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Last Updated: September 13, 2024

Even the most seasoned Zapier user sometimes has a hard time deciding whether to use a filter with multiple Zaps, a single Zap with multiple paths, or a single Zap with a lookup table.

We’re trying something a little different and providing a visual guide that hopefully helps to clarify when/why you might choose to use one over the other.

Filters

If you’re trying to have several different outcomes from your workflow, using multiple Zaps with a filter is one way to approach it.

Click to enlarge.

Paths

Similar to using multiple Zaps with a filter, Paths provide multiple outcomes using only one Zap.

Click to enlarge.

 

Lookup Table

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the options, a lookup table is beneficial when you’ve got specific fields that decide an outcome. 

Click to enlarge.

Further Resources

 

Did This Help?

Here in the Zapier community we’re always trying to create resources that are helpful to our members. We’d love to hear whether this helped to make sense of things, or maybe it left you with more questions.

This would have been more useful with actual samples rather than graphics or at least links to the relevant documentation (i.e. - Lookup Tables, other than surmising there is magic involved there is no way to tell how to actually look up something in the table and pass the results on. 


A brief description of each zap: Including the trigger event and the subsequent actions.

Sample Workflow: A detailed example of a workflow, such as importing data from an Excel sheet to Airtable, generating an invoice in QuickBooks, and sending a notification email.

Key Step Screenshots: Screenshots that show the key steps in each zap, especially those related to data import, invoice creation, and email notifications.

This additional information will help me better understand how the zaps align with our needs and ensure they cover all necessary aspects of our workflow.

 


This would have been more useful with actual samples rather than graphics or at least links to the relevant documentation (i.e. - Lookup Tables, other than surmising there is magic involved there is no way to tell how to actually look up something in the table and pass the results on. 

Yes I agree. This example showed the concept of tables, but it would have been helpful if the table was then created to demo the graphic. I’ve created a table but that’s as far as I’ve gotten, it’s not intuitive. 


Hi there, @SteveS, @Tapy and @helenad👋

Really sorry we missed your replies here previously. Here’s a quick mockup of how the lookup table from the guide would look in a real Zap:

48ea9c35cbf67a28dc44ff54678232b1.png

Then in the subsequent action steps of your Zap you’d select the value that’s output by the Formatter step in the relevant fields as needed:
5644bfd8946a4dffabde07d4d8599d2f.png

We also have a number of guides that give examples of how to set up lookup tables that you might find helpful:

 

 

Hope that helps. If you run into any troubles please do reach back out, happy to assist if you get stuck at all! 🙂


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