Create your first flow
When you create your first scenario, it might look pretty scary as nothing would show up on your screen. First thing first, name your scenario as you’ll quickly become addicted to process efficiency with Integromat.
Then it’s time to pick up the first module you want to start with. We’ll come back many times to this subject as starting a scenario is a key element for success and can take many different forms, from the very basic ones to super advanced webhooks for infinite integration with virtually any other application.
To load your first element, click the white circle and selct the one you need. You are offered an an endless list of applications ready for you.
To easily find your way downhere, simply start entering the name of the module you’re looking for. Integromat will automatically narrow down the search to your typing.
In our example, we’ll go after the “String” module (so we enter S, then T then R etc…).
What’s funny here is that Integromat will search your inquiry not only into all modules titles but also through all sub-modules that might be contained into them. As you see in our example, we looked for STRING and we got a TOOLS module which offers multiple options, including the STRING one.
Rich contextual menus
Let’s add the “Compose a string” module and see how it looks like. Once it’s open, you’re expected to enter a value but as soon as you click the text area, a contextual menu pops up packed with important information that we need to pause on for a few seconds.
Each tab grants you access to a set of powerful functions so that you can manipulate any variable in order to give life to your scenario.
This section is dedicated to basic operations that you might be expected to use in a near future.
In particular key operators to help you compare variable and also logical keywords that will be useful when writing formulas.
Next tab is dedicated to mathematical functions (in grey) so that you can drive a few calculations into your formulas.
Specifc operators are highlighted in green and specific internal variables in blue such as “pi” and “random” pre-built functions.
The text menu is also a useful tab within which you’ll find all needed operations to transform strings and data the way you need.
Special mention to HTML functions that will help you save so much time when manipualting objects sent back and forth through different APIs.
Last but not least, Integromat offers native cryptographic functions such as md5 and sha_xxx which will help us so much when encoding unique keys for foreign data exchange.
This tab is probably the one you’ll always open as it contains the mandatory toolkit to deal with dates and times.
Not only will you be able to format dates and times in a rich way but also move back and forth between both dates and texts worlds.
The array tab might the most difficult to understand in the first place but will happen to become the one you love the most as soon as you create highly powerful flows to increase business efficiency in your company.
We’ll spend time on trying to understand how to draw benefit from these functions even though the way it works might be distrurbing. But mastery of these functions is a must have for all Integromat designers.
Let’s connect 2 modules
I’ve entered a text within the String module as shown in the below illustration. Do not forget to click OK otherwise you would lose information entered into this module (and sometimes it can be painful with modules dealing with 50+ fields…).
Now I want to add a consecutive module that I’m going to plug right next to the first one. To do so, you just need to click the “Add Module” button and pick the application you want to connect to your first module. In this example I’m going to add another “String” module to make it crystal clear for the rest of this tutorial.
In fact, I’m going to create a much more complex scenario just to show you how easy it is to move fast. But I’ll only use “String” module for 3 reasons:
1. this module is extremely basic and illustrates the way Integromat basicall works
2. Integormat will name all of them in the exact same way with the same logo, which will force us to start cleaning our flow with proper naming
3. we are going to play with Routers, a fancy module developped by Integromat to structure your scenario.
Regarding the cleaning, I want us to start renaming modules in order to benefit from a clean process view as it will become a pre-requisite for more complex scenarii. To rename a module, “right click” the module and select “Rename”.
Now your scenario could look like this with a sequence of “Compose a String” modules chained all together.
But as you see, going linear is not always what you need to achieve and you need to go one step beyond to improve the quality of your process.
Router as the foundation of your flows
In order to bring more flexibility to your flow, Routers are your friends as they will help you create branches at will to enrich the way you want to proceed your data flow.
Here is how you can easily add this very specific module which is part of Integromat’s set of Flow Controllers.
You need to right click between 2 chained modules then select “Add a router”. The module will automatically pop up and integrate itself properly in the flow.
Here we go : we now have a much more advanced design with various routes to be walked down but let’s pause a bit prior to hitting the Run button and see what you’ll get out of it.
What we want to achieve now is to understand how Integromat will allow us to enter information to come up with valuable transformations. In order to illustrate this basic example, I”m going to process our “Initial text” using String functions.
Let’s open “Transformation #1” module and configure it to turn our intial text to uppercase. To do so, go to the “text tab” and click “Upper” function so that it appears into the code area.
Now let’s open “Transformation #2 in order to transform previous module output in a way that it adds a prefix to it. Open the module, click the variable coming from previous module and type “prefix ” right before it in the code area.
Let’s continue with “Transformation #3” module that we want to configure in a manner that it will truncate previous output (text coming out from module “Inital text”) and only keep the first 3 characters. To achieve this, click the “substring” function from the “text tab” and set it up as shown below.
As you see, you can always benefit from contextual help as soon as you hover over a function name.
Finally, let’s work on “Transformation #4” module that will add a suffix to the previous output (meaning the text generated by module “Transformation #3”).
Time to Run your scenario
We’ve been waiting for that moment since the very beginning of this article. What is going to happen once we hit the Run button?
Click it (blue icon nested into the lower left corner of your screen) and look at the way Integromat allows you to scrutinize each step of your flow. As illustrated below, click the “1” figure next to the first module.
A window appears to grant you access tio both input and output of the selected scenario in order to give you full control over data processing all allong the process.
As you see below, the output is aligned with what we enter into the code area when configuring this module.
Should you do the same with the next module (transformation #1), you’ll witness that previous text has been effectively turned into upper cases.
You can process in the exat same way with all modules to make sure that what you intended to achieve has been effectively processed by Integromat in the way you wanted.
Wrap-up
So far, you’ve learnt how to create a scenario, name it properly and pick the first module among all available applications’ connectors created by Integromat (and which is constantly growing).
You’ve also been exposed to the way you can access variables from previous modules (first tab) and also to a rich set of specific functions and operators to manipulate data the way you want (math functions, text functions, array functions, etc.)
And you also know how to create branches within your scenario thanks to Routers so that you can design parallel flows easily.
Finally, you also know how to control your work by inspecting logs on a per module basis and see in details each input and output for maximum efficiency.