ooh, it's got to be the classic chocolate chip. I'll select this and then submit. Now, here, I received an email instead of a Slack notification. So, things didn't work quite the way I expected. Now, instead of going through the workflow and trying to fix everything manually, let's go back to Zapier and tell it what went wrong.

So right here, I'll describe the issue and ask it to fix the workflow. I filled out the form for 150 cookies, and I received an email instead of a Slack message. Can you check why it didn't work and fix it? Here, it looks like Zapier identified the issue and it made a fix. So, let's test out the flow again. Right here, I'll fill out the form and then right down here, let's submit. And here in Slack, I now see a message letting the sales team know that there's now a requested order for 150 cookies.

Perfect. I noticed one more issue. It did not write to the spreadsheet. So over here, let's give that feedback and then run it. Over here, it looks like Zapier found the issue and it also implemented a fix. Let's jump to the spreadsheet. Here in the spreadsheet, it looks like it logged everything correctly. And this time, everything is working as expected. So, the AI doesn't just help us build the workflow. It can also help us test it, identify issues, and make fixes along the way.

Now that we've confirmed the workflow is working, let's look at a few different ways that we can manage it. First, over here on the left-hand side, let's click on the status icon. And here we can view all of our different runs. This gives us a history of each time this workflow ran. And here, when we open it, here we could see all of the different inputs. We can also see which actions were performed down here. And we could also see the output here at the bottom.

Now this is especially helpful if something doesn't work quite as expected and you want to see exactly what happened. Over on the left-hand side, let's jump back to build. Back here in the workflow, up at the top, I can toggle the workflow on or off. So, if I don't want it running for a while, I can simply turn it off and then turn it back on when I'm ready. And right here, we can also see all the different versions.

As we make changes, Zapier keeps track of all the different versions of our workflow so we can see how it's changed over time. And if I want to make any more changes to this workflow, down here in the bottom left-hand corner, I could simply describe what I want the AI agent to change, and it'll update the workflow for me. So far, we've built everything directly inside Zapier, but there's also another way that you could build Next Gen Zaps.

Let's look at that. Back here on the creation screen, right at the bottom, you'll also see an option to build with Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI tools. Let's click there. Here, you'll find a guide that walks you through how to connect your AI tool of choice to Zapier using MCP. MCP is a standard that lets AI tools connect to and interact with other services like Zapier. I'll run through the steps for ChatGPT, but feel free to use whichever tool you prefer.

First, in ChatGPT, we need to turn on developer mode. I'll click on my profile picture, go to settings, scroll down to security and login, and right over here, we need to turn on developer mode. I'll toggle this on and then let's click out. Next, over on the left-hand side, let's go to plugins, and right up on top, click on the plus icon to add a new plugin, and right over here, let's create an MCP app. I'll click on that.

Over here, I could give it a name, and right down below, let's type in the URL for the connection. Let's leave the authentication as is, and down below, I'll check this box, and then let's click on create. Now, I just need to connect my Zapier account. I'll click on allow, and with that, ChatGPT is now connected to Zapier. I'll close out of this view. Over here, let's go into a new chat. Now, we can build and manage Next Gen Zaps directly from ChatGPT.

Let's test it out. I'll type in a prompt for a very basic workflow. Over here, let's send that. And there it is. We just created a brand-new Next Gen Zap directly from ChatGPT. We could see it in Zapier as well. From here, we could test it, make changes, and manage it, just like the workflow we built earlier. So, you could build a Next Gen Zap directly inside Zapier, or you could use an AI tool like ChatGPT through Zapier MCP.

Before we wrap up, one other option worth mentioning is that you can also import existing Zaps. Back on the creation screen, right here, click on Import Zap, and then you could choose one of your existing Zaps, and Zapier can bring it into the Next Gen experience. This is useful if you already have automations that you've built in Zapier, and you want to start working with them here. There you go. It's now easier than ever to automate workflows.

I mean, it was easy before, but now it's even easier. All you have to do is describe what you'd like to automate, and then just test it out to make sure that everything's working as expected. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.