At Collect, we are huge fans of productivity, work improvement and automation.
Before we started working on Collect we always had in mind how powerful it could become if it were directly integrated with other tools. Imagine how much time you would save if you could send a file request automatically by marking a deal as “win” in your CRM – or if you could get all the client documents stored automatically in your cloud.
We knew there was a very big trend around automation and no-code tools, and for us, Zapier was certainly the trendsetter. That’s why we decided to build a Zapier integration.
What is Zapier?
If you are not familiar with Zapier (which rhymes with happier), it’s a solution that lets you automate processes by connecting tools. You can build workflow with a few clicks and it doesn’t require any coding skills.
The platform claims to have more than 2,000 apps that can be connected. You will find big players like Slack, Twitter, Salesforce and Gmail, but also brand new startups like Collect.
During the last few years, we have witnessed big improvements in the solution. You can have multiple steps in the same zap. You can filter, manipulate data and even write code if you are a power-user. And, more recently, they added “paths”.
And, according to a Zapier Certified Expert, there is apparently nearly no limit to the number of steps you can have for your zaps:
Nowadays, Zapier is no longer a tool used by tech-savvy people to hack. It has become a mainstream tool used daily by millions of users. The software is really reliable and used by large companies like Adobe and Spotify.
Collect and Zapier
As mentioned earlier, we knew the value that Zapier could bring to Collect and decided to build an integration very early. We worked on a first version and pushed it to our users. We received a lot of feedback that helped us to improve our different zaps.
After a few months of private beta, we have just been validated by Zapier and are finally listed in its huge apps directory.
Zapier has a freemium model. You can get up to 100 tasks per month for free. If you want more tasks or to run a multiple-steps zap, you will need a paid account.
On the Collect side, you will need a Pro or Business plan to access this feature.
Why should you automate your document collection?
- Save time. Document collection can be time consuming and can quickly become very tedious.
- Free your mind. As mentioned in David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done”, every task unfinished and not put in a system is an “open loop” and requires attention and energy to be tracked in your brain.
- Stay consistent in your operations. Manual document collection is (very) often done irregularly. You request documents, then later realise that you haven’t received them and follow up urgently, and …
- Make your employees happy. Keeping your employees busy by asking them to do manual tasks that could be automated is the best way to discourage them, make them less satisfied and less productive.
- Reduce your costs. How much does your document collection cost to your company? Tens of minutes every day spent by someone in your office will quickly represent hundreds of dollars every month. Automating your document collection will save you money.
How can you streamline your document collection process with Collect client portal?
To show you how you can automate your document collection, we will take a client onboarding process as an example:
ACME is a company selling B2B software. Every time they sign a new client, the sales representative hands the client over to the customer success manager, who then sends an email asking for the documents required to start the collaboration (eg. an export from the previous solution and other digital assets).
Using Collect, we are able to streamline this process by automating:
- The trigger
- The follow-ups
- The validation process
- The output
The easiest way to start automating document collection is to connect Collect to your CRM. You can decide that when a deal changes its status to “onboarding”, it triggers a new request. This is very simple to do using Zapier.
After you send the request, Collect will check on a regular basis whether or not the requested documents have been uploaded. If not, we will send reminders that you will have set up in your account so you don’t need to do the chasing manually.
Once the documents have been uploaded, you will be notified and will be able to validate or reject each document. If documents are rejected, we will help you again to notify your client and make the process as smooth as possible.
When you have collected and validated all the documents, Collect will be able to push them to your system using Zapier, store the documents on your cloud storage, notify your CRM, and way more.
You can do even more using Collect and Zapier. There are no limits to your imagination.
It’s your turn now
Visit Collect on Zapier and hit Connect Collect to 2,000+ Apps to start automating your own document collection process. Ping us on and let us know what you’ve built!
