Webmecanik updates the Zapier plugin for the Mautic Community
On January 28, 2020, Webmecanik provided the Mautic community with a major update to the Zapier plugin. We explain why we took this step, as well as the impact on your usage.
What is Zapier?
Zapier is a fantastic tool that makes it very easy (without technical expertise) to connect applications to each other.
The structure of these connections made Zapier a success. Indeed, when a software vendor creates a Zapier connection plugin for its application, it is instantly connectable to all the other applications available on the hub.
When developing a Zapier plugin, we configure two types of events: actions and triggers.
Actions
These are the operations that can be triggered when the application receives a message. For example, for our marketing automation tool, creating a contact in Webmecanik Automation.
So the direction of communication is from the third-party tool to the marketing automation tool.
Triggers (triggers)
These are the operations that can trigger an action outward. Here, there are more of them in our marketing automation tool: when creating a contact, submitting a form, visiting a landing page, updating an existing contact, opening an email, or if a contact’s points have changed.
So the direction of communication is from the marketing automation tool to the third-party tool.
What has changed?
Until now, the Zapier plugin for the Mautic Community used Basic Auth authentication. This rather old authentication method has a few drawbacks from a security standpoint.
As a result, and as the main contributor to the community, we wanted to take responsibility for changing this authentication method to a more robust and secure method for our customers, but also for the entire community.
So it was in late January 2020 that we offered this improvement to the community.
What does this change for users of the previous version?
Nothing! Well, not entirely, but not immediately. You can distinguish 3 cases:
- You already had a connection with the old version : it will continue to work as before (we do not break backward compatibility). However, we encourage you to update the connection when you have a little time. When the update is published, you should be notified.
- You are about to set up a connection : you will therefore use the new model; you will just need to create an API key and authenticate as the plugin asks you to do.
- You are a user of the Mautic version offered by Webmecanik : over the next few hours, you will receive a private invitation to use this new plugin right away.
When can I access this new version?
Webmecanik offered it to the Mautic community as soon as it was finished in late January. The code change proposal must now go through community processes before an update can be published. This can take several weeks.
In the meantime, our Webmecanik Automation users will be able to use a private version of our plugin to benefit from it right now.
