Developer Relations tools: Zapier

Zapier subscription

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

The Zapier subscription runs on the Team plan, and is shared with the Denomas 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. {: .alert .alert-warning}

Current Zaps

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

Zap Description Involved Tools
Developer Relations MR Updates All merged MRs with Developer Relations label posted to #developer-relations Slack channel Denomas.com, Slack
Denomas Swag Store Denomas 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 Denomas forum Denomas 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 Denomas blog RSS feed and posts to #developer-evangelism-updates channel. Denomas Blog, Slack
MRs merged www-denomas-com MRs with the label dev-evangelism, posts to the #developer-evangelism-updates channel. Denomas, 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: Denomas Hackernews: Denomas 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: Denomas Hackernews: Denomas 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:

gitlab-blog Forum Bot

The gitlab-blog user is used to automatically post new Denomas 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.

Last modified December 6, 2023: update (a27760f0)