Creating your first journey
Creating a journey using Quickwork is as easy as a pie. In just a few mouse clicks and with the help of a valid set of credentials of the applications you want to integrate, your journey gets ready to automate your tasks in a blink of an eye. Follow the below steps to get started with creating your first journey.
Before you start creating your first journey, make sure you have registered and signed in to your Quickwork account:
Select a folder in which you want to create a journey, say Task, as shown in the following image. To know how to create a new folder, click here:
To start with a new journey, either click the + Create Journey button or click the Get started by creating a new journey link. You will be redirected to the journey window where you can see various fields such as Journey Name, Event, Steps, and options to save and start your journey:
A journey is essentially made up of two elements: A trigger and one or more actions. A trigger is something that starts the journey and steps are the tasks that the journey performs automatically.
Let’s begin by creating the following simple use case as our first journey:
Whenever you send a new message to a Facebook Page via Facebook Messenger, it automatically forwards the message content to an email address.
Now, let’s divide our journey use case into two parts:
Whenever you send a new message on a Facebook Page via Facebook Messenger; your trigger.
Forward the message content to an email address; your action.
Let’s start creating it step by step.
Before configuring the trigger, let’s give a name to our journey. To do so, click on the edit button given besides the name of your journey title in the header of the journey configuration manager. Enter the name of your choice, e.g., Facebook Messenger-Gmail.
To configure the trigger event, follow these steps:
Select the required app from the Apps drop-down menu displayed right below the New Trigger block. According to the use case, select Facebook Messenger. You can use the search option to search for the desired app.
On selecting the required app, a new drop-down menu will be displayed right next containing a list of the available trigger events for that particular app. In our case, select the New text message trigger:
Now, the app that you have selected (Facebook Messenger) requires a connection between your Facebook account and Quickwork. This will check for new messages and trigger the respective actions when the journey is running. To establish the connection, you can either use an existing connection or create a new connection.
Since we are creating a new connection as shown in Figure 4: Selecting the trigger event, there won’t be an option to select an existing account. Click here to know more about the connections and how to manage them.
Click the Link an account button. The connect to Facebook Messenger window will open:
Enter the name of your choice in the Connection Name field. Then, enter the Facebook Page ID in the Page ID field. The Page ID can be seen in the web URL of the Facebook Page window.
Once you have completed entering the details, click the Link account button. You'll be taken to the Facebook confirmation screen. Click the Continue as {your_name} button to complete establishing the connection:
In this way, we have successfully configured our trigger. There are no input fields available for the trigger:
Click here to understand connecting Facebook Messenger in detail.
Some triggers keep a real-time check for the data while others keep checking at an interval of 15 seconds. These triggers are called real-time and polling triggers, respectively.
Now let’s try configuring an action of the Gmail app.
You can add one or more actions depending on the requirement of your journey. As of now, we will be configuring one action to understand the entire process. Scroll down to the Steps section. You'll get the following two options:
Simple Action
Business Logic
Click on the Simple Action option. A new drop-down will appear containing a list of apps. Select Gmail. Once you select the required app, a new drop-down will appear right next to it containing the Actions available for the Gmail app:
According to our use case, we will select the Send email action. Then, enter the name of your choice for the new action connection that is being established, say Gmail connection. Once you have entered the details, your action window will look like the following image:
Now, click on the Link an account button to establish a connection between Quickwork and Gmail app. This will redirect you to the permission window as shown here:
If you have not logged in to your Gmail account, you will be asked to do so, first, by entering your valid credentials.
Click the Allow button to authorize Quickwork to perform the tasks on your behalf. Once your connection is successfully established, you’ll see the further action fields of Gmail as shown here:
To (required): Enter the email ID of the recipient to whom you want to send the message. E.g., [email protected]
Subject (required): Enter the subject of the email you want to send.
Message (required): Enter the email in the rich format text you want to send. Also, pass the Text Message data pill from the New text message trigger output under the Data Tree Output.
Cc (optional): Enter the email ID of the second recipient to whom you want to send an email.
Bcc (optional): Enter the email ID of the third recipient to whom you want to send an email.
After you have finished entering all the required details and have successfully configured all your triggers and actions, click on the Save Changes button to save your journey. Then click on the Save & Start button. This will first test the journey for errors if any and then will execute the journey. In case of errors due to missing or invalid inputs in your app fields, you will get its list on your journey configuration manager. You will have to first solve all the errors and then you will be able to start your journey.
To test the journey we have created, let us create the event we have defined. In other words, we will post a message via Facebook Messenger to our connected Facebook Page which should trigger our journey.
To do this, log in to your Facebook Messenger app and send a message to the Facebook page:
As soon as you do this, your journey will execute in the background and you will receive the message content on the email that you had entered while configuring your Send email via Gmail action. Check the Gmail inbox for the same:
In this way, we have learned about triggers and actions, selecting or entering the details in their respective fields, configuring, and executing the journey. You can try using triggers of different apps from our list of services along with the combination of one or more actions to create complex yet easy and productive journeys. In the next document, we will look into the connections and the versions of the journey (using different use cases). Stay tuned!
