Auto notification of private group requests

@tiffany.oda I haven’t been able to figure it out with Zapier. I’ve played around with Webhooks by Zapier, but haven’t found a way to get it to work.

I suspect that since there isn’t a webhooks callback interface in inSided there’s no where to add the webhooks URL Zapier provides and to select which webhook events would trigger calls to Zapier.

That said, I’m no technical expert on this, maybe @Marion Frecaut or one of the inSided engineers could shed some light.

Hello Everyone, 

I''m happy to inform that we now have a beta version for this feature 

I enabled it for you to test it @Christa Brown @Kgastaldo @justine.rae @triskaideka @CommunityKaila @alexfarmer1 @Anitahg @Scott Baldwin @DannyPancratz @adam.ballhaussen @Blastoise186 @tiffany.oda @Blastoise186 @JKelley @security_lion 

I updated the following KB article explaining how notification on private join request works.

Do share any feedback you may have :)

Hello, @tiffany.oda We currently don’t provide a zapier trigger when a user requests to join a group. You need to create a webhook subscription using our API endpoint, and then use the webhooks by Zapier app (this is more technical than setting up a typical Zap, as you need to authenticate with our API and make an API call). If you would really have the use for a zapier trigger, you can also create an idea about it.

@tiffany.oda I have a Zap set up to do precisely this.  As @Marion Frecaut says, you need to use Webhooks by Zapier trigger.  I found this post quite helpful in setting it up.

If you’re new to web hooks (as I was!) there’s a bit of a learning curve.  The thing which had me stumped for a while was getting the Zap subscribed to the group.MessageRequest event.  I found myself handcrafting some JSON and HTTP requests to get this set up - there might be a better way, but I was deducing a bunch of this from first principles.

Another resource which was somewhat helpful: https://api2-eu-west-1.insided.com/docs/community/#tag/Webhooks

You need to pay attention to the request headers as well as the JSON content though, in order to successfully subscribe your Zapier URL.

(Given the very fresh announcement a few posts above, you might prefer to wait for that to come through beta and avoid the pain of webhooks for now!)

@triskaideka can you share some screenshots? I’d love to see the approach 

@Scott Baldwin Sure thing.

The Zapier side is probably not terribly enlightening, but part of the picture.  I’ve redacted our Zapier hook URL - you’ll get your own when you create your Zap.

Including this one so you can see sample JSON that you might get back.

And finally here’s how I’m using the fields from the JSON.  Probably fairly easy to lookup the user name from their ID as well (maybe using the inSided Zapier module), but I’ve not looked into that.

Pretty simple, right?  But like I hinted before, the devil is in the webhook subscription detail.  You’ll need to create an OAuth2 client in Control, then use that to subscribe your Zapier webhook URL to the group event(s) you want to capture.  But once you’ve got your head around that it Just Works.

@Marion Frecaut I got a chance to try this out this new beta option this morning and it worked seamlessly!

A few tweaks I’d love to see:

• I do wish there was a way to notify others of new joiners even if they aren’t folks with the community manager role or above. For example, a moderator, or a specific member of the group who may want to be aware of new joiners like a Super User or Product Manager. Maybe this is possible? (the KB made no mention of it)
• The email is a bit odd as it says it’s coming from our webmaster email address configured in Control but is branded as inSided. Is there a way to brand this like other system emails
• One small nitpicky thing, it would be good to adjust the header title from Join Requests Notifications to Join request notifications so that it is consistent in case with the other headings (which are sentence not title case) and dropping the ‘s’ on ‘requests’ here seems more grammatically correct.

Hope that helps!

@Marion Frecaut I also think you should extend this functionality to non-private groups as well. Would be a super handy way to let others know that lead and moderate those groups that someone new has joined.

I haven’t tried the beta option yet but to add to the second bullet point above… 

• The email is a bit odd as it says it’s coming from our webmaster email address configured in Control but is branded as inSided. Is there a way to brand this like other system emails

The same thing happens for the emails that notify you’ve been assigned as moderator for a topic. For example, if I assign a PM as a moderator for an idea that has been submitted. The email has inSided branding and is quite confusing. I’ve been told by our CSM that it’s not possible to update this email to be consistent with our branding. It’d be great for these sets of emails if we had that ability, similarly to the other System Emails. 

 Hello @Scott Baldwin and @tiffany.oda thanks a lot for this feedback, it's very helpful as always :)

Are are a few elements of replies about the points you raised @Scott Baldwin :

• "I do wish there was a way to notify others of new joiners even if they aren’t folks with the community manager role or above. For example, a moderator, or a specific member of the group who may want to be aware of new joiners like a Super User or Product Manager. Maybe this is possible? (the KB made no mention of it)"

=> to handle those notifications, you need to have access to control. You could give access to the groups page in Control to moderators with a custom role by giving them the permission called "Platform". They will be able to access this part of the menu. I will add it to the KB article to make it explicit. 

• "The email is a bit odd as it says it’s coming from our webmaster email address configured in Control but is branded as inSided. Is there a way to brand this like other system emails"

=> Those emails are really aimed at being send to Control users that is why they are not branded like other system emails. They are branded InSided as they really are coming from the InSided tool if you see what I mean. 

• "One small nitpicky thing, it would be good to adjust the header title from Join Requests Notifications to Join request notifications so that it is consistent in case with the other headings (which are sentence not title case) and dropping the ‘s’ on ‘requests’ here seems more grammatically correct."

=> I'm sorry where should we change that wording? We can easily change this in any case :)

@Marion Frecaut I also think you should extend this functionality to non-private groups as well. Would be a super handy way to let others know that lead and moderate those groups that someone new has joined.

@Scott Baldwin do you mean receiving a notification when a user joins a public group, even if no approval is required?

@Marion Frecaut

Re: notifications, I know folks have to have Control access to handle the notification, but if they don’t have access it would still be helpful to be able to alert others to new joiners. Examples I provided like Super Users in a group would miss out in this case still.

Re: wording, here’s a screenshot, I’ve highlighted the text in red

Re: notifications for public groups -- yes! Then we could identify people we want to notify such as a super user who helps with a group.

Hello Everyone, 

I''m happy to inform that this feature is now delivered 

 @Christa Brown @Kgastaldo @justine.rae @triskaideka @CommunityKaila @alexfarmer1 @Anitahg @Scott Baldwin @DannyPancratz @adam.ballhaussen @Blastoise186 @tiffany.oda @Blastoise186 @JKelley @security_lion 

feel free to check out our product update and our KB article about it: