So you want to run your automations fully on the cloud and you reach Browserless, great! That means you can run your browsers on our cloud... but you still need to run your script that connects to our browsers, right?
If you don't want to set up a server with Node to run that or have to run it on your local machine, you can leverage our new integration and use Browserless in Zapier.
Using Zapier for no-code integrations
Zapier is a platform that allows the integration of web applications and platforms in the cloud, and we're on it.
This allows for no-code or low-code integrations of Browserless in the cloud. By using Browserless in Zapier, you can connect our service to other apps, such as Gmail, Google Drive, GitHub, ChatGPT, and many more by dragging and dropping.
An alternative to libraries and APIs
Most of our users are developers and they're familiar with running automations by using a compatible library or by requesting from their app with REST APIs. However, the Zapier method is for users who don't want to setup that infrastructure.
What actions are supported when using Browserless in Zapier?
Keep in mind that using Browserless in Zapier, is simplifying an HTTP request to our REST APIs in the background. For now, we support the following use cases in Zapier:
- Capture a Screenshot (/screenshot)
- Extract Data (/scrape)
- Fetch a site's HTML (/content)
- Generate a PDF (/pdf)
- Measure a website's performance (/stats)
Steps to set it up
- Sign up to Browserless and copy your API key
- Sign up to Zapier
- Go to your Zaps and click on Create then New Zap
- Choose a Trigger (You can choose a schedule to run hourly, daily, weekly, etc. or a different custom trigger)
- Click on Action and select Browserless
- A right panel will open, select the event you want to perform, let's try Capture a Screenshot and click Continue
- Now Zapier will ask you to connect an account, a popup will show up, enter a custom name for that account, and the API key you copied in step #1
- Now set up the action configuration, a simple test can be input with as little as a URL you want to screenshot and press continue
- Now you have a file, which you can use with another app, let's create another action and select Gmail
- Select Send email as the action
- Connect your Gmail account
- Type in an email in the To field, an email Subejct, a Hello World body, and last but not least, click on the last field called attachment, select the Browserless action, and select the row that says File (Exists but not shown)
- Click on Continue and test it, an email should be in your inbox with the screenshot that was captured.
Advanced Options
When using the Advanced Options, you can feed a RAW JSON text to use all of our schema fields, and not just the quick options provided in Zapier.
You can also add launch args and Browserless flags when using Zapier, by using the Launch flags field. All the possible flags you can send can be found in our Launch Options docs.
Conclusion
Automation can be intimidating for folks with limited developing skills, but using Browserless in Zaps gives you all the power of our platform with the least amount of coding and infrastructure requirements out there.
Remember you can sign up for a free account to try out the this method.