Integrations

In today’s interconnected ecosystem, seamless integration between software solutions is critical. By integrating different platforms and tools, you can automate workflows and reduce manual effort.

Plainly provides you with an easy, no-coding-required approach to connect our service with popular third-party applications. This allows you to automate the rendering and distribution of your videos, making your workflows more efficient.

Basic concepts

Integration types

There are two main types of integrations currently:

1. Render triggers - these integrations are used to automate the rendering process by invoking a new render. For example, you can set up a render trigger to automatically render a video whenever a new row is added to a Google Sheet, or whenever a custom form is submitted.
2. Video distribution - these integrations are used to automatically distribute the videos to various platforms once they are rendered successfully. For example, you can set up a video distribution integration to automatically upload your videos to YouTube, Google Drive, or other platforms.

Relation to projects and templates

Integrations can be created on a Project or a Template basis, and there are some important differences between the two:

Project level integrations

• For render triggers, the integration will create a render for a project default template.
• For video distribution, the integration will be triggered once Plainly renders a video for any template in the project.

Template level integrations

• For render triggers, the integration will create a render for that specific template.
• For video distribution, the integration will be triggered once Plainly renders a video only for the specific template.

Setup

Integrations are set up in the Integrations  section of the Plainly dashboard. In addition, you can access integrations from Project details or Template details pages using the Integrations card.

Select project and template

The first thing you need to do is to select your project and template that the integration will be setup for. With a project and template selected, you will see all available integrations that can be activated.

Select integration

Select a target integration, click on a card and fill out the fields in the setup window. Every integration is different and has different fields that need to be filled out.

Usually, you’ll have to connect a target tool account first, and then set up the specifics of the integration.

Before setting up the integration, we advise you to read details about render triggers and video distribution integrations types, in order to understand the differences in the setup.

Variables and modifiers

When filling out the fields, you will see a + button on the right side of the field. This button allows you to reference existing variables. For example, when using Render from Google Sheet integration, you can select and reference columns of the selected Google Sheet.

In addition, you can use modifiers to modify the value of the variable, by clicking on the selected variable to open the Variable modifier dialog. The dialog offers a variety of modifiers that can be applied to the variable, such as JSON manipulation, math operations, string manipulation, and more. Modifiers are applied in a sequential order, so you can chain multiple modifiers together to achieve the desired result.

Variable modifier dialog has a test option, so you can test your JSON conversion and path matching before saving it.

Start integration

Once you finished setting up an integration, you can click on the Start integration button to start it. Once started, an integration will stay active until you disable or delete it. Both enabled and disabled integrations can be seen in the Active integrations  tab, or in a specific project or template details pages.

An integration being active means that it is enabled and ready for execution depending on the integration itself.

For example, having Render form Airtable integration active means that render will be triggered once you add a new row to an Airtable table.

On the other side, with video distribution, they will automatically trigger whenever a rendering has been successfully completed. For example, Upload to YouTube integration active means that it will run once a video is rendered for a project selected during a setup.

Available integrations

Plainly maintains a large set of powerful integrations with many tools and platforms. Use type, category, or tool grouping to find integrations you need.

Render trigger

Render from AirtableRender from custom formRender from Google SheetRender from Microsoft ExcelRender multiple RSS itemsRender on HeyGen avatarRender on Jotform submissionRender on Typeform submissionRender on updated Google SheetRender RSS item

Video distribution

Send using Microsoft MailUpdate Mailchimp subscripberUpload to AWS S3Upload to DropboxUpload to Frame.ioUpload to Google DriveUpload to Microsoft OneDriveUpload to Signagelive playlistUpload to signed URLUpload to VimeoUpload to YouTubeVideo to Google SheetVideo to Microsoft TeamsVideo to Slack

Utilities

Render integration details

As integrations are used to either invoke a render, or distribute a video after a render, it can be useful to see details of all invocation executions for a single render. The details are available on the Render details page, and can be accessed by clicking on the See integrations button in the Render integrations card.

The details page will show you all integrations that were executed for a render, including the type and status of each integration. You can also navigate to the logs of each integration execution by clicking on the View logs button.

When you expand the summary for a single integration, you will see the details of an execution, including the input and output data. This can be useful for getting information about final results, and debugging as well. For example, when using Upload to YouTube integration, you can see the YouTube Video ID and YouTube Video URL of the uploaded video.

Logs

Every active integration logs its activity. You can see the logs by clicking on the Logs button on the top right side of the Integrations  page.

The logs are filterable by a time range and name of the integration (using the field Flows).

Logs are especially useful when you are seeing errors in integration executions, as they will give you a detailed error message and a stack trace.

Connected accounts

While you set up integrations you will be connecting multiple 3rd party tool accounts to Plainly. You can see all connected accounts by clicking on the Accounts button on the top right side of the Integrations  page.

FAQ