Automator 2.9: Five new plugin integrations

As we approach 3,000 active installs, we’re getting a lot of great feedback from users and a much better sense of what users are doing with Uncanny Automator. Today’s Automator 2.9 release adds another round of new integrations that were frequently requested by Automator users: FluentCRM, MasterStudy LMS, Restrict Content Pro, Uncanny Continuing Education Credits for LearnDash and WP Job Manager. All 5 of those integrations are now available at no cost in the free version of Automator.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s new in each integration. Remember, all of what’s outlined below is included in the free release; the upcoming 2.9 Pro release will take these integrations a lot further.

FluentCRM

I’m sure we’ve had at least 25 requests to add support to this relatively new plugin. We built this integration as quickly as we could and we think what’s included in the free version will be extremely powerful for FluentCRM users. Here’s what’s new:

• Trigger: A tag is added to a user
• Trigger: A user is added to a list
• Action: Add a tag to the user
• Action: Add the user to a list

We expect it’s the actions that are going to generate the most excitement. At the time of writing (and keep in mind that it’s a new plugin), Fluent has about 15 integrations (plus what’s supported via webooks). Now, with the free version of Automator and our native integrations, we’ve tripled it. Want to have The Events Calendar registrations add tags to users? No problem. A Gravity Form or Contact Form 7 submission to add a user to a list? Just add Automator to your FluentCRM site.

Uncanny Continuing Education Credits

This release kind of changes everything about awarding credits if you use LearnDash. While one of our less popular plugins right now, today’s Automator update and the upcoming 3.1 release of our Continuing Education plugin might just change that. Here’s what’s new:

• Trigger: The total number of CEUs earned by a user is greater than or equal to a specific number
• Action: Award a number of custom credits to the user

Think about that for a second… you can award credits for pretty much anything. A live event, participating in a discussion, submitting a resume, completing LearnDash lessons or even Lifter LMS courses. This pair of plugins now makes it possible to track credits for any type of learning (or even non-learning) activity. For existing users of our Continuing Education Credits plugin, this could be a game-changer.

Important Note: You will need to upgrade to the latest version of our CEUs plugin to use the action. And here’s a spoiler: in 3.1 of our CEUs plugin you’ll be able to manually add and edit earned credits.

MasterStudy LMS

We’ve seen lot of new entrants to the WordPress LMS space over the last few years and there’s been a lot of innovation. MasterStudy LMS is an innovative learning plugin that we’ve seen grow a lot over the last year and we’re excited to announce pretty comprehensive support for our first release. Automator 2.9 includes these new triggers and actions:

• Trigger: A user completes a course
• Trigger: A user completes a lesson
• Trigger: A user passes a quiz
• Trigger: A user fails a quiz
• Trigger: A user is enrolled in a course
• Action: Mark a course complete for the user

Of course, if you look at our support for other LMS plugins, you’ll probably see a few gaps there and be able to guess some of what’s coming in Pro. 🙂 But for now, this is still a very compelling addition. Here are a few use case ideas:

1. When a user completes a MasterStudy LMS onboarding course, add the user to a Zoom event and tag them in Active Campaign via WP Fusion (that’s right, this means WP Fusion can now integrate with MasterStudy).
2. When a user attends a live event that’s a substitute for an online course, mark the associated MasterStudy LMS course complete for the user.
3. When a user fails a quiz, tag the user in Groundhogg and send the user an email with study tips.

Restrict Content Pro

Support in the Automator 2.9 free release is pretty basic for now, adding a trigger for “A user purchases a membership level”. Still, that simple trigger means Restrict Content Pro could send an SMS notification with Twilio, add a rank in BadgeOS, pass data to Zapier or to another system via webhooks, etc. Restrict Content Pro users will find the new integration, even with the single trigger for now, opens up a lot of new automation opportunities.

WP Job Manager

This popular job listing plugin (with over 100,000 active installs at the time of writing) makes it easy to add and manage job listings in WordPress. And when users submit resumes and apply for jobs, why not build an automated workflow out of it? Today’s release adds 3 new triggers for WP Job Manager:

1. A user submits a specific type of job
2. A user submits a resume
3. A user applies for a job

How much easier could that make the hiring and onboarding process? When a user applies for a job, tag them in FluentCRM, enroll them in a course introducing the company, register them in a group GotoWebinar orientation and send them an SMS confirmation using Twilio. Why not? Automator makes this type of automation easy to set up and manage.

Other new triggers and actions

Automator core gets 1 new trigger: A user completes a recipe. For savvy Automator users, this could transform how recipes are connected and possible workflows. Maybe successful completion of one recipe should trigger another recipe or some type of notification. It allows some interesting recipe management possibilities.

We’re also adding 2 new triggers to our BuddyBoss integration: A user creates a topic in a forum and a user replies to a topic in a forum. They work exactly as you would expect and help to round out our BuddyBoss offering.

Some of the updates in this release to existing integrations will make things a lot easier for existing users. Here are a few examples:

• The default number of times a recipe will run per user is now Unlimited instead of 1. This ended up being a huge source of confusion for users, especially new users over the last month. Why does my recipe only work the first time? This is a pretty big change for existing users so we wanted to emphasize it, but after hearing from so many users it’s clear that users expect recipes to run an unlimited number of times per user, not just once.
• Fluent Forms submissions can now use numeric field types as tokens in action fields.
• When a verb is recorded from a Tin Canny module in our associated plugin, the lesson and topic identifiers are now available as separate tokens. This makes it a lot easier to pass context and additional details into actions, or trigger actions based on what lesson or topic the module was in (such as marking it complete).
• The “user registers for an event” trigger for The Events Calendar now includes an option for “Any event”, so there’s no longer a need for lots and lots of separate recipes if you rely on this trigger. This will make related recipes much more efficient.

That rounds out today’s Uncanny Automator 2.9 release. As always, keep sending us your feedback about what we should tackle next!