As more and more people begin to use more and more of the various web based applications available today in their everyday lives, the need to integrate these separate applications with one another becomes ever more important. This can be a very daunting and expensive task for those who are not well versed or skilled in the ways of the web. Not to mention the needs of each person and the level/type of integration they want/need can vary. Luckily for some people there are some integration options that are quite simple and affordable to setup. For others more extensive integration options may be necessary.
A Short List of Web Applications That Can Be Integrated with GoldMine:
- SKYPE
- Quickbooks Online
- Google Docs
- Slack
- Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Aweber, plus other email marketing systems.
- Drop Box
- WordPress
- Eventbrite
- Jotform, Ninjaform, Gravityforms and many other web form applications
- Myphoner
- WebMerge, DocSend
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Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Gumroad, Bigcommerce, plus many other ecommerce systems.
- Plus hundreds more… see Zapiers ZapBook for more applications
What sort of integrations can be accomplished between GoldMine and these other web based applications?
For many people they assume because GoldMine is not a web based application that it can not integrate or talk to other web based applications. This is not entirely true and let me explain why. GoldMine has 2 key features that allow you to send contact information out of and receive contact information into GoldMine. The first feature we will discuss is the GoldMine Task Bar, and the second is GoldMine Web Import.
The GoldMine Taskbar is another one of those little surprises offered in GoldMine that is very powerful yet underutilized. It gives you quick, one-click access to frequently used items and tasks, keeping you inside of GoldMine instead of having to be constantly hunting for things like popular websites or documents. These items include: GoldMine Menu items, GoldMine Macros, External Applications, Document Links, and Websites. Taskbars can also be “Global” (available to all users) or “Local” (for your use only). The key part I want to focus on is the ability to create One-Click access to websites, URI’s or webhooks. You probably already know what a website is, but might not be familiar what what a webhook is.
Webhooks are “user-defined HTTP callbacks”. Webhooks are usually triggered when some event occurs in an application, such as when a comment is posted to a blog or when someone completes a task , or when an invoice is created in an online accounting system, the possibilities are endless. Basically, when some event occurs in one application that source application makes an HTTP request to a URI configured for the webhook. Developers/Users can configure their webhook URI so that when events occur in one application an action/behavior occurs in their application or in another application. The action taken may be anything. Here is a great article that describes what webhooks are in further detail.
Using GoldMine’s Task Bar you could create a button/link in your task bar that sends GoldMine data to a webhook URI and have that webhook do something in another application when that button or link is clicked.
Here are a few examples:
- Make a SKYPE call (Dial Phone1, Phone2, Phone3, or any field)
- Subscribe/Unsubscribe a primary contact in GoldMine to/from a Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Newsletter subscription list
- Add GoldMine primary contact as a contact in another application. (Accounting, Marketing, Google Contacts, etc.)
- Merge contact information from Goldmine to a WebMerge document and have it automatically get emailed/faxed
- Merge contact information from GoldMine to a web based proposal generation application to create a proposal.
GoldMine Web Import is a feature in GoldMine that allows you to capture contact information from the web and create a new contact or update an existing contact record in GoldMine automatically. Once that record is created or an existing contact record updated, you can trigger automated processes to start a workflow process. So basically when something happens in another web application (accounting, marketing, quoting, help desk, website, webform) we can send that contact information from that other application into GoldMine. Typically this feature has been using for integrating websites and the webforms on websites with GoldMine. So everytime someone fills out an online form on your website the contacts information is automatically imported into GoldMine as a new contact or updated an existing contact and then you can trigger an automated process to alert/notify you in GoldMine that someone had contacted you online. Using the power of webhooks we can extend the GoldMine Web Import and GoldMine Task Bar features to many other applications.
If you are interested in learning more about the possibilities and discussing what is possible please contact First Direct Corp. at (800) 935-4386 or simply fill-out the following online request form and someone will get back to you to discuss further.
