Is it possible to use Zapier to get the contents of a CMS field?

Is it possible to use Zapier webhooks to get the content of a CMS field?

If so, does anyone know of any tutorials that show the process?

Thanks!

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Bump :slight_smile:

I see that we can add items to a Webflow CMS but i don’t see anyway to GET items from a Webflow CMS Field.

Looks like I might be able to do it using the Zapier Webhook feature but can’t seem to figure it out.

It this even possible?

Thanks!

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Please explain what you are trying to do first, then we may be able to provide some feedback.

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@bryantay I saw your previous question in different post too. I think you should check integromat rather than using Zapier. I have been using it…you can create, update, get items and adds a lot of functionality in there. That might be worth a try! :slightly_smiling_face:

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You can do it with a zapier webhook or integromat’s more extensive webflow actions, but as per @webdev, it’s hard to direct if we don’t know the triggering action / scenario and resulting actions required.

@Keshab_Paudel, Thank for the suggestion. I’ll check out Integromat. However it would be ideal if i could do it with Zapier because I already have a lot of Zaps configured for this client.

@HammerOz I don’t know why but I just can’t seem to grasp the concepts behind the Zapier Webhooks. Do you guys know of any helpful tutorials? - particularly ones that cover Zapier Webhooks + Webflow? I can’t seem to get a clear idea as to how the web hooks are used/configured.

@webdev, Basically i’m passing some variables to Zapier via user section in a Webflow form dropdown list. I’d like to set up a Zap that could pull in a particular email address from the CMS based on the information passed from the form submission.

Thanks all for you help!

Are you sure you need a webhook seeing as zapier has a new form submitted trigger? You need to test this trigger and see if your CMS fields are in the payload. You haven’t mentioned if you have tried this or not.

If you need to use the webhook:

  1. Create the zap starting with a webhook trigger (option 2. catch hook)
  2. Copy the url zapier creates for you in this step
  3. Setup the form submission webhook in webflow settings adding the zapier webhook url from the zap
  4. Test the zap trigger and see what fields it returns. Does it have the custom payload or only the form fields?

Ref: Trigger Zaps from webhooks | Use code and webhooks in Zaps | Create | Help & Support | Zapier

@HammerOz, thanks again for the reply…

I’m obviously having a difficult time communicating what I’m trying to do. Let me try again more simply…

  1. In my Webflow site, I already have forms set up that pass data when submitted to Zapier for processing in other zaps. The form submission is the trigger and this is all working as expected. I’m able to capture the form data and my zaps are processing them perfectly.

  2. My concern is this… Part of the form submission info that’s passed to Zapier is an email address. Rather than passing the email address through the form submission, I would like to add a step in my Zaps where Zapier would request/get the email address from the Webflow CMS. This is where I’m assuming a Webhook would be used.

Now I know you’re wondering why would I want to have Zapier GET the email address rather than just passing it to Zapier along with the form submission. The reason is, in my case I’ve used the Databinding technique found HERE to dynamically populated a Webflow forms dropdown list with 80+ company locations. The user is asked to choose a location before submitting the form. However, by doing this, all 80+ email addresses are shown in the code. I’m assuming it’s bad to expose all those email addresses. – But maybe I’m wrong and it’s not that big of a deal.

You can see the live form HERE and if you look at the code for the dropdown list you’ll see all the exposed email addresses.

So in short, I’m just trying to find a way to not expose all those email addresses in the code and I thought that maybe I could have Zapier call back to Webflow and get the email address thus eliminating the need to have them all shown in the code.

Maybe I’m just overthinking it and I should just leave it as it is.

Thanks!

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Oh I see. This should have been explained in your initial post.

I haven’t tried this but you would need to populate the form with the CMS location webflow uuid. Then your zap:

  1. Trigger step: New form submission
  2. Action: Webhook ( get request option I think) to get the item using the item uuid from the form. https://developers.webflow.com/#get-single-item.
  3. Then the email should be in the payload for the next action.

Good luck

Don’t know if this helps, but you can get CMS fields information into Zapier with a RSS feed trigger if the collection is published with RSS feed enabled and the field is tagging in the RSS feed title or description.

