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Best way to easily test a webhook trigger for a Zap?

  • 12 July 2019
  • 7 replies
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Userlevel 7
Badge +12

What's the best way to manually trigger (POST or GET) a Zapier webhook to test the outcome of my Zap? I know I can put all of the info in the URL with ?key=value&key2=value but with really long values and 5+ keys, that's going to be a pain to do each time.

I thought of creating a separate Zap using Push by Zapier or a "New Email" trigger with a webhook action to then trigger the Zap I'm trying to test, but that seems a bit complex. Is there a better way?


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Best answer by jesse 15 July 2019, 14:05

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7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Have you tried Postman? It's a pretty powerful application that's meant for calling native API’s via webhooks and sending data. The global variables option for the app's base URL and environment switching/environment variables for misc client API keys might be useful for you as well.


Userlevel 1

Just putting my two thoughts in here, that Postman is the best tool for testing webhooks. I use it everyday... if you have any questions let us know as I haven't yet found something postman cannot do when it comes to sending (GET POST DELETE, etc) webhooks.


Userlevel 1

ARC (Advanced Rest Client), Insomnia and Fiddler are another few of options I've used in the past. Checking out Postman now too!


Userlevel 4
Badge +7

Interestingly enough, GET requests can trigger your Webhook by Zapier triggers. You can navigate to the URL via your address bar to send one, and that is probably the easiest method to test your trigger.

That said, in order for any of our Webhook triggers to fire, the following needs to be true:

  • You must send data in JSON, XML, or URL/Form-Encoded format
  • The payload must not be blank

To that end, you can submit a URL like so in your Browser's address bar and it can trigger your Zap:

https://hooks.zapier.com/hooks/catch/1234567/f8f22dgg/?name=Ryan&zapier=True

More on our Webhooks by Zapier app here: https://zapier.com/help/webhooks/#how-get-started-webhooks-zapier


Userlevel 1

A lo-tech but quick way might be to put some test data in a google sheet, then you could have a column which concatenates the data into a URL with all your keys and values. Then all you have to do is click the URL for each row to test it.


Userlevel 5
Badge +1

Postman is the absolute best for this. Any API or Webhook Zaps I build are always always always built and tested inside of Postman first. Then, once I've found the correct formatting for the request or hook, I then just duplicate into Zapier :)


Userlevel 7
Badge +12

@BlakeBailey Postman is definitely my go-to for this now, it's so handy to test webhooks!