Opal Zapier integrationAutomate Opal with Zapier.
The Opal Zapier integration links your marketing calendar to the tools around it. It offers 2 triggers, 4 actions and 1 search: new or updated moments can start a Zap, and Zapier can create moments, content and assets or feed numbers into a graph.
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What the Opal Zapier integration covers
The Opal Zapier integration connects Opal, the planning tool marketing and communications teams use to lay out their campaigns, with the rest of your stack. In Opal a moment is an entry on a board: a launch, a post, an event. Zapier can watch moments being added or changed, create new ones, attach content and assets to them, look one up, and push figures into a graph.
Three results teams set up. A team heads-up: New Moment posts a message in the team chat each time a board gets a new entry, so nobody discovers a launch the day before. A calendar fed from requests: an approved request in your project tool becomes a moment through Create Moment, then Create Content adds the brief inside it as a formatted document. A live results graph: Update Graph adds data points to a series in a plan, so campaign figures show up next to the calendar instead of in a separate spreadsheet.
Both triggers work by polling: Zapier checks Opal at an interval set by your plan, so on the Free plan a change can take up to 15 minutes to start a Zap. Plan for that if a moment is time-sensitive.
What Zapier does not do for Opal: no trigger reports a moment being deleted, and no action deletes or moves one. Find Moment only looks a moment up by its ID, not by name or date. If you want a second pair of hands on the setup, the Zapier agency page explains how the team works, and the Zapier training covers the editor step by step.
Zapier terms, in a minute
The words Zapier uses, once each, before the details.
- Zap
- An automation 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 new moment on an Opal board. Once the Zap is on, Zapier waits for it.
- Action
- The step that does the work once the Zap runs, like creating a moment or adding a data point to a graph.
- Task
- What Zapier bills: one action that completes successfully. Your plan sets a monthly number of them.
- Polling trigger
- A trigger Zapier checks on a timer, keeping only new items. Both Opal triggers work this way; an instant trigger would be pushed by the app.
- Filter
- A step that lets the Zap go on only when the data meets your condition, and stops it otherwise.
- Search step
- A step that looks up something already in an app, here an Opal moment, so the steps after it can use what it found.
What Opal Zaps cost
Opal is not a premium app: it works from the Free plan. You pay in tasks, one per action that succeeds.
- Premium appNo, works on Free
- Free plan100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps
- Triggers2, both polling
- Each successful action1 task
The trigger costs nothing, and neither does Zapier checking Opal for new moments, however often it looks. Each successful Create Moment, Create Content, Create Asset or Update Graph costs one task; a failed one costs none. On the Free plan you get 100 tasks a month and a check every 15 minutes, with one catch: two-step Zaps only. Adding Find Moment, a filter or a second action makes the Zap multi-step, which needs a paid plan. Paid plans also check more often, as the grid shows.
Connect Opal to Zapier
- 01
Open the Apps page
Go to Apps in your Zapier account. A connection is your Opal account linked to Zapier once and reused by every Zap step that touches Opal. Have your Opal login at hand.
- 02
Add the Opal connection
Click + Add connection, search for Opal in the dialog and select it from the results. Then click Add connection to open the Opal sign-in in a new browser tab.
- 03
Sign in and grant access
Sign in to Opal and grant Zapier access to the account. For workspaces and boards you do not own, you also need read or write access there, or the Zap cannot see or change them.
Your first Opal Zap: announce new campaign moments
GoalPost a message to the marketing channel when a moment lands on the launch board.
- 01
Set the Opal trigger
Build the Zap: pick Opal and New Moment, then your connection. Choose the workspace and the boards to watch; both are required.
- 02
Test with real moments
Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent moments from those boards, so the next steps are mapped on a real one.
- 03
Narrow it with a filter
From the plus icon, add Filter and set field, rule and value so only the launch board goes on. This makes the Zap multi-step, which needs a paid plan.
- 04
Add the chat message
Add your team chat app and its message action. Pick the channel and write the text, mixing fixed words with details of the moment from the trigger.
- 05
Test and publish
Test the message step, check that the message landed in the channel, then click Publish. The Zap now checks Opal at your plan's interval.
Opal triggers
2 events start a Zap when something happens in Opal. Zapier checks for them at the interval your plan allows.
Moment Update
Polling triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a moment attribute is updated.”
Starts a Zap when an attribute of an existing moment changes. It lets the rest of your tools follow the calendar instead of being updated by hand each time a plan shifts.
New Moment
Polling triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a new moment is added to a board.”
Reacts to a moment being added to a board. Every new campaign, post or event entered in Opal becomes a starting point for the rest of the team's tools, without anyone copying it over.
Opal actions
Opal gives you 4 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.
Create Asset
ActionIn Zapier“Creates an Asset”
Uploads a file into Opal from a link, so visuals and documents stored elsewhere are available in Opal too. You give it a name and the file's address.
Create Content
ActionIn Zapier“Creates a new piece of content within an existing moment. Supports rich text formatting when using the Document content type and providing HTML content.”
Places a piece of content inside an existing moment. With the Document type, HTML you pass in turns into formatted text, so a brief written elsewhere keeps its headings and lists.
Create Moment
ActionIn Zapier“Creates a new moment on an existing board.”
Adds a new moment to an existing board, from a request, a form or a project ticket. Only the workspace and the moment's name are required, so it fits even sparse sources.
Update Graph
ActionIn Zapier“Adds new data points to specified series in a graph within a plan.”
Adds data points to named series in a graph inside an Opal plan, with a date and time for each update. A value starting with a plus sign adds to the current figure instead of replacing it.
Opal search
1 search step looks for data that already exists in Opal, so a later step can use it.
A search step looks something up in Opal and passes it to the next steps. In the editor, searches sit at the bottom of the action-event list, under SEARCH. Three settings decide what happens when the result is not what you expected.
Find Moment
SearchIn Zapier“Finds an existing moment by ID and returns its details.”
Retrieves an existing moment and its details from its ID, so later steps can use them. The ID must match the one Create Moment returned, which makes it the natural partner of that action in a longer Zap.
The three settings every search exposes
- Successful if no search results are found?Left on its default, a search that finds nothing stops the Zap there and skips the steps that depended on it. Switch it on and the Zap carries on empty-handed.
- Create X if it doesn't exist yet?On apps that offer it, this box turns a search into find-or-create. Find Moment has no such variant, so a missing moment is never created by the search.
- If multiple search results are found?Three ways out when several items match: keep the first one (the default), stop the Zap, or hand all of them on at once.
When an Opal Zap breaks
Zapier lists no help article and no specific limit for Opal. The cases below are the general ones, applied to a calendar that many people edit at once.
Go through them before you publish. If a Zap already misbehaves, the Zapier troubleshooting page goes further.
Existing moments are never picked up
A Zap only reacts to moments added or changed after you switch it on. The ones already on the board stay where they are; moving that backlog is a separate job.A moment that updates itself forever
A Zap on Moment Update that writes back into the same moment changes it again, which starts the Zap again, and every turn burns another task.A bulk import held back
When a trigger suddenly returns a huge batch, after importing a whole calendar for instance, Zapier's flood protection can hold the Zap back.An edit that does not restart New Moment
On a polling trigger Zapier remembers what it has already seen, so editing a moment does not start New Moment again. Use Moment Update for changes.
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