iPaaS In Your Browser With Push By Zapier

Zapier is up to more good things with the launch of Push by Zapier, allowing you to trigger API driven events from your browser. The new Chrome browser extension lets anyone, even non-developers to trigger the functionality of over 700 apps from the browser toolbar--further expanding the definition of how APIs can be put to work.

Allowing users to trigger API functionality from the browser adds an empowering dimension to the API conversation for non-developers. It allows the average user to access the features of any SaaS platform with an API, in their default environment--the browser. It allows the user to define, and queue up the API driven events that matter to them, where they operate the most. Zapier gave non-developers access to orchestrate the integration between the platforms they depend on, and Push by Zapier gives them even more granular level control over this world. 

Some of the API driven events Zapier highlights in their release are:

  • Add Tasks to Your To-Do List
  • Send an Email or SMS to a Specific Person
  • Crunch Numbers and Calculate Payments
  • Copy Data from an Unsupported Site or App and Add It to a Zapier Workflow
  • Create Invoices with a Click
  • Send Documents to be Signed
  • Create a New Project or Folder
  • Impersonate a Slack Bot
  • Look Up Data and Use It in a Workflow
  • Get Details from Your CRM Delivered Anywhere
  • Translate Text
  • Send Sales and Onboarding Emails to Potential or New Customers
  • Set a Reminder for Yourself
  • Create a Templated Document
  • Push a Button to Build a Report or Pull Statistics

All very business-centric, API-driven functionality. That is what I like about what Zapier enables. They provide meaningful API-driven functionality for the average business user, and Push just gives them another way to define what this functionality is, and when it gets executed. This transcends just the features and functionality that each API platform offers, it also is about end-users being API literate, and aware that they can put these granular level features to work.

Push by Zapier provides another incentive for SaaS providers to have an API. Not all APIs will fuel the development of 3rd party web or mobile apps. Sometimes APIs are just about enabling existing users to better orchestrate, or trigger specific features and events that are important to them--when and where they want. The problem is, what do we call this type of API push service? Push Integration Platform as a Service (piPaaS)? :-) I don't care what its called, I find it easy to get behind anything that enables the average user to put APIs to work.