Skip to main content

Vinyl + Zapier: Getting started with email triggers

Vinyl doesn't have a native Zapier integration yet — but you can automate your workflows using Vinyl's summary emails as the trigger. Here's how to set it up in under 10 minutes.

Vinyl and Zapier — what's possible right now

Vinyl doesn't currently have a native Zapier connector, but that doesn't mean you can't automate your post-meeting workflows. Every time a Vinyl meeting ends, Vinyl sends a summary email from [email protected] to the meeting host. That email contains everything you need to trigger downstream automations.

By setting up a simple email forwarding rule and using Zapier's free Email by Zapier trigger, you can use that summary email as the starting point for dozens of automations — logging notes to your practice management tool, posting to Teams, creating tasks, or even drafting a proposal.

This article covers the foundation: getting the Vinyl email into Zapier reliably so you can build on top of it.

What the Vinyl summary email looks like

Before setting up the automation, it helps to know exactly what you're working with. Each Vinyl summary email has the following structure:

  • Meeting title — shown in the email subject and at the top of the email (e.g. "Apxium - SDR program check-in")

  • Date, time, and duration — shown in the email header

  • Organiser and attendees — listed in the header section

  • Overview — a short paragraph summary of what was discussed

  • Key Discussion Points — a bulleted list of the main topics covered

  • Action Items — a bulleted list of follow-up tasks, each with the assigned person and a timing note (e.g. "Today", "Early next week", "Not specified")

  • View Meeting button — a link back to the full recording and transcript in Vinyl

The Action Items section is particularly useful for automation — Vinyl has already done the work of identifying who needs to do what and when, so you can pass this directly into task management tools without any additional AI processing.

Step 1: Set up your Email by Zapier inbox

  1. Go to zapier.com and create or log in to your account.

  2. Create a new Zap and search for Email by Zapier as the trigger app.

  3. Select the trigger event New Inbound Email.

  4. Zapier will generate a unique email address for you — it looks something like [email protected]. Copy this address.

Note: Email by Zapier is available on all Zapier plans, including the free tier.

Step 2: Forward Vinyl emails to your Zapier inbox

Now set up a rule in your email client to automatically forward Vinyl summary emails to your Zapier address. You only need to do this once.

If you use Gmail

  1. In Gmail, click the Settings gear → See all settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses.

  2. Click Create a new filter.

  3. In the From field, enter: [email protected]

  4. Click Create filter.

  5. Tick Forward it to and paste your @robot.zapier.com address.

  6. Click Create filter to save.

Gmail may ask you to confirm the forwarding address — check your Zapier inbox for a verification email and follow the link.

If you use Outlook / Microsoft 365

  1. In Outlook on the web, go to Settings → Mail → Rules → Add new rule.

  2. Name the rule (e.g. "Forward Vinyl to Zapier").

  3. Under Add a condition, choose From and enter [email protected]

  4. Under Add an action, choose Forward to and paste your @robot.zapier.com address.

  5. Click Save.

Step 3: Test the trigger

  1. Back in Zapier, click Test trigger. Zapier will look for a recent email to your @robot.zapier.com address.

  2. If you've had a Vinyl meeting recently, the summary email from that meeting will appear as the test sample — this is the easiest way to test.

  3. If you haven't had a Vinyl meeting yet, forward any email manually to your @robot.zapier.com address to load a sample, then come back to test with a real Vinyl email once you've had a meeting.

  4. Once a sample email is loaded, you'll see all the fields Zapier can read.

What fields does Zapier expose?

Once Email by Zapier receives a Vinyl summary email, the following fields are available to use in later steps of your Zap:

  • Subject — the meeting title (e.g. "Apxium - SDR program check-in")

  • Body Plain — the full email in plain text, including the Overview paragraph, Key Discussion Points, and Action Items with assignees and timing

  • Body HTML — the same content in HTML format

  • From Email — [email protected]

  • To — your email address (the meeting host)

The most useful field for building automations is Body Plain — it contains the full structured content of the summary, with each section (Overview, Key Discussion Points, Action Items) clearly labelled. You can pass this directly into an AI step and ask it to extract specific sections by name.

What can you build from here?

Once the trigger is working, you can add steps to your Zap to do things like:

  • Use AI to classify the meeting as a client, internal, or private meeting — and branch your automation accordingly

  • Log the meeting notes directly to Karbon, TaxDome, or your practice management tool

  • Post a summary to a Microsoft Teams channel

  • Draft an Ignition proposal if services were discussed

  • Create follow-up tasks from the Action Items Vinyl has already identified

The rest of this series walks through each of these use cases step by step.

Next up: Use AI to classify your Vinyl meetings (client / internal / private) — how to add an AI step that reads the meeting summary and decides which automation path to take.

Did this answer your question?