January 2018 Summaries

It’s easy to get bogged down with office management tasks like searching for an empty conference room, entering details from a hand-written form into a computer, or teaching new employees how to use their desk phones. These tasks are necessary parts of managing an office, but they're not the best use of your time. Freeing up your schedule doesn't require magic—just magical office management software. The most popular office management tools include Envoy Visitors for automating visitor sign-ins, Dialpad for getting rid of desk phones, Kisi for limiting building access to approved personnel, Robin for streamlining conference room booking, HelloSign for digitizing signed forms and contracts, Comfy for making sure no one’s too hot or cold, Slack for communicating and sharing information, Trello for managing tasks and monitoring projects, Zoom for worry-free video conferencing, and Zapier for automating tasks across over 1,000 apps. These tools can help automate tedious office management tasks, freeing up time to focus on more important work.

Slack has recently launched shared channels, which allow organizations to seamlessly communicate with each other's teams without using email. Shared channels can be used for various purposes, such as collaborating with external contributors, freelancers, or creative agencies. To create a shared channel, you need to be a Slack Workspace Owner or Admin and have a Standard or Plus plan. The process involves adding team members, giving the channel a name, and inviting another organization's Workspace Owner or Admin. Shared channels can be public or private for both teams, and it's essential to set clear guidelines and expectations for use. With shared channels, you can streamline communication, improve collaboration, and increase productivity across different organizations.

Museum Hack, a company that offers insider-y tours for team-building, family outings, and other events, has seen significant growth in 2017, doubling its numbers from the previous year. To manage this growth, Museum Hack used customer relationship management (CRM) Base to record customer calls and emails in an easy-to-follow feed, allowing their sales team to have quick access to the information they need. The company also uses automation tool Zapier to connect Base with other applications such as Campaign Monitor, MailChimp, and Google Sheets, enabling them to send leads from one app to another seamlessly. With Zapier's help, Museum Hack was able to automate workflows that allowed their sales team to get notified about new leads in real-time, helping the company save time and energy while creating more opportunities for growth.

Sharing an internet connection allows multiple devices to access the same network, making it possible to stay connected when public Wi-Fi or cellular data is unreliable. Most major operating systems support internet sharing, including iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS, allowing users to share their cellular or wired connections over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB. With a few simple steps, users can enable personal hotspots on their devices, set up mobile hotspot plans or pocket Wi-Fi devices, and share their internet connection with others, making it easier to work remotely or stay connected in public areas.

The Computer Resource Consulting (CRC) team at Stanford University uses the app automation tool Zapier to streamline their workflows, increasing efficiency and reducing time spent on manual tasks. By creating a team-wide competition called ZapAttack, they encouraged each other to explore and learn Zapier, resulting in innovative solutions like Philip Bailey's text notification Zap for new appointments, and Stephanie Ricardez's automatic inventory level notifications. These Zaps demonstrate the potential of Zapier to automate repetitive tasks, filter information, and improve productivity, with significant time savings reported by the CRC team, including two to three minutes per ticket on over 22,000 tickets a year.

There are now 1,000 apps connected to Zapier, a significant increase from its early days when it had only one integration, PayPal in 2011. The platform was initially built as a simple workflow automation tool, but eventually evolved into a powerful ecosystem with thousands of combinations and limitless ways to boost productivity. Over the years, Zapier has grown through partnerships with hundreds of companies that build new integrations, and its developer platform has become a free, open space where anyone can connect their app to other APIs. The company is now working to expand this ecosystem, aiming to connect every web app on Zapier while empowering users to build their own integrations.

As an app developer, creating a successful app requires careful planning and execution. To kickstart a project, Messapps uses a 5-day sprint process that involves preparing the business model, creating a user story diagram, designing secondary screens, preparing for design, and catching up on unfinished work. The process begins with understanding the client's business model, including their target audience, value proposition, platforms, customer relationships, monetization strategy, key resources, key activities, key integrations, cost structure, and more. On day two, a user story diagram is created to outline the main user stories and secondary features. Day three focuses on creating all other screens needed, including login, password reset, registration, settings, notification settings, terms & conditions, and profile screens. By day four, design preparation begins, with a focus on finding a design style that appeals to the target audience. Finally, on day five, any unfinished work is caught up on to ensure completion by the end of the sprint. This structured process helps to ensure that an app idea is well-prepared for smooth execution and sets it up for success.

Navigating a messy API and its documentation is challenging, with some APIs being robust while others are hastily thrown together and lacking documentation. Doug Puccetti, a Business Solutions Analyst at obo. Agency, spends his day sifting through cluttered APIs to automate tasks for clients. He uses Zapier to streamline data uploads, reducing the time spent on manual work by over 25%. With Zapier's webhooks and Code apps, he can automatically generate leads and move them between customer relationship managers (CRM) like HubSpot and Salesforce. By mixing and matching applications with each other, Doug's Zaps can perform various tasks, such as transferring leads from CRM to CRM or creating new leads from webinar attendees. The use of Zapier has made a significant impact on his work, freeing up time for more client-focused activities.

Calendly, a company that wants to improve communication among its teams, uses app automation tool Zapier to bring together their tools and streamline data transfer. They connect their Zendesk support platform with other apps like Airtable, Gmail, and Salesforce using Zaps, which automate the flow of information between teams. This enables their support team to share customer feedback directly with product and sales teams, improving customer satisfaction and driving business growth.

Love Your Melon, a company that started with giving hats to children fighting pediatric cancer in the United States, has grown into a brand that not only gives away hundreds of thousands of hats but also funds research and collaborates with celebrities and influencers. The company uses automation tools like Zapier to streamline its operations, automating tasks such as record-keeping, sales processes, and even creating custom orders for colleges and sports teams. By leveraging these tools, Love Your Melon is able to focus on its mission while saving time and resources. With the help of Google Sheets and Typeform, the company can track data and gauge the success of its campaigns, ultimately making it a more efficient and effective organization.

The company Livestorm, a webinar platform, uses a data-driven approach to personalize its content and improve sales by leveraging advanced workflows and automation tools like Zapier and Clearbit. By integrating these tools with its existing tech stack, Livestorm is able to gather customer data and create targeted messages that lead to increased engagement and referrals. The company's workflow utilizes Zapier to automate tasks such as lead creation, CRM updates, email subscriptions, and spreadsheet management, allowing the team to save time and energy while improving their marketing process.

The author, inspired by Annie Dillard's quote "How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives," decided to track every minute of their time for a month to understand where they were spending their time and make changes. They created eight categories: paid work, passion work, professional development, personal development, relationships, play, wellness, and support work, as well as two additional categories for distractions and maintenance. The author set up tools such as Toggl to track their time and analyzed the results after four weeks, discovering that they were spending too much time on "play" and "maintenance" and not enough time on important areas like work, development, relationships, and wellness. By tracking their time, the author gained a better understanding of where their time was going and made changes to prioritize their time more effectively, becoming more mindful of how they spent their minutes and appreciating the amount of time available in a day.