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Zapier

The official B1.church app on Zapier lets a Zap react to events in your church (new person, new donation, new group member, …) and write records back to B1. No coding, no infrastructure — you wire it up in Zapier's drag-and-drop editor, paste an API key, and turn the Zap on.

Before You Begin

  • A Zapier account (the free tier is enough for a handful of Zaps)
  • A church admin with the Edit Settings permission in B1Admin (you'll create an API key)
  • An idea of what you want to do — e.g. "when a person is added in B1, add them to my Mailchimp list"

Triggers and Actions​

TypeWhatB1 event / endpoint
TriggerNew Personperson.created
TriggerUpdated Personperson.updated
TriggerNew Donationdonation.created
TriggerNew Group Membergroup.member.added
TriggerNew Form Submissionform.submission.created
ActionCreate Personadds a new person
ActionAdd Donationrecords a donation
ActionAdd Group Memberadds a person to a group
SearchFind Personlooks up a person by name or email

Combine these freely with any of Zapier's 7,000+ supported apps.

Setup​

1. Create a B1 API key​

  1. In B1Admin go to Settings → Developer → API Keys.
  2. Click New API Key, give it a name like "Zapier", and select the scopes the Zap needs.
  3. Important: Zapier triggers register a webhook on your behalf when the Zap turns on, which requires the settings:write scope. Always include settings:write if any of your Zaps use a B1 trigger.
  4. Also grant the scopes the actions need — for example a "Add Donation" action needs donations:write, "Create Person" needs people:write.
  5. Save. The full cak_… key is shown once — copy it.

2. Connect Zapier to B1​

  1. In Zapier, build a new Zap.
  2. When you pick a B1 trigger or action for the first time, Zapier asks you to Sign in to B1.church.
  3. Paste the API key from step 1 and click Yes, Continue. Zapier validates it against your church.

The connection is saved in Zapier and reused by every Zap on your account.

3. Build the Zap​

Pick a trigger, then add one or more action steps. Examples below.

Common Recipes​

Add new B1 people to Mailchimp​

  • Trigger — B1: New Person
  • Action — Mailchimp: Add/Update Subscriber. Map B1's name__first, name__last, contactInfo__email into Mailchimp's First Name / Last Name / Email fields.

Post donations to a Slack channel with a richer card than the built-in connector​

  • Trigger — B1: New Donation
  • Action — Slack: Send Channel Message. Compose any layout — buttons, attachments, etc. — that the built-in Slack connector can't.

Add new group members to a Google Group​

  • Trigger — B1: New Group Member (filtered to a specific groupId)
  • Action — Filter by Zapier: only continue if the B1 group is the one you care about
  • Action — B1: Find Person (use the trigger's personId to fetch the email)
  • Action — Google Groups: Add Member

Forward form submissions to a project tracker​

  • Trigger — B1: New Form Submission
  • Action — Notion / Linear / Asana / Trello: Create page / issue / task

How Triggers Work Under the Hood​

Triggers are REST hooks, not polling — Zapier doesn't ping B1 every 15 minutes. When you turn the Zap on, Zapier asks B1 to register a webhook pointing at a private Zapier URL; when the event fires, B1 POSTs the envelope to Zapier and your Zap kicks off within seconds. Turn the Zap off and Zapier asks B1 to delete the webhook — no orphan subscriptions.

This means the trigger only fires for events that happen after the Zap is turned on. There is no backfill — turning a Zap on does not replay yesterday's donations.

Limits & Notes​

  • Multiple Zaps with the same trigger each register their own B1 webhook — there's no conflict, but it's worth knowing if you're inspecting Settings → Developer → Webhooks and wondering why three identical Zapier — donation.created rows are there.
  • Test data in Zap setup — when you build a Zap, Zapier asks for sample data to map fields. It will pull the most recent matching event from B1 if there is one; otherwise it uses a synthetic sample from the app definition.
  • Action failures surface as Zap errors in Zapier's task history. Common cause: an API key without the right scope (e.g. an "Add Donation" action needs donations:write). Re-mint the key with the correct scopes and re-connect in Zapier.
  • Outbound API call quotas — every B1 API call from an action counts toward your Zapier task quota, not toward anything on B1's side.

Troubleshooting​

  • "Authentication failed" when connecting — the API key is wrong, revoked, or missing the scopes the Zap needs. Re-mint it in B1Admin with at least settings:write plus whatever resource scopes the Zap touches, then update the connection.
  • Trigger never fires — confirm the webhook actually got registered: in B1Admin, Settings → Developer → Webhooks should now show a row named "Zapier — <event>". If it's not there, the API key probably lacked settings:write when you turned the Zap on. Fix the key, toggle the Zap off and back on.
  • Trigger fires twice — Zapier occasionally redelivers if its acknowledgement was lost. Use a "Filter by Zapier" step on a unique id (e.g. the person's id) if you need strict deduplication.

See Also​