Sessions need a laptop or desktop.
If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer.
Zapier · Foundations
Automate a lead intake from the form to the spreadsheet, and know what it costs.
What you’ll end up with
One finished pair of live Zaps. One that writes every enquiry from your form into a Google spreadsheet and one that emails you an alert for each new lead, each with a run history of successful runs behind it, filed with the form they fire on, the worksheet they fill and a budget that says how many enquiries a month the free plan will carry.
10½
hours in all — about 7 guided, 3½ on your own
6
sessions. Each designed to be completed in one sitting
Free
No payment and no card required.
Finishing gives you a completion record showing the work you built, and all three levels earn the Alongrail Certificate in Zapier. See what you’ll build →
You don’t need prior experience with Zapier. There’s no payment and no card required.
From three raw files to a finished automation
01110 min
The way in, and a form that says no
You have a free Zapier account and know which plan it is on, and Brightwater's enquiry form is built from its definition, shared by link, and holding its first enquiry.
0290 min
A sheet the Zap can write to, and a trigger that watches the form
Brightwater has a Google spreadsheet made from its template with one header row and nothing else, and the first Zap exists with its trigger tested against the enquiry you sent in session one.
03115 min
The action, and going live
The first Zap writes every new Brightwater enquiry into the Leads worksheet on its own: its columns mapped by meaning, its action tested, published and switched on, and three enquiries already arrived.
04100 min
Reading what the Zap did
You can read Zap history and one run's details and say what each run did and cost; four more enquiries have arrived, two only after the form made them right, and the one person who enquired twice is marked by the team rather than hidden.
05110 min
A second Zap: the alert
A second Zap sends you an email alert for every new Brightwater enquiry, to your own address only, and you can show from the sheet, the inbox and Zap history that one enquiry reached both.
0695 min
The bill, and the hand-off
You can say what Brightwater's automations cost a month and how many enquiries the free plan will carry, both Zaps are filed together, and the last enquiry has run successfully through both.
What you need before you start
A laptop or desktop
Sessions need a laptop or desktop. If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer. Zapier runs in the browser, on Windows or a Mac.
Chrome or Edge
Alongrail runs in the browser too, in its own tab beside Zapier.
The course files
Everything you work with is in the download.
What’s free
The whole course: every session, both parts, the files, and your record. Alongrail charges nothing for it. No payment, and no card at any point.
The software
None. Everything this course uses is on Zapier's Free plan, with a free Google account for the spreadsheet and the inbox. The Free plan allows 100 tasks a month and Zaps of one trigger and one action; the whole level uses 23 tasks, counted session by session, and every Zap it builds has exactly two steps.
The data you’ll work with
Every file is invented — the companies, the people and everything in them are made up for the course.
Before you start
The course covers Zapier, in your browser.
- A computer with a current browser, such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, and an internet connection. Nothing is installed.
- A Google account with Gmail. Google Sheets and Gmail both come with it, and a personal account is fine. Session one makes the free Zapier account; you do not need one before you start, and you may sign up to Zapier with the same Google account.
- The course's data download, unzipped. The panel gives you the link when the session starts. It unzips to two folders: brightwater, holding brightwater-lead-form.csv, brightwater-leads-template.csv and brightwater-submissions.csv, and fernhill, holding fernhill-lead-form.csv, fernhill-leads-template.csv and fernhill-submissions.csv. Each folder also holds a start file for every session after the first, which you only need if you rerun a session.
- The task budget, before you start. Zapier's Free plan allows 100 tasks a month, and a task is one successful action a Zap takes for you. This whole course — every guided session and every session on your own — uses 23 of them, counting every test of an action as if it cost one. So the course fits inside one month's allowance with most of it to spare, whatever order you do the sessions in, and nothing is charged: the Free plan has no card.
- One thing to know about the first two weeks. Signing up to Zapier starts a two-week trial of a paid plan, and when it ends the account becomes Free. Every Zap in this course has one trigger and one action, which is what the Free plan runs, so nothing you build changes when the trial ends.
- Who can see what. The form you build is public: anyone with its link can open it and send it, which is why every person, email address and phone number in this course is invented. Your spreadsheet stays private in your own Google Drive. The alert Zap sends email only to your own address, and nothing in this course ever sends anything to anybody else.
Alongrail teaches the software and gives you a record of what you built, with a link to the work itself. What happens with it afterwards is yours. We don’t place people and we take no part in anyone’s recruitment process.
Enrol free and start now.
Sign in, confirm the one thing the course needs, and session 1 opens. No payment, and no card at any point.
If something goes wrong on the way, press “Something’s wrong” in the panel, or write to hello@alongrail.com — we reply within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
What you build
Enquiries stop getting lost. You build one form that turns away a malformed enquiry, a Google spreadsheet your team works from, and two Zaps that run by themselves — one writes every new enquiry into the sheet, the other sends you an alert — and you can read what each run did and say what the month will cost before it arrives.
Two live Zaps on a free Zapier account, each one trigger and one action, with a run history of successful runs behind them: one that writes every enquiry from your form into a Google spreadsheet, and one that emails you an alert for each new lead. Filed together in a folder, with the form they fire on, the Leads worksheet they fill and a Budget worksheet that says how many enquiries a month the free plan will carry. Four hundred and five guided minutes on the first firm, then two hundred and fifteen independent minutes building the same thing from a brief for a second.
