Posting to a Zapier Web Hook with Elephant Scan

Note: We have easier ways to save your scans to the cloud with Elephant Scan. This tutorial shows you one way to integrate Elephant Scan with Zapier.

In this example we will use Elephant Scan to store our scans in a Google Docs spreadsheet.

Before you start, you will need:

• A Zapier account
• A Google account.
  1. Create a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets
  2. Add the column headings barcode and notes.   Add one row of sample data.
     
  3. Save the sheet and make note of its name.

Post to Zapier

1. Login to your Zapier account.
2. Create a web hook in Zapier by going to the dash board and clicking the "Make a new zap" button.
3. For the trigger choose, "Webhooks by Zapier" and "Catch Hook."  For the action, choose "Google Sheets" and "Create Spreadsheet Row."
   
4. Click "Continue" and you will see your Zapier Webhook.  This is what you will copy to Elephant Scan. There are several ways to do this.  You can email this url to yourself and open the email on your phone.  Use AirDrop to get this from your Mac to your iPhone. Or just type it into Elephant Scan.
5. Click "Continue."  Select "Connect to a Google Sheets account."  Create a name for your Google Sheets account that you will use in Zapier and Click "Continue."
   
6. A window will pop-up that will give you instructions for linking your Google account.  Complete those instructions.  When you are done you will see something like this:
   
7. Click "Continue."  There is nothing to do for the next step.
8. Click "Continue."  You will see Zapier's step 5, but before you go on you need to add your new Zapier web hook to Elephant Scan.
9. Open Elephant Scan in your iPhone.  Tap on "Settings."
   
10. Clear any previous web hook by tapping the small "x" to the right of the "Post to Webhook" input box.
    
11. In the "Post to Webhook" input box, paste or type your Zapier web hook that begins with https://zapier.com/hooks/catch...  Tap "Done."  Elephant Scan is ready to post to Zapier, but there are a few more steps need to get Zapier to receive posts from Elephant Scan.
    
12. Have a barcode handy.  The ISBN code on any book will work, but any barcode will do.
13. Back to the Zapier web service!  You will tell Zapier to parse the information coming from Elephant Scan and put it in your spreadsheet.  Look at the Zapier step 5. section. From the spreadsheet dropdown menu, select the spreadsheet that you created way back at the beginning of this tutorial.   From the worksheet dropdown menu, select the worksheet that contains your headings and sample data (most likely "Sheet1").  You will see two enigmatic looking button labeled "Insert Fields."  Click the top one.
    
14. You will see a pop up window.  Click "Ok, I did this" because you did.
15. Now here's where it gets weird... Click "Ok, I did this" for step 2 in that same window, even though you did not.  We are using Elephant Scan, not Zapier, for this part.
    
16. Pick up your iPhone and open Elephant Scan.  If the scan view is not open, tap "Scan."  Scan any barcode by getting it in sight of your iOS device's view finder.
    
17. Tap the notice at the top to add a note.
    
18. Enter your note and tap Done.
    
19. Now back to Zapier!  If all goes well, you will see the message "We found your changes!"  Click "All done!"
    
20. Click the top "Insert fields" button again.  This time you will see a list of fields sent from Elephant Scan.  Match each field to its spreadsheet heading. When you have matched both the notes and barcode fields. Click "Continue."
    
21. Under the Zapier step 6., click the "Test" Button.  You will be given a chance to test your web hook.  This is not necessary, but you might be interested in examining the type of information that comes from Elephant Scan by clicking "See trigger sample."  Click "Continue."
    
22. Type a name for your zap and click "Turn Zap on."
    
23. Scan a couple more barcodes with added notes.  
24. Refresh your Google sheet to make sure your scans were added.

Well, that's it.  We have easier ways to save your scans to the cloud with Elephant Scan. But this gets you started with Zapier integration.  Let us know how you are using Elephant and how we can make it better.