Tools
Piesync is, or rather was, an application to synchronise your data, especially master data on contacts, leads and organisations, with your CRM. This way, you only have to maintain the data in one place, but you can be sure that it is also available in all other places. Since 2019, Piesync is now part of Hubspot and will no longer be available as a standalone product from the end of 2021. This is because Piesync is now a permanent part of the CRM Hubspot and its "Operations Hub". The stand-alone software has thus become a native integration in Hubspot.
So it's high time to take a look at a possible Piesync alternative. Because even if you use Hubspot and the Operations Hub anyway, i.e. you are not affected by the shutdown of the PieSync platform, Hubspot alternatives are worthwhile. They offer many more functions.
To make this clearer, let's take a quick look at how PieSync works to better compare the alternatives.
PieSync is specialised in keeping your master data in your CRM always up-to-date. To do this, you link your (Hubspot) CRM with other applications for which this data is relevant, such as Newsletter Tool, Accounting, GSuite, Office and many more. This works both ways: If you change a contact in Hubspot, for example, this change is also applied to your Google Contacts and vice versa.
The setup is very simple: PieSync guides and steers you through the process. First, you select the apps with which your CRM is to be connected. These must then be authorised. In the next step, you select the contact types that are to be synchronised, contacts or leads.
Finally, you define and refine the process through conditions and actions. For example, segmentation, tags, groups or categories can be relevant and should be adopted. Or through a filter, synchronisation only takes place if certain criteria are met. This creates a great "If..., then..." process.
If you are using Hubspot as your CRM anyway, why even look for a PieSync alternative? If you don't use Hubspot, then it may be relevant for you to use another tool and implement it as quickly as possible before PieSync is switched off in December 2021. Besides the restriction to Hubspot, PieSync has a very big weakness:
PieSync is extremely limited in the type of data and actions available.
PieSync does not support the synchronisation of invoices, emails, tasks, deals or campaigns. However, these are all important building blocks in your CRM and sales process. PieSync alternatives offer significantly more options here.
The number of supported apps is also manageable. Here, the PieSync alternatives can come up with hundreds and thousands of supported apps.
The principle of PieSync, the synchronisation of data between different cloud applications, is not unique. On the contrary, there is currently more software than ever that has the same goal. However, few of them are exclusively limited to your CRM. Through the API interfaces of the software you use, a multitude of applications can be connected and data can be happily exchanged.
Although there are a large number of PieSync alternatives, we will limit ourselves here to just 2. Why? On the one hand, they are tried and tested and on the other hand, they work excellently with Hubspot.
Make is also an application that knows how to link cloud applications with each other and thus automatically synchronise data and save you time. However, Make is much more complex. Don't get it wrong, there are also countless tutorials and help for Make that make the setup easier for you. You will certainly be able to create your first process yourself.
But in the more advanced functions, Make then offers significantly more possibilities to create a highly complex, branched and conditional automation process. The interface is quite different from that of the PieSync alternative Zapier. Make is based on a modular process, not a linear one. Just give it a try.
So you can use Make not only to synchronise your contact data from Google Contacts with your Hubspot CRM. With the PieSync alternative, you can automatically support your entire sales process:
Save relevant contact data directly in your CRM when an appointment is booked in your calendar, for example via Calendly. Assign a status directly and have automatically generated emails sent to the lead. If there is no interaction, send an automatic reminder. If there is a response, this is also immediately synchronised with the status in your CRM. Once a lead has been won, you can automatically generate offers and send them for digital signature. Or have invoices created automatically from your project management including an overview of hours.
Make truly offers many functions to adapt to your processes. Make supports fewer applications than Zapier, several hundred. Nevertheless, Make is powerful as a PieSync alternative and, used correctly, can replace your manual processes, support your team and thus contribute to more productivity.
Make is also available in a free version that you can test here. It even offers more capacities than the free Zapier plan.