How a session works
- Open Zapier
- Share your screen
- One instruction
- You do it
- It confirms it
- Next
You open Zapier and share your screen. Alongrail reads what’s there and gives you one instruction. You do it. It confirms the step landed, then gives you the next one. If something doesn’t match what you see, one button gets you back on track.
Guided
In the Fields list, tick Region. The chart fills in.
One field on the axis, one measure as the value.
then
On your owna different company’s data
Same job, a different company's files. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask.
Guided, then on your own.
The second part of every session uses a different company’s data, with the same kind of mess in different places. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask. It’s the work your record points to.
About 10½ hours in all·about 7 guided·about 3½ on your own
What you earn — the record, the certificate and a sample
Completion record
- Name
- Your name
- Course
- Zapier Foundations — automate your lead intake from form to spreadsheet
- Completed
- The date you finish
- Project
- The automation you built on your own →
- Skills demonstrated
- Making a free Zapier account and knowing which plan it is on, and what that plan allows · Building a form whose field types turn away a malformed enquiry before any automation sees it · Preparing a Google spreadsheet a Zap can write to: one header row in the first row, no blank rows · Building a Zap of one trigger and one action, testing each step, and reading what the test fetched and made · Mapping each field of one app to the right column of another by meaning, not by position · Publishing a Zap and telling a live Zap from a draft · Reading Zap history: which runs happened, their status, what each one moved and what it cost · Seeing what a Zap copies faithfully — a duplicate, a blank — and putting the judgement where the team works · Building a second Zap on the same trigger and knowing what that does to the monthly bill · Budgeting a plan's task allowance: tasks per enquiry, enquiries a month, and what happens at the limit
What was built
Two live Zaps on a free Zapier account, each one trigger and one action, with a run history of successful runs behind them: one that writes every enquiry from your form into a Google spreadsheet, and one that emails you an alert for each new lead. Filed together in a folder, with the form they fire on, the Leads worksheet they fill and a Budget worksheet that says how many enquiries a month the free plan will carry. Four hundred and five guided minutes on the first firm, then two hundred and fifteen independent minutes building the same thing from a brief for a second.
The 6 sessions, and when each was completed on their own
Each session was completed twice: once with step-by-step guidance on one company’s data, then on a second company’s data from a brief, with guidance only when asked. Every check passed on both. Alongrail records the sessions, the checks and the dates; the dashboard itself is the learner’s own, hosted where they chose.
A completion record for Zapier Foundations, now. It names the course, the date you finished, the skills you demonstrated, and links the automation you built on your own. It’s private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time.
The record is a description of work you did, not a claim about you. Anyone who opens it can see the work for themselves.
The Alongrail Certificate in Zapier when all three levels are complete. Foundations is the first of three. Practitioner and Professional are in development, with no dates. See the track →
Your screen stays yours
It looks when you ask. Never otherwise. Images of your screen are not stored. What Alongrail sees →
Nothing you build is public until you publish it. Your record is private until you say so, and you can unpublish it at any time.
What’s Zapier?
Zapier is the software this course is built in. It runs in your browser.
You won’t learn it by watching hours of tutorials. You’ll learn it by building something real with it.
Who you’re building it for
Brightwater Joinery fits kitchens, bathrooms, wardrobes and staircases within an hour of Leeds. Two people run it: one fits, one does everything else.
Enquiries arrive by phone, by email, through a contact page that emails whoever set it up, and on the backs of receipts. Some get a reply the same day. Some are found three weeks later.
The owner wants one rule: every enquiry goes to the same place, the same way, and somebody knows about it within minutes.
There is a free Google account the firm already uses, and a free automation account nobody has opened. There is no budget for software and no time to copy enquiries from one place to another by hand.
A second firm, Fernhill Garden Rooms, has the same problem in a different shape, and it is the one you solve on your own.
Your job is to build the automation that answers it.
Do I need to know Zapier already?
No. The course assumes you’ve never opened it.
What if I get stuck?
Press the button in the panel and say what you see. Alongrail works out where you actually are and picks the instruction back up.
Why 10½ hours, when other courses are 40?
Because the time is spent doing the work rather than watching it. About 7 hours is guided; the rest is you building the same thing again on your own.
What does Alongrail see on my screen?
Only the window you choose to share, and only when you ask it to look. Images of your screen are not stored by Alongrail. What Alongrail sees →
Can I use a Mac?
Yes. Zapier runs in the browser.
What if I miss a week?
Nothing closes. The dates are there to help you keep moving, not to catch you out.
What’s the “on your own” part?
The second half of every session: the same work on a different company’s data, with Alongrail quiet unless you ask. Both parts are needed for your completion record.
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, and no card at any point.
Who can see what I build?
Nobody, until you say so. Your record is private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time. What you build stays in your own files or account; where a step publishes something to the software’s own site, the step says so and says who can see it.
Where this course sits
Zapier Foundations is Foundations in Zapier. The track has three levels; each one you complete earns its own record, and all of them together earn the Alongrail Certificate in Zapier. All the courses →