Fun project - use voice to push content to Flotiq headless CMS

This article was originally published on Flotiq blog

Teaser Video

Check video below that covers everything in this article:

Voice assistants

So far, there are two main voice assistants: Alexa and Google Assistant. They were invented to simplify our everyday tasks like answering simple questions, checking weather and so on. With technology progress the usage purpose of voice assistants is also expanding. With every day passing by, presence of voice assistants at work is more and more visible. You can use these to create meetings, to-do list, reminders, control smart home, take notes and so on.

At the beginning of 2020, Google Assistant appeared on the Zapier platform in Beta stage, so we decided to take this oportunity and create a flow that will allow our users to literally talk to Flotiq. That's what we call effortless content!

In this post we will cover only basis of this topic. At the end you can find a video where we show step-by-step how to make such integration to be able to insert data to Flotiq by talking to Google Assistant. Let's dive deep into it.

Prerequisites

For this integration to work you will have to meet following conditions:

1. Have a Google Account
2. Have a Zapier Account
3. Have a Flotiq Account
4. Created at least one own Content Type Definition in Flotiq
5. Have Google Assistant installed on your phone.

Enabling Zapier in Google Assistant

By default you can’t speak to Zapier in Google Assistant. You have to allow it by yourself. Go to Google Assistant Page, then hover over “What it can do” and click “Explore all actions”.

In the search box type "Zapier" and then click "Link" in the Zapier integration description page.

You can validate connection by going to "Authorized Apps" section in your Zapier account settings page.

For questions or doubts be sure to check Google Assistant FAQ in Zapier

Make a Zap / Use a Zap Template

To build the integration itself - follow these steps:

• Click "Make a Zap" on your Zapier dashboard page,
• For the triggering application select Google Assistant,
• Enter a running phrase (word, sentence etc. - you will use it later in Google Assistant),
• Enter prompt questions (recommended) that match your Content Type Definition fields (see video below for example),
• Click Test&Review or Continue to let Zapier create sample object that will be used in Action step,
• Select Flotiq as an application in Action step (it will select our only action, New Content Object, automatically),
• Log in with your Flotiq API KEY (don't use the read only one!) ,
• Select proper Content Type Definition from dropdown,
• Match field values with response fields from trigger step,
• You can avoid skip testing here, to prevent sending dummy data,
• Click "Turn Zap On" and have fun!

Remember to check the video on the bottom of the page that provides a live example of everything mentioned here!

Conclusion

Voice assistans making a step into our worklife can be extremely helpful and can speed up solving various problems. Google Assistant presence in workflow automation systems is only the beginning and we can't wait to see what will grow of it.

Read more about our Zapier integration on Flotiq blog and in the Flotiq docs.