Zapier is the shining star in the automation sky. You may have come across the name yourself. Zapier is excellent at using marketing to position itself as the number one automation tool. And rightly so: for many years, Zapier has offered the possibility to easily connect your applications yourself, transfer data and get a lot of work done.
Zapier clearly relies on a very simple setup of your processes. Similar to PieSync, you first select the apps you use, authorise them and in the next step set a trigger for the process and the subsequent actions. Zapier takes you by the hand and guides you through each step, making the set-up process much easier. This is how linearly structured processes are created:
Zapier promises that it does not require any programming knowledge and generally lives up to this promise. Nevertheless, Zapier offers the possibility to integrate code into your automations - if you want to. In addition, the PieSync alternative has a decisive advantage: Zapier supports over 3,000 apps. These are top values. In our eyes, Zapier is ideally suited if you want to play around with some automations yourself, create simple synchronisations between different apps and perhaps add a filter here and there.
There is a free plan for this, so you can try out Zapier as a PieSync alternative first. The second PieSync alternative offers the same option.
The automation of processes, or to put it more simply, the synchronisation of data, can be a real gamechanger. Particularly when information is needed or transferred in a wide variety of places, it helps to maintain an overview. It is always advantageous to first document and visualise the desired process in detail.
We are happy to support you in the analysis and subsequent automation of business processes, explain possibilities and individually address the company processes.
Cloud Integration, iPaaS, SaaS, BPA… Ough, hard to keep track of all these terms. They are currently used frequently (and increasingly) in the context of automation, and it is sometimes difficult to make a clear distinction and distinction. We have already written blog posts on the terms iPaaS, SaaS and BPA, but we’ll take them up again here to make the difference.
But let’s start with cloud integration, because that’s the central umbrella term in which we embed all the other technologies in this blog post.
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
To illustrate these advantages, an example is suitable that we know well from our everyday work as an automation agency:
The central data to be used here is the data of a major customer. This can be the simplest information, such as the address. This address is required in numerous but completely different processes in the company: on the one hand, for correct invoicing in accounting. On the other hand, in the CRM system, where all the data of the large customer is also stored. But the address is also important in sales, for example, when employees go to the sales meeting on site.
Now the customer announces that the address of the company has changed after a move. This information will reach you by e-mail. There are now two options:
01. The e-mail is forwarded to all affected departments, accounting, sales, customer service, marketing… All persons open their corresponding program, CRM, accounting software, marketing tools (such as newsletter marketing) and change the data already stored there of the customer. This means that in multiple applications, different people do exactly the same thing: change one address.
02. But there is also an alternative: By connecting your applications, thus by integrizing them, the customer’s e-mail, or rather the information it contains about the address change, is automatically passed on to all affected applications: CRM, accounting, marketing, ERP. This does not require any clicks, because the cloud integration detects a trigger, i.e. address change, and thus automatically starts the process.
What sounds unimpressive in a single process becomes more effective when such a process occurs several times a day or weekly. Because there is a lot of data that is available in different applications and should always be correct. If these applications are cloud applications they are suitable for cloud integration.
But cloud integration doesn’t just happen. There are now a variety of applications that enable and implement this. Such tools usually allow us to link the relevant cloud applications on a central platform and define clear rules on when, how, where, how much data should be passed on and what happens to them.
To realize cloud integration, there are various applications and technologies that are sometimes used interchangeably.
We have made a first distinction between iPaaS and BPA here.
We explain the term SaaS in more detail here.
Cloud integration is rather an umbrella term that includes numerous technologies, such as SaaS, iPaaS and BPA, and this is also absolutely necessary. Cloud integration is a concept that is made possible by appropriate technologies.
However, all terms share the commonality that they are cloud-based and thus offer enormous potential for growth and scaling. In addition, they are often cheaper to implement and maintain because changed requirements are easy to implement.
As an independent automation agency, we implement cloud integration according to your requirements. We use a variety of SaaS tools and iPaas (strictly speaking BPA) software. Together we find individual solutions that are flexible and scalable.