Thanks, @Christoffer. At first that seemed to show promise however it appears that you can’t actually pull in the information to be used/processed in a multi-step zap if you’re not using the Zapeir RSS feed app as the trigger. If you add it “inline” after a Form Submission trigger, it doesn’t seem to give the option to process the data for use in other steps downline.

@HammerOz, Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

I’ve finally figured it out!

I’ve found a way to include the Item ID (uuid?) in the Webflow Form Drop-Down List and use it with a Zapier WebHook to GET all the Item fields which includes the email address that I was needing to access. I’ll be implementing it over the next day or so.

PROS:

  • The WebHook actually pulls in ALL of the Item Fields which gives me a ton of options for processing in Zaps. The way I was doing it before, I was limited to just the data that was submitted in the form.
  • Rather than having to pass multiple pieces of data within the Dropdown list (which exposed the email addresses) I only need to pass the Item ID’s and the WebHook payload lets me use whatever fields I want to use.
  • Ultimately only the Item IDs will be shown in the code and no email addresses will be exposed.

CONS:

  • Webflow doesn’t give easy access to Item ID’s so I need to create a new field and manually populate it with the Item ID so it can be used in the form dropdown list. I was able to find THIS helpful technique to batch input the Item ID’s into the field of each CMS item. This takes care of adding to the current 80+ CMS items already created but if a new CMS item is created I will need to add the Item ID manually. Fortunately, Webflow does show the Item ID however it’s sucks that it doesn’t allow you to select it and copy it to the clipboard so it can be easily pasted into the field. this forces you to have to type it in manually.

Ultimately, the biggest hurdle I was running into was just figuring out how to actually use the Zapier Webhooks. I couldn’t figure out what information to enter in order to get the Webhook to actually work. I could never find any tutorials or examples that walked through the process. I finally came across THIS video that showed just enough get me to finally figure out what to do. – and of course, it turned out to be easier than expected.

The one question I haven’t been able to get answered is: Is it even that big of a deal to expose all those emails in the first place or am I just worrying about for no reason.

Thanks all for spending some time helping me get to a solution.

P.S. Just incase someone happens across this thread down the road they can find more context to my initial issue/concern in this THREAD

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Glad you got there! Hey the item ID is below all the CMS item’s fields when editing. This is what you are after isn’t it?

Yep… that is the Item ID i’m looking for. The problem is there’s no way to gain access to it. It doesn’t show up in any of the purple “add field” options (if that makes sense) and you can’t even select it to copy and paste it somewhere. The only option i see is to manually type it out.

@bryantay this is actually doable, there is a little know “hack” with Zapier that can help here…

Whenever you create a new or update an existing Webflow cms item from within Zapier, you get every field for that item returned to Zapier.

So if you send Zapier a form submission with a hidden field containing the Webflow cms item id, and then update a live cms item using that item id from within Zapier (doesn’t matter what you update it with), Webflow will send back to Zapier the email field (and the email address contained within it).

This is handy because now you can create another zap step right after that one to use this email address and send it off somewhere else (ex: MailChimp). None of your other companies will ever see that email address.

Here are the steps to make it work:

  1. Add the cms item id (unique id) to a hidden field in your form
  2. Submit form
  3. In Zapier…
  4. Create Step 1: Webflow “Form Submission” trigger
  5. Create Step 2: Webflow “Update Live Item” action (using your item id)
  6. Click the “Send & Review” button under the “Send Data” section
  7. You should see your email address field now
  8. Create Step 3: MailChimp “Create Subscriber” action
  9. Add the email address

Thanks @ChrisDrit. Thats super helpful!

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@Keshab_Paudel
Wow! thanks for suggesting Integromat. After checking it out in more detail, it looks to be much more powerful than Zapier and at a MUCH better price point. (10,000 Operations/Mo for $10, as opposed to Zapier’s 750 Tasks/Mo for $20). Turns out we are fast approaching Zapiers 750 tasks limited in just under 3 weeks so Integromat is definitely the way to go here.

Integromat’s learning curve was a bit higher at first but it was well worth it.

Thanks again.

@bryantay Have you looked at this?