I’ve sent you a gazillion examples of how to use Zapier. 

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But if there was ONE example that brings out the best in each product it would be this:

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The classic request process. 

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A requestor fills out a form. The request is sent to the right team member. The requester can see their request and its status.

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You can use this for:

• Support tickets
• Email requests
• IT/Software requests
• Video requests
• Vacation requests
• Project requests
• And if you’re a comedian (I’m not), joke requests

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The list never ends. It’s the same tried and true setup. You could scale this thing to the moon and back, season liberally with AI, and make Zapier worth every penny you spend on it.

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Today I’ll quickly show you how to build this and then give you examples of how to expand it with AI.

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The setup for any ticketing request system

One interface for the request form. One interface for the logged-in user to see what they filled out and its status.

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One table to hold the data and allow people to update status and leave notes.

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Two workflows for email notifications.

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El fin.

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Here’s what the process looks like (thanks, Canvas!):

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Add dat AI, boi

If you aren’t using AI somewhere in your process, you’re being silly and need a timeout. 

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No, but honestly there are so many ways to add AI into a request process. Here are just a few:

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• Summarize the request for the email notification
• Get rid of the category field altogether and let AI automatically categorize requests that come in
• For content requests, have the person add more detail in the form, then have AI create the first draft
• Have AI send a follow-up email to the requester with questions that would make the request more clear to the person receiving it
• Get next step recommendations for the person receiving the request

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Add any of these into the workflows and you’re request process just got tastier. 

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One big advantage I see is in consolidating request forms. With AI, you could take a pretty broad request form and use AI to classify responses. It would route the request to the appropriate team. 

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Another random thought. Think about small things like address fields. Say goodbye to long state dropdown lists. Have the user type out their state (tn, TENN, the volunteer state) and let AI get it formatted how you need it. 

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Request processes are so ripe for Zapier. Take advantage of them!

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To recap:

• Request processes use the best of Zapier’s products
• Two interfaces, one table, and two Zaps
• Add AI to so many creative ways

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That’s all for this week!

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Happy Building,

Bryce