Developer Relations tools: Zapier

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6. Developer Relations tools: Zapier

On this page

• Zapier subscription
• Zapier access
• Current Zaps
  • Zaps for Developer Evangelism
    • Zaps for Hacker News
  • gitlab-blog Forum Bot

Zapier subscription

We use Zapier to automate the task of forwarding mentions of GitLab, swag store orders, etc.

The Zapier subscription runs on the Team plan, and is shared with the GitLab team.

Zapier access

• URL: https://zapier.com
• Account: search for the shared Zapier account in 1Password's Zapier vault. Please file an access request if you cannot access that vault.

Once logged in, you can access, edit and create Zaps in the Developer Relations folder

After editing or creating a new Zap, remember to turn it on with the toggle switch next to the task's name on the Zap's list.

Current Zaps

List of Zaps that are enabled on the Developer Relations folder.

Zap	Description	Involved Tools
about.gitlab.com + devops-tools comments	GitLab blog comments to #mentions-of-gitlab Slack channel, and DevOps Tools pages comments to Zendesk and #devoptools-comments Slack channel	Disqus, about.gitlab.com/blog, Slack
Developer Relations MR Updates	All merged MRs with Developer Relations label posted to #developer-relations Slack channel	GitLab.com, Slack
GitLab Swag Store	GitLab store order to Printfection order	Printfection, Shopify
Student Spotlights Application Alerts	Student Spotlights form submission notifications to #student-spotlights-applications Slack channel	Google forms/sheets, Slack
Post new Blogs to the GitLab forum	GitLab blog post is posted as a new forum topic	about.gitlab.com/blog, Discourse

Zaps for Developer Evangelism

The Zaps are organized in the Developer Evangelism folder as a sub-folder for Developer Relations in Zapier.

Zap	Description	Involved Tools
New blog posts	Reads GitLab blog RSS feed and posts to #developer-evangelism-updates channel.	GitLab Blog, Slack
MRs merged	www-gitlab-com MRs with the label dev-evangelism, posts to the #developer-evangelism-updates channel.	GitLab, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @dnsmichi	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @sarki247	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @sugaroverflow	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @john_cogs	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @pywarias	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @cesar_saavedr	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @awkwardferny	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter, text @gitlab: @itzikgb	Parses account tweets for text @gitlab and posts to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter @GHChangelog	Posts new account tweets to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter @GitHubNext	Posts new account tweets to Slack	Twitter, Slack
Twitter @DiscourseStatus	Posts hosting status updates to Slack	Twitter, Slack

Zaps for Hacker News

The Zaps are organized in the Developer Evangelism folder as a sub-folder for Developer Relations in Zapier.

Zap	Description	Involved Tools
Hackernews: Slack notifications for front page mentions: GitLab	Hackernews: GitLab front page stories to #developer-evangelism Slack channel	HackerNews, Slack
Hackernews: Slack notifications for front page mentions: Opstrace	Hackernews: Opstrace front page stories to #developer-evangelism Slack channel	HackerNews, Slack
Hackernews: Slack notifications for front page mentions: Clickhouse	Hackernews: Clickhouse front page stories to #developer-evangelism Slack channel	HackerNews, Slack
Hackernews: Slack notifications for front page mentions: Open Core	Hackernews: Open Core front page stories to #developer-evangelism Slack channel	HackerNews, Slack
Hackernews: Slack Notifications for mentions: GitLab	Hackernews: GitLab mentions to #hn-mentions Slack channel	HackerNews, Slack
Hackernews: Slack Notifications for mentions: DevOps Platform	Hackernews: DevOps Platform mentions to #hn-mentions Slack channel	HackerNews, Slack

The Zaps poll the Algolia search API for Hacker News and add specific URL parameters in order to

• Query for a string in the posts; ?query="open%20core"
• Filter by tags if the topic hit the front page of Hacker News: &tags=front_page

Searching for a string with whitespaces requires to use quotes around the query parameter, for example https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?&query=%22open%20core%22&tags=front_page.

More API URL examples:

• Front page: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?&query=gitlab&tags=front_page
• Mentions: http://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query="devops+platform"

gitlab-blog Forum Bot

The gitlab-blog user is used to automatically post new GitLab blogs as a new topic to the Community category. This process is controlled through Zapier. Zapier reads the blog RSS feed at https://about.gitlab.com/atom.xml and posts a new topic using the admin API key and gitlab-blog user for each new entry there.

The gitlab-blog credentials and admin API key are stored in the 1Password Marketing vault. Admins can directly edit the user in Discourse without login.