Onoff Business Zapier integrationAutomate Onoff Business with Zapier.
The Onoff Business Zapier integration offers 5 triggers, 2 actions and 1 search. Every call, text or voicemail on your Onoff number can start a Zap at once, and a Zap can text back or add a contact without you touching the phone.
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What the Onoff Business Zapier integration does for your phone line
It connects your Onoff Business numbers to Zapier, so calls, text messages and voicemails become events other tools can act on. Onoff gives you extra phone numbers on your mobile or on the web, with no second device, SIM card or contract. It is not a premium app, so it runs on the free plan.
Three results people build with it. An auto-reply for texts: New SMS Is Received starts the Zap and Send a SMS answers from the same Onoff number, for instance with a short acknowledgement. A call log that fills itself: New Incoming Call and New Outgoing Call send each call into a sheet or a CRM, so the team sees who rang whom. A voicemail inbox the whole team reads: New Voicemail pushes each message to the tool where people already work.
The best news on this page: all 5 triggers are instant. Onoff tells Zapier itself when a call or a text happens, so even on the free plan nothing waits for a scheduled check. Now the limits. There are only two actions: you can create a contact and send a text, but not place a call, update or delete a contact. The single search finds contacts by name or number, nothing else. For a wider look at Zapier before you start, see the Zapier review and Make vs Zapier. To compare with another tool, see the Onoff Business Make integration.
Zapier vocabulary, without the jargon
A few Zapier words come back throughout this page. Here is what each one means.
- Zap
- The automation you build on Zapier: one trigger, then one or more actions that run every time the trigger event happens.
- Trigger
- The event that starts the Zap, such as a text landing on your Onoff number. Once the Zap is on, Zapier waits for it.
- Action
- What the Zap does after it starts: the step that sends a text or creates a contact for you.
- Task
- The unit Zapier bills. One task is one action your Zap completes successfully, and your plan counts those.
- Polling trigger
- A trigger Zapier checks on a timer, asking the app for new items. None of the Onoff triggers works this way.
- Instant trigger
- A trigger the app reports itself the moment the event happens. All five Onoff triggers are instant.
- Filter
- A step that lets the Zap continue only when what arrived meets your condition, and stops it otherwise.
- Search step
- A step that looks up something that already exists in an app, so the following steps can use what it found.
What an Onoff Business Zap really costs
A call or a text that starts your Zap costs nothing: the trigger never uses a task. Each action that goes through, such as a text sent, costs one.
- Tasks per month on Free100
- Steps per Zap on Free2 (one trigger, one action)
- Premium appNo, works on Free
- Instant triggers5 of 5
An action that fails is not counted, and a Zap with three actions uses three times what a one-action Zap does. The free plan gives 100 tasks a month and unlimited Zaps, each limited to two steps: one trigger, one action. A filter, a search or a second action makes the Zap multi-step, which needs a paid plan. The interval grid below only applies to polling triggers; Onoff's instant triggers ignore it on every plan.
Connect your Onoff Business account
- 01
Open your connections
Go to the Apps page of your Zapier account. A connection is your Onoff account linked to Zapier once, then reused by every step that uses Onoff in any Zap.
- 02
Add Onoff Business
Click + Add connection, type Onoff Business in the dialog's search box, pick it, then click Add connection. You need an existing Onoff Business account for the next step.
- 03
Sign in and grant access
Sign in to Onoff in the tab that opens and grant Zapier access to the account. Zapier can then reach the numbers and contacts that account can reach, and nothing else.
Your first Zap: answer callback requests by text
GoalWhen a text reaches your Onoff number and matches a condition, send an automatic reply from the same number.
- 01
Pick the trigger
Create a Zap, choose Onoff Business and New SMS Is Received, select your connection, then pick the Onoff number to watch in its required box.
- 02
Test on a real text
Run the trigger test. Zapier brings back the three most recent texts on that number, so pick a real one to map the next steps.
- 03
Add the filter
From the plus icon, add Filter: a value from the text, a text rule, and the word you are looking for. This makes the Zap multi-step, so it needs a paid plan.
