Ziflow’s Connect tab lets you to integrate with third-party apps and build automation flows to make your creative review process more efficient.

Flows are automation rules that run actions based on events (like a proof being approved or a file being uploaded to cloud storage). Think of them like "if this, then that" recipes. Flows can help you perform many tasks, such as:

• Automatically create proofs from intake forms and cloud storage uploads
• Notify teams of proof status updates
• Sync proofing activity with third-party project management tools like monday.com or Asana
• Send proof data to any app or systems that can receive HTTP requests via webhooks

Intake forms available on: Business Legacy, Standard Pro Enterprise

All other flow features available on: Business Legacy, Pro Enterprise

Open the Connect tab

Open the Connect tab from Ziflow's main navigation pane.

How flows work

• Event: Something happens in Ziflow (a new proof is created, a comment is added, a review decision is made, etc.).
• Action (Zibots): Based on that event, Ziflow does something automatically (e.g., sends an email, updates a project management tool, posts to Slack).

Use flows to:

• Eliminate repetitive tasks: no one wants to manually upload a file to a project folder every time a proof is approved.
• Keep tools in sync: Ziflow can push updates to your other systems (like Asana, monday.com, Slack, Jira, etc.).
• Reduce human error: automated steps don’t forget.

Example flow

• Event: A proof is approved.
• Actions:
  • Notify the project manager on Slack.
  • Move the file to a completed folder in Dropbox.
  • Update a monday.com board.
  • Change permissions to allow the approved version of the file to be downloaded.

Proof managers and reviewers can focus on the review instead of moving files manually or updating multiple tools.

Key terminology

Event

A Ziflow event is something that happens in Ziflow, for example, a proof is approved, which can start a flow.

Zibots (Actions)

Zibots are actions that you use to build your flows (e.g., “Send Email Zibot” or “Start a Stage Zibot”). It’s our term for automated steps.

Ziflow includes sets of prebuilt Zibots for automating common tasks in both Ziflow and supported third-party apps. 

If the app you want to use doesn't have prebuilt Zibots, or the prebuilt action doesn't exist, you can create an action using the Webhook Zibot, to manually set up and send data to any system that can receive HTTP requests, typically using JSON.

Intake form

An intake form is a form you create in the Connect tab and connect with a flow to let people outside your team, like freelancers or clients, submit files for review in Ziflow. Submissions are turned into proofs to review in your account. See Use intake forms for automated proof creation.

Ziflow tokens

Tokens are short bits of code you can use to grab live data from a proof, review, comment, or a Zibot.

JSON

 A format for structured data. You don’t need to learn it in detail, but knowing what the key names are helps.

JSONPath

JSONPath is a query language for JSON. You can use JSONPath expressions in any open text fields in webhook settings. Ziflow tokens use JSONPath expressions to query. You can replace any token with JSONPath or JSONata to get the same result.  If you do need access to or manipulate data that is not available in Ziflow tokens, then JSONata is recommended. 

JSONata 

A search and transformation language for JSON. It helps you pull just the pieces of data you want from a large JSON payload. See Use JSONata to insert values.

Wrap JSONata tokens like this: #{$.proof.versions[-1].version_id}#

Next steps

Build a flow