Core Zapier Terminology for Small Business Owners

In the fast-paced world of HR and recruiting, leveraging automation isn’t just an advantage—it’s a necessity. Zapier stands out as a powerful no-code tool that bridges the gap between your essential applications, streamlining workflows and freeing up valuable time. To truly harness its potential, particularly for small business owners looking to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes, understanding its core terminology is crucial. This glossary provides clear, actionable definitions designed to equip HR and recruiting professionals with the foundational knowledge needed to automate more effectively and reclaim hundreds of hours.

Zap

A Zap is Zapier’s term for an automated workflow. It’s a blueprint that tells Zapier to perform one or more actions every time a specific event occurs. For HR professionals, a Zap could automate sending a welcome email to new hires once they’re marked “hired” in an ATS, or automatically create a task in a project management tool for a recruiter when a new resume arrives. Understanding Zaps is the first step toward transforming manual, repetitive tasks into seamless, automated processes, allowing HR teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than administrative overhead.

Trigger

A Trigger is the event that starts a Zap. It’s the “When this happens…” part of your automated workflow. For example, in an HR context, a Trigger could be “New applicant submitted in Greenhouse,” “New row added to a Google Sheet (for candidate tracking),” or “New candidate marked ‘interviewed’ in your CRM.” Identifying the right triggers is fundamental to building effective Zaps, as it dictates precisely when your automated actions will be initiated, ensuring timely and relevant responses without manual intervention.

Action

An Action is the event a Zap performs after it’s triggered. It’s the “then do this…” part of your workflow. Following a Trigger, a Zap can perform one or many actions. Examples in HR include “Send email via Gmail to candidate,” “Create new record in HubSpot CRM,” “Add candidate to a specific talent pool in Lever,” or “Post a message to a Slack channel notifying the hiring team.” Actions automate the follow-through, ensuring that critical steps in your hiring or onboarding process are never missed and are executed consistently.

Task

A Task in Zapier refers to the successful completion of an action. Every time a Zap runs from a Trigger and performs its intended Action(s), it consumes a Task. If a Zap has multiple actions, each successful action counts as one task. Monitoring your task usage is vital for managing your Zapier subscription, especially for small businesses. For instance, if a Zap is designed to send an email and update a spreadsheet for every new applicant, and you receive 100 applications, that Zap would consume 200 tasks (100 emails sent + 100 spreadsheet updates). Efficient Zap design helps optimize task consumption.

Webhook

A Webhook is a method for applications to send real-time information to other applications as events happen. In Zapier, a “Catch Hook” trigger allows you to receive data from any application that can send webhooks, even if it’s not a native Zapier integration. This is incredibly powerful for custom HR systems or niche recruiting tools. For example, a custom application might send a webhook to Zapier whenever a candidate completes a specific assessment, triggering a Zap to update their profile in your ATS or notify a recruiter. Webhooks provide unparalleled flexibility for connecting disparate systems.

Integration

An Integration refers to the connection between Zapier and a specific application, such as Google Sheets, Slack, your ATS (e.g., Workable, Greenhouse), or your CRM. Zapier boasts thousands of pre-built integrations, allowing businesses to seamlessly connect the tools they already use. For HR and recruiting, robust integrations mean you can automate processes across your entire tech stack—from initial candidate outreach to onboarding and HR administration—without manual data entry or switching between multiple platforms, significantly reducing errors and improving data accuracy.

Multi-Step Zap

A Multi-Step Zap is a workflow that performs more than one action after a single trigger, or includes intermediate steps like Filters or Formatters. Instead of just “Trigger A then Action B,” it can be “Trigger A, then Action B, then Action C, then Action D.” This allows for complex automation sequences, such as: “New applicant in ATS (Trigger) -> Add applicant info to a Google Sheet (Action 1) -> Create a candidate folder in Google Drive (Action 2) -> Send internal Slack notification (Action 3).” Multi-step Zaps are essential for fully automating intricate HR processes.

Filter

A Filter is a step in a Zap that allows actions to proceed only if certain conditions are met. It’s the “only continue if…” part of your workflow. For example, you might set a Filter in an applicant tracking Zap to “only continue if candidate’s resume contains ‘project management’ skills” or “only continue if application source is ‘LinkedIn’.” Filters prevent unnecessary actions and ensure that your automation is highly targeted, allowing HR teams to focus their efforts on the most relevant candidates or situations.

Formatter

A Formatter is a built-in Zapier tool that transforms data between steps in a Zap. It can reformat text, numbers, dates, or even extract specific information. For instance, you could use a Formatter to ensure all candidate names are consistently capitalized, extract a specific email address from a long text field, or convert a date format from an application into a format your CRM prefers. Formatters are critical for maintaining data integrity and ensuring that information flows correctly and consistently between different applications in your HR tech stack.

Delay

The Delay step in Zapier pauses a Zap for a specified amount of time or until a specific date/time. This is incredibly useful for scheduling follow-ups or drip campaigns in recruiting. For example, after a candidate interview, you could “Delay for 3 days” before sending an automated follow-up email, or “Delay until 2 weeks after start date” before triggering an onboarding check-in. Delays allow for more human-like, timely, and strategic communications, improving the candidate and employee experience without manual scheduling.

Paths

Paths are a premium Zapier feature that allows a single Zap to take different actions based on different conditions, essentially creating if/then/else logic. It’s like having multiple Filters that lead to different outcomes. For an HR team, this could mean: “If candidate has 5+ years experience, take Path A (send to Senior Recruiter)”; “If candidate has 2-4 years experience, take Path B (send to Junior Recruiter)”; “Otherwise, take Path C (send rejection email).” Paths enable highly dynamic and intelligent automation for complex HR workflows.

History

Zap History is a log of every time your Zaps have run, including whether they succeeded or failed, and the data that passed through each step. This feature is invaluable for troubleshooting, auditing, and understanding how your automations are performing. For HR and recruiting teams, reviewing Zap History can help identify why an email wasn’t sent, why data wasn’t updated in a CRM, or simply confirm that critical processes ran as expected. It provides transparency and control over your automated workflows.

Premium Apps

Premium Apps are integrations in Zapier that require a paid Zapier plan to use. These often include more sophisticated or enterprise-level applications commonly used in business. While many core HR tools might be available on free plans, more advanced applicant tracking systems, HRIS platforms, or specialized recruiting CRMs may be classified as Premium Apps. Understanding this distinction is important for small businesses when planning their automation strategy and budgeting for Zapier subscription tiers.

Connection

A Connection in Zapier refers to the authenticated link you establish between your Zapier account and a specific app account (e.g., your Gmail account, your ATS account, your Google Sheets account). When you build a Zap, you select the specific account you want Zapier to use for that app. Connections are crucial for security and functionality, ensuring Zapier has the necessary permissions to perform actions on your behalf within those applications. Managing your connections allows you to seamlessly integrate all your HR tech tools.

API (Application Programming Interface)

While not strictly a Zapier term, understanding API is fundamental because Zapier operates by connecting to the APIs of various applications. An API is a set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate with each other. When Zapier integrates with an app, it’s essentially using that app’s API to send and receive data. For HR professionals, grasping the concept of an API helps demystify how different platforms exchange information automatically, illustrating Zapier’s power as an “API glue” for building interconnected, efficient HR ecosystems without coding.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Zapier HR Automation: Reclaim Hundreds of Hours & Transform Small Business Recruiting