- 04
Add Send a SMS
Add Onoff Business with Send a SMS. Pick your Onoff phone number, map the sender as the target phone number, and write the reply in Sms content.
- 05
Test, then publish
Test the action on your own phone first so no customer gets a test text, read what came back, then click Publish to switch the Zap on.
Onoff Business triggers on Zapier
5 events start a Zap when something happens in Onoff Business, and 5 of them are instant: the app calls Zapier straight away, whatever your plan.
New Incoming Call
Instant triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a new incoming call has occurred for the given phone number.”
Starts your Zap each time someone calls the Onoff number you chose. You get a record of every inbound call outside the phone app, which matters when several people share one business line.
New Outgoing Call
Instant triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a new outgoing call has occurred for the given phone number.”
The mirror of the previous one: it fires when a call is placed from your chosen Onoff number. Handy to measure follow-up work, since it captures what your team does rather than what comes in.
New SMS Is Received
Instant triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a SMS is received for the given phone number.”
Reacts to a text landing on the Onoff number you pick. It is the starting point of the auto-reply Zap drawn above, and of any flow where a customer writes first.
New SMS Is Sent
Instant triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a SMS is sent from the given phone number.”
Catches each text sent from your chosen Onoff number, whether a person typed it or a Zap sent it. That second case is the one to keep in mind.
New Voicemail
Instant triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a voicemail is sent to the given phone number.”
Fires when someone leaves a voicemail on the Onoff number you select. Voicemails are easy to miss on a phone, and this trigger moves them to wherever your team actually looks.
Onoff Business actions on Zapier
Onoff Business gives you 2 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.
Create Contact
ActionIn Zapier“Creates a contact in onoff.”
Adds a new contact to Onoff from a Zap. The only required box is the User the contact belongs to, so pick the right team member first.
Send a SMS
ActionIn Zapier“Sends a SMS via onoff. Restrictions may apply.”
Sends a text from one of your Onoff numbers. Three boxes are required: the Onoff phone number to send from, the target phone number, and the Sms content, which is capped at 500 characters. Onoff notes that restrictions may apply.
Onoff Business search on Zapier
1 search step looks for data that already exists in Onoff Business, so a later step can use it.
A search finds a contact that already exists in Onoff so the next step can use it. Searches sit at the bottom of the Action event list, under SEARCH, and adding one makes the Zap multi-step. Onoff offers no find-or-create variant: the search cannot create the contact it misses.
Search Contacts
SearchIn Zapier“Finds possible contacts in onoff based on the given input to search by name.”
Looks up possible contacts in Onoff from a name or a phone number. Two boxes are required: the User whose contacts you search, and the name or phone to search for.
The three settings every search exposes
- Successful if no search results are found?Left as it is, a search that finds nothing stops the Zap there and the steps that needed it are skipped. Switched on, the Zap carries on empty-handed.
- Create X if it doesn't exist yet?This box turns a search into find-or-create. Onoff exposes no such variant, so here the search only looks.
- If multiple search results are found?Several matches leave three ways out: keep the first one, which is the default, stop the Zap, or pass them all on at once.
When an Onoff Business Zap breaks
Zapier attaches no help article to Onoff and lists no limit of its own, apart from the 500-character cap on texts. The traps below are the general ones.
On a phone line, they share one cause: the Zap both listens to and writes on the same numbers. For general checks, see Zapier troubleshooting.
The texting loop
Send a SMS on a number watched by New SMS Is Sent makes a Zap that sets itself off and burns through your tasks.Older calls are not picked up
A Zap only reacts to what happens after it is switched on. Calls, texts and voicemails from before stay in Onoff, and moving them is a separate job.A sudden wave is held back
When a trigger suddenly returns a large batch, for example replies to a mass campaign, Zapier's flood protection can hold the items back.Long texts are refused
Sms content is limited to 500 characters. A message built from long mapped values can go over that limit, and the text then does not go out as planned.
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