Send DM Replies and Flow Data to Zapier

The other LinktoDM triggers fire when something about the contact changes — a tag, an email, a custom field. Send to Zapier Event fires when a flow says so: drop a Send to Zapier action into any Action node, and every contact who reaches that step sends one event to Zapier.

That makes it the trigger for anything that isn’t a tag, an email or a field — a booking request, a finished quiz, a reply to an open question — and it’s the only way to send a DM reply to Zapier without saving it on the contact first.

In the flow

Pick Send to Zapier from the action list and fill in two things.

Send to Zapier needs only an event name. Extra data is optional

Event name is the label your Zap listens for, such as bookslot or quiz_finished. Name it after what happened, not after the Zap, since one event can feed several Zaps.

Extra data is optional. Each row is a field name and a value, and the value can be fixed text or a variable:

Variable	Sends
{{last_input}}	Whatever the contact last typed in the DM
{{email}}, {{phone}}, {{username}}	The contact’s saved details
{{tags}}	The contact’s tags, comma separated
{{user.<slug>}}	Any custom field, e.g. {{user.plan_tier}}

The contact’s details are always sent, so you only need Extra data for values that don’t already live on the contact.

In Zapier

Choose LinktoDM → Send to Zapier Event as the trigger. On the Configure tab, type the Event Name exactly as you wrote it in the flow. Leave it blank and the Zap gets every Send to Zapier event from every flow, which suits a single catch-all log but not much else.

Type the same event name you used in the flow

Load a real record before you map anything

Zapier builds the list of fields you can map from the test record you pick on the trigger’s Test tab. Until a real event exists, it shows a placeholder contact — Priya Sharma, priyabakes, a BK-1049 booking ref — and that placeholder carries no custom fields and none of your Extra data.

1. Publish the flow, then send yourself the trigger DM from a second account and go through it to the Send to Zapier step.
2. In Zapier, open the trigger step → Test → Find new records. Zapier loads up to three of the most recent events.
3. Pick the newest one — check it shows your test account’s username — and click Continue with selected record.

Find new records loads your real events. Pick the newest one

If you change the flow later and re-run it, repeat Find new records — the field list doesn’t refresh on its own.

Map the values

Extra data rows show up under Data, so a row named zap_date maps as Data Zap Date.

Custom fields travel with every event too, nested under Fields. To pick one, open the field picker in your action step and switch on Turn on enhanced field mappings at the top. The nested fields then appear as Fields › Your Field Name, e.g. Fields › Zap Date.

With enhanced field mappings on, custom fields appear under Fields

Every custom field comes along

The event includes every custom field on your account, set or not, so the raw record lists all of them with empty values for the ones this contact hasn’t filled. Map the one you need by name and ignore the rest. Date fields arrive as YYYY-MM-DD — a reply of 26/08/2004 lands in Zapier as 2004-08-26.

Example: send a booked slot to Google Sheets

LinktoDM doesn’t send every incoming message to Zapier. Messages reach Zapier when a flow passes them on, so you choose which answers leave your account. Ask the question, wait for the reply, save it to a custom field, then send it on:

LinktoDM flow:  User sends "zap" →
                Send message "enter your preferred slot" + Collect user info (Any) →
                Next step → Delay (a few seconds) →
                Action node: Set custom field (zap_date = {{last_input}}) →
                Action node: Send to Zapier (event: bookslot)
Zapier:         bookslot → Create Spreadsheet Row
                (Username → UserName column, Fields › Zap Date → Slot column)

Wait for the reply, pause a beat, save it, then send it to Zapier

The Set custom field action is what turns the reply into something Zapier can map. Pick the field, choose Set value, and use {{last_input}} (it appears as Last Text Input) as the value — if the field doesn’t exist yet, + Create new field makes it from the same panel. The Action node guide covers the options in full.

Four things decide whether the value actually arrives:

• Collect user info on the question. Add a Collect user info block set to Any to the Send message node, and wire its Next step handle onward, not Then. Without it the flow doesn’t wait, and {{last_input}} is still the trigger message (zap). An Email or Phone collect field rejects a date with “Invalid information. Please try again.”
• A short Delay before Set custom field. Put a Delay node of a few seconds between Next step and the Action node. Without it the action can run before the reply is stored, and {{last_input}} still holds the previous message.
• Save before you send. Set custom field has to run before Send to Zapier, either in an earlier Action node, as above, or above it in the same node. The other way round, the event leaves before the value is saved.
• A fresh test record. After any change, run the flow again and use Find new records in Zapier before mapping.

The reply, saved as a custom field, lands in the sheet

Prefer not to store the answer on the contact? Skip Set custom field and add an Extra data row on the Send to Zapier action instead — zap_date = {{last_input}} — then map Data Zap Date. Storing it is the better default: the value stays on the contact for later flows, and the custom field trigger can pick it up too.