If you’re building a Zapier automation using the “Updated Topic Moderator Tags” trigger, you are likely filtering those moderator tags in a subsequent step.
A lesson I’ve learned in using Moderator Tags frequently (both for custom reporting and automation purposes) is to be intentional with how you filter the text of those moderator tags.
Almost always, new moderator tags are appended to the end of existing moderator tags.
I have found that when you want to trigger an action based on moderator tags, it is best to use the filter for for (Text) Ends With) and to avoid using (Text) Contains. If you use contains, then you will sometimes accidentally trigger that automation when you’re adding another moderator tag for a different use case.
Here’s a specific example:
- I use 3 different tags (nude0, nudge1, nudge2) to automate replies on topics when I want to “nudge” the author to provide an update or mark the answer (typically this happens a week after no activity, which is after the system email has already nudged them).
- I use a moderator tag “trending” to track which questions I have featured on our community’s home page because they are trending over the past 30 days. (It also triggers some automated badges for the authors of the question and answer)
When I added “trending” to a question that had already had a nudge, it triggered the automation for the nudge … even though the question had already been updated and marked as answered.
I’ve encountered similar accidental triggers over the past year as my use of moderator tags has expanded. Usually the solution is to adjust my filter so that the action is only triggered on the most recent moderator tag added.
Note: but be careful if you actively remove moderator tags… (Text) ends with only works when you’re adding tags, not subtracting. I’m not aware of a way to filter only on what’s changed with the moderator tags, because the data gives you the current state of the moderator tags after they are updated with an addition/subtraction.
Edit/Update:
The moderator tags come in as an array of individual tags as line items. If you’re using my “ends with” method above, you likely need a step to reformat them into a string (text). You can use the Zapier Formatter tool > Utilities > Transform Line Items to Text
Then you’ll use the Output Text from that action for your filters.
Edit/Update:
there’s also a formatting utility that allows you to pick the last, that’s probably easier for some use cases. It’s the same amount of steps to format into a string and filter by Ends with as it is to use the formatter to pick the last and then filter, but picking the last might be cleaner for exact matches.
