A lot of changes have been happening recently at Claris. One of the most exciting is the new Claris Connect free tier. This is the first time Claris has released a free version of this useful tool. If you aren’t familiar with Claris Connect, it’s a web-based automation tool that can help your users interact with needed data more efficiently.
We’ve written a lot about Claris Connect, and the benefits of workflow automation. This post provides you with simple ways to use this new free tier to automate common business workflows.
The new free tier allows up to 500 actions per month, which is a pretty decent number. You may consider using the free tier for workflows that may not happen exceedingly often.
I’m excited to share with you five ways to maximize the free tier, but keep in mind that this list is in no way exhaustive. There are just as many ways to automate with Claris Connect as there are unique business workflows out there.
Do you currently or have you considered using FileMaker as a content management system (CMS), as the holding place for your blog creation? If you are using WordPress for your website, you can add Claris Connect to write a simple flow to automate pushing blog content from FileMaker directly to WordPress.
This integration removes the manual work of copying and pasting and manually setting up the blog post via WordPress, as well as streamlines and reduces error in updating the status in the FileMaker record.
It’s common for different types of approval requests to take place in business environments, such as requests for vacation, or approval of applications, contracts, and projects.
This workflow allows members of an organization to ensure the approval alerts are sent promptly and requires the approver to interact with the email to ensure it’s approved. This feature is built in to Claris Connect and is a very simple flow to build.
In today’s business environment, many people are using Slack and Zoom on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s important to be reminded of things, and Slack is especially useful for this purpose. With Claris Connect, we can program Slack alerts very easily.
We can also trigger flows when Zoom meetings are started, scheduled, recordings are complete or new registrations are received. I can think of a number of different possibilities of how this flow can help streamline communication and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
Mailchimp is a great CRM tool, used to manage contacts, create landing pages, and send email campaigns. But if you use your FileMaker database to manage your contacts as well, having the two out of sync can be a pain. With Claris Connect, your contacts can easily be kept in sync, and you can even create rules to tag members in Mailchimp to segment them in beneficial ways.
Hubspot is another powerful tool, used for sales, marketing and content management. If you are using HubSpot and FileMaker to manage your sales process, consider syncing your contacts in each system to ensure synchronicity in your sales flow.
As with any of these flows, we are not limited to just two steps. We can add and connect a variety of steps to custom apps in a large fashion of ways. The only limit is your imagination. Below are some more examples of common workflows.
In this flow, Claris Connect automates appointment scheduling and confirmation using Google calendar and SMS.
Event registration workflows can add customers to your Mailchimp list, generate invoices in QuickBooks, and email confirmations.
An automated workflow for order processing and shipment using Shopify, UPS and Slack.
There are limitless ways to tie apps together via Claris Connect. Claris is adding new connectors to the list on an ongoing basis and even creating a way for us to create our own custom connectors.
These developments make for a very exciting area in API integrations, which you may want to take advantage of in your FileMaker solution.
4. Check your inbox for your welcome email to sign in to Claris Connect.
5. Open up Claris Connect to create a new project.
6. Click Create Flow to start adding the steps you need for your business flow!
Beyond these steps, you will start adding the specific triggers and actions, which will come from the list of available connectors. We are always available to support your company by assisting with writing Claris Connect flows, troubleshooting issues, or advising on your custom API integration. Feel free to reach out using the form below.
Join other developers once a month to learn more about Claris and 3rd party integration at Claris Beyond. Our Zoom meetup is a great place to chat with other developers and customers interested in 3rd party integrations and digital transformation. Read more and sign up to attend here.
Learn more about FileMaker 2023 in our recent FileMaker DevCast, with Rick Kalman and Ronnie Rios of Claris International. This update has a new feature that lets you more easily integrate FileMaker with executing Claris Connect flows.
Also check out our YouTube playlist, which has a series of videos demonstrating many more of the built-in connectors available with Claris Connect, including things like Google Maps, Mailgun, DocuSign, Twilio, and Stripe.
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