Exploring how to “Trigger Make Scenarios with a Webhook” will empower you to optimize your Make operations and construct more scalable and efficient workflows. By grasping the knowledge shared in this article, you will glean the following insights:
- Understand the concept and usage of webhook triggers to reduce operations used in Make, thus saving cost and resources.
- Learn how to set up a webhook trigger smoothly in Make, ultimately helping you manage scenarios in a more modular manner.
- Discover a practical example of how a webhook trigger can be used to breakdown a large automation operation into more manageable modules.
- Acquaint yourself with the process of how to get your webhook data from a no-code and low-code database like Airtable running.
- Familiarize with X-Ray Workflow application and how it aids in sending webhooks on-demand with ease.
By grasping these key learnings, you will be well-prepared to leverage webhook triggers to optimize your automations in Make.
Trigger Make Scenarios with a Webhook
Are all of your scenarios putting you too close to your operations limits in Make? Are you looking for a better way to build modular scenarios? In this low-code tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use webhooks to trigger your automations in Make and save some money in the process. Hi, I’m Tom from X-Ray Tech, the workflow company. At X-Ray, we build automated workflows to help people save time, give them confidence, and create more reliable processes. We often use webhook triggers in Make to help reduce the number of operations consumed by each scenario and to create more modular automations that are easier to trigger, update, and maintain. If you’d like more tips about workflow automation, AI, and productivity every single week, be sure to like this video and subscribe for updates. Now let’s get into it.
Why Trigger Make Scenarios with a Webhook?
To get started, let’s talk about why you may want to use trigger Make scenarios with a webhook. First off, your plan in Make places a limit on the amount of data that you can process and the number of operations you can run. Each time any module runs in one of your scenarios, it counts as an operation, even if the scenario doesn’t process any data or run completely.
So, for instance, if your scenario has a watch module as the trigger, like watch records in Airtable, the trigger module will run every 15 minutes or at whatever interval you set it to. Even if it doesn’t find any new records because there aren’t any new records to find, it still adds an operation to your total operations used. One or two operations won’t make much of a difference, but it adds up fast.
If you’ve left your watch trigger to the default 15-minute setting, your scenario will use 96 operations a day just based on that first module alone. You could set the interval to be slower, but this doesn’t always work out.
Scheduling a slower interval might mean that vital information comes to you hours later than you needed it. Because even if you only expect to have one or two new records a day, you might still need the automation to run promptly when those records come in. Instead, a more efficient and scalable approach is to replace your watch module with a webhook trigger.
What is a Webhook?
A webhook is, per Wikipedia, a method of augmenting or altering the behavior of a webpage or web application with custom callbacks. Essentially, a webhook lets you control actions in your app by sending a simple HTTP request. With a webhook trigger, your trigger module won’t run at all, and won’t use up any operations until it actually catches a webhook. But this will still run instantly when it does receive a webhook.
Building with Webhooks
In other cases, you may want to use webhook triggers to build more modular automations. For instance, let’s say you have an automation that runs whenever you launch a new project for a client. This automation creates several relevant project folders, creates tasks in your project management app, and sends a message directly to the client. Instead of managing it all in one gigantic automation, you may want to split it up into several different pieces. One for project folders, one for new tasks, and one for a message to the client.
You could trigger them as needed with webhooks. If you’re familiar with the concept of subzaps in Zapier, this will allow you to achieve a similar modular effect in Make. This makes it much easier to maintain each piece of the workflow and to call them as needed. You could even reuse these pieces in other automations that may require a new folder, a new task, or a message to the client.
Whatever your use case is, setting up a webhook trigger in Make is pretty simple.
How to Trigger Make Scenarios with a Webhook
To set up a webhook trigger in Make, first create a new scenario or duplicate a scenario that you want to edit. Add a webhooks module. Choose custom webhooks, then add a new hook. Be sure to give it a really descriptive name so you can find it later, especially if you plan on doing this for multiple automations. Then click Save. Your new webhook will immediately start listening for incoming data.
Testing Make Webhooks
To start testing it, we need to configure another app to actually send this webhook data. Copy the webhook to the clipboard, then open up another app you’d like to use to send the webhook. There are many apps that you can use to send webhooks. If you’re a developer, you could use an app like Postman. But for all those no-code and low-coders out there, I’ll show you how this works with Airtable. Then I’ll walk you through an even easier way to send webhooks with our own app, X-Ray Workflow.
Airtable is an ideal app to use as a no-code and low-code database for your automations. It’s a great place to store the data you create, look up data to use in your automations, and create some native automations as well. To send a webhook from Airtable, we’ll just configure a simple automation that runs whenever a new record enters a specific view. Then, we’ll add a Run a Script step. Don’t worry, all you need to do is replace a couple of lines of text. We’ll include a code snippet on the resources board for this tutorial so that you can copy and paste it to get started. Just check out the description for a link to the resources board below.
Here’s the code snippet that you’ll find in the resources board. This script will get a link to the resources board, a code snippet that you’ll find in the resources board. This script will get the record ID of each new record, the name and the value of each field associated with that record, and then send all of that data over to our webhook. Replace webhook URL with your webhook’s URL that you copied earlier from Make. Enclose it in quotes or backticks. Replace table name with your table’s name or ID. Once again, enclose it in quotes or backticks.
Your Make scenario should still be listening for data, but if it isn’t, just click Run to listen for new webhooks. Back in Airtable, go ahead and test the automation with the script. Now, Make should see how your webhook data is structured. Then, configure the rest of your scenario in Make, and add a simple Slack step that will confirm that Make received all of the right data. We’ll send a quick DM that includes the record name and a couple of other fields. We’ll start running the Make scenario so it will be listening for a new webhook. Then, we’ll test the Airtable automation. The Slack message appears with a unique ID in other data. The scenario runs instantly when the webhook is sent, but doesn’t use any operations when it’s waiting.
Sending Make Webhooks with X-Ray
Now, let’s take a look at sending webhooks with X-Ray Workflow. X-Ray Workflow is an app we’ve developed to let users gather resources from around the web into simple, contextualized boards. X-Ray Workflow supports Docpins, which feature real-time editing and collaboration on rich text documents. Textpins, which let you copy and paste snippets of text with a single click. Embedpins, which allow you to embed nearly any web app or web page you can go to on the internet. Linkpins, which let you save and quickly open any URL or local file path. And Pushpins, which will let you send webhooks on-demand with a single click. This is a great method for setting up automations that should only run when you want them to run.
To get started, go to xrayworkflow.com to download X-Ray Workflow. Right now, the app is in beta and totally free to use on Mac, PC, and mobile devices. If you use a webhook from X-Ray Workflow to trigger your automation, your initial Make module will essentially be the same as before. Once again, you create a webhooks module, choose custom webhooks, and add a new hook with a very descriptive name so you don’t lose that again. The new webhook will immediately start listening for incoming data. To provide that data, we’ll copy the webhook URL and open up X-Ray Workflow.
This area right here is a board in X-Ray Workflow. I’ve currently selected the webhook tutorial board, and I can see a lot of other boards in this workspace on the left-hand panel. Can you tell we make a lot of tutorials? Each board is divided into sections which hold pins. In this webhook demo section, I’ll click on the plus sign to add a new pin. I’ll give it a name and a color and choose pushpin as the type. Now it will ask for a URL. We can just paste the URL that we copied earlier from Make. We’ll click on add pin to save this pin to our board. Now we’ll just click on the pin to trigger the webhook in Make.
