How BBBS uses Zapier to bypass Salesforce

I was shocked when I spoke to Russell McBride from Big Brothers Big Sisters Chattanooga the other day.

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He can’t access their Salesforce account. Corporate locks it down.

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But he needs to set up a complete email reminder and tracking system for ~35 form submissions per month. 

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Most people give up at this point. But not Russell.

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He turned to Zapier.

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Today, I’ll show you how Russell built his own lite version of Salesforce in Zapier Tables—a version he can customize, add fields to, and automate.

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Let’s go.

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No access no problem

While Russell can’t access the corporate Salesforce account, he could access the API. API access means that he can use Zapier without needing direct Salesforce access.

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As new records come into Salesforce, he’s able to also add them into a Zapier table with his own fields. 

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And everyone knows if you give Tables some data, it’ll ask for a glass of automation.

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Russell’s form tracker and reminder system

Big Brothers Big Sisters rely on amazing volunteers. Once someone becomes a “Big,” they get paired with a “Little” and the mentorship begins. 

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Russell and his team use FormAssembly to build surveys that gather information from the Big and Little about how the relationship is progressing. Each pair might fill out 3-4 surveys per year.

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That’s a ton of surveys. And a ton of reminders to send.

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Russell uses Tables to track reminder emails that are sent out. When someone fills out the survey, though, he needs to stop sending reminder emails. 

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Russell tracks survey completion through a custom field in Zapier Tables.The field tells the reminder Zaps to stop sending reminders.

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With this system, Russell’s team gets better survey completion and a wealth of stories to pull from.

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The story is in the data

Story is all about change over time. Without data, it’s hard to track change. Zapier is helping Russell gather the data to provide compelling stories to his leadership. 

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With the data in Zapier Tables, Russell is working on a way to power a chatbot that his leadership can use to pull out stories with the help of AI.

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These stories will help with fundraising. Fundraising will help with Big and Little matches. Matches will help change lives.

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Great build, Russell. 

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To recap:

• If corporate locks you down, see if you can get API access (and in turn use Zapier)
• With Zapier Tables, you can create custom fields that you otherwise couldn’t
• Zapier Tables can power Chatbots so that you can analyze data with the help of AI

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That’s all for this week!

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Happy Building,

Bryce