The Call Zapier action lets a RapidPro flow send structured data to Zapier, so Zapier can forward it to another app (Google Sheets, Excel, Slack, Mailchimp, a CRM, etc.). This is useful when you want to store flow responses in a spreadsheet, send real-time alerts to a team channel, or sync flow data into email/CRM tools.

To work correctly, you need three parts: (1) a Flow Event (Resthook) in your workspace, (2) a Call Zapier action in the flow that uses that event, and (3) a Zap in Zapier that listens for the event and sends the data to your destination app.

Zapier’s Start Flow action lets you send contact data from an external app (like Google Sheets, Mailchimp, or a CRM) into RapidPro and automatically start a flow. This is useful for syncing updated contact details, launching recurring check-in flows, or starting flows from form/CRM events.

The setup relies on three things: (1) a Trigger app in Zapier (for example, “New or Updated Spreadsheet Row” in Google Sheets), (2) the Start Flow action in Zapier, and (3) a RapidPro flow that references incoming values with @trigger.params.variable_name (and optionally saves them to contact fields). External variables only exist in the flow if they’re explicitly mapped and sent by the Zap.