Zapier, Make and n8n with the SOPCompass API

SOPCompass doesn’t have a native Zapier, Make or n8n app yet. You don’t need one: all three can call the SOPCompass API directly with their built-in HTTP steps. This article sets that up and walks through three recipes.

What the API can do

The base URL is https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1. The full reference is in the API section.

Setup

1. Create an API key

1. As an owner or admin on the Business plan, open People › Settings & billing › API keys.
2. Name the key after the automation that will use it, such as Zapier: new hire SOPs. Use one key per automation, so revoking one doesn’t break the others.
3. Choose Read only for recipes that only read, or Read and write for recipes that create SOPs or assignments.
4. Copy the key. It starts with sc_live_ and is shown only once.

Important: Treat the key like a password. Keep it in your automation tool’s credential or header settings, never in a URL. A request with the key in the address is refused, and you should revoke that key.

2. Send the key on every request

Every request needs this header:

Authorization: Bearer sc_live_your_key_here

• Zapier: in a Webhooks by Zapier step, add it under Headers.
• Make: in HTTP › Make a request, add a header named Authorization.
• n8n: in the HTTP Request node, set Authentication to Generic Credential Type › Header Auth, with name Authorization and value Bearer sc_live_.... n8n then stores the key as a credential.

3. Find the ids you need

Recipes need ids for a library or an SOP. Get them once with a read request, from a terminal or from a test step in your tool:

curl https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/libraries \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOPCOMPASS_KEY"

Each library has an id. For an SOP’s id, use GET /search?q=onboarding, or open the SOP in the app and copy the id from the address bar (/sops/<id>).

Recipe 1: Create an SOP draft from a form

Goal: a team member fills in a “Suggest a process” form (for example Google Forms, Typeform or Jotform) and a draft SOP appears in a library for an editor to review.

Key: read and write.

Zapier

1. Trigger: your form app’s New Response (or similar) trigger.
2. Action: Webhooks by Zapier › POST.
   • URL: https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/sops
   • Payload Type: json
   • Data:
     • library_id: the id of your “Suggested processes” library
     • title: the form’s process name answer
     • markdown: build it from the answers, for example a line ## When to do it, the answer, a blank line, ## Steps, and the steps answer
   • Headers: Authorization = Bearer sc_live_...
3. Optional: a Slack or email step that posts the new SOP’s data.app_url from the response so an editor can review it.

Using the POST action with Payload Type json lets Zapier build the JSON for you, so quotes or line breaks in form answers can’t break the request.

Make

1. Trigger: your form module’s watch responses trigger.
2. JSON › Create JSON with fields library_id, title and markdown, mapped from the answers.
3. HTTP › Make a request: URL https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/sops, method POST, the Authorization header, body type Raw, content type JSON (application/json), and the JSON string from step 2 as the request content.

n8n

1. Trigger: your form’s trigger node, or a Webhook node if your form can post to a URL.
2. HTTP Request: method POST, URL https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/sops, your Header Auth credential, Send Body on, Body Content Type JSON, and add library_id, title and markdown as fields.

How the Markdown becomes an SOP

• Each # or ## heading starts a new card with that title. Text before the first heading becomes a card called “Overview”.
• Lists, bold, italic, links, block quotes, code and ### headings are kept. HTML is shown as text, never run.
• Send text instead of markdown for plain text in a single “Overview” card.
• Limits: title up to 200 characters, up to 50 cards and 500,000 characters.

The SOP is created with "published": false and a version history entry reading “created through the API”. It is added to the library like any other SOP, so review it promptly.

Recipe 2: Assign SOPs when a new hire is added in your HR tool

Goal: when someone is added in your HR system, they are assigned your onboarding SOPs with a due date.

Key: read and write.

Important: The API can only assign SOPs to people who are already members of the workspace. It can’t invite anyone. Invite the new hire in SOPCompass first (for example on their first day), or, if you’re an owner or admin, use the app’s Assign window, which invites and assigns in one step.

Zapier

1. Trigger: your HR tool’s new employee trigger, if it has one in Zapier. Otherwise use the trigger that fires when their work email is set up, or a row added to an onboarding spreadsheet.
2. Optional delay: Delay by Zapier until their start date, so the invitation you send in the app is accepted before the assignment is made.
3. Action: Webhooks by Zapier › POST for each SOP to assign.
   • URL: https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/assignments
   • Payload Type: json
   • Data: sop_id (the onboarding SOP’s id), email (their work email), due_on (for example their start date plus 7 days, formatted YYYY-MM-DD with a Formatter step), and an optional note
   • Headers: Authorization = Bearer sc_live_...
4. Repeat step 3 for each SOP, or use Looping by Zapier over a list of SOP ids.
5. Tell them: add an email or chat step, because API assignments don’t send the SOPCompass assignment email.

Make and n8n

Use the same request: POST https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/assignments with a JSON body of sop_id, email, due_on and note. In Make, set a list of SOP ids and run it through an Iterator into one HTTP request. In n8n, put the SOP ids in a Code or Set node, split them into items, and let one HTTP Request node run once per item.

What the responses mean

Zapier and Make treat 4xx responses as errors and stop that run, which is usually what you want: you’ll get an error notice naming the person who needs an invitation. In n8n, turn on the node’s Continue On Fail setting if you would rather handle errors in a later step.

The assignment is recorded as assigned by the admin who created the API key.

Recipe 3: Post new SOPs to a channel

Goal: every hour, post each SOP created in the last hour to a Slack channel (or Teams, email or anywhere your tool can post).

Key: read only.

SOPCompass doesn’t push events, so this recipe polls. The trick is updated_since: it returns only SOPs changed at or after a time, oldest change first. Asking for everything changed since the start of the previous hour, then keeping only SOPs whose created_at falls inside that hour, gives you each new SOP exactly once, with no gaps and no duplicates, even if a run starts a few minutes late.

A “change” includes edits to the title, details, cards or steps, archiving, restoring and moving. To announce updated SOPs too, drop the created_at check, and expect one post per SOP per hour in which it was edited.

Zapier

1. Trigger: Schedule by Zapier › Every Hour.
2. Action: Code by Zapier › Run JavaScript. Add an input field apiKey holding your read-only key, and paste:

const HOUR = 60 * 60 * 1000;
const end = Math.floor(Date.now() / HOUR) * HOUR; // start of this hour
const start = end - HOUR; // start of the previous hour
const base = 'https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/sops?limit=100&updated_since=' +
  encodeURIComponent(new Date(start).toISOString());

const found = [];
let cursor = null;
do {
  const url = cursor ? `${base}&cursor=${encodeURIComponent(cursor)}` : base;
  const res = await fetch(url, { headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${inputData.apiKey}` } });
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`SOPCompass API returned ${res.status}`);
  const body = await res.json();
  for (const sop of body.data) {
    const created = Date.parse(sop.created_at);
    if (created >= start && created < end && !sop.archived_at) {
      found.push({
        title: sop.title,
        library: sop.library_title,
        pillar: sop.board_name,
        link: sop.app_url,
        draft: !sop.published,
      });
    }
  }
  cursor = body.has_more ? body.next_cursor : null;
} while (cursor);

return found;

3. Action: Slack › Send Channel Message, with a message such as New SOP in {{pillar}} › {{library}}: <{{link}}|{{title}}>.

When the code returns a list, Zapier runs the Slack step once for each SOP in it. Add a Filter step on draft if you don’t want SOPs created through the API announced before someone has reviewed them.

Note: Webhooks by Zapier’s Retrieve Poll trigger only reads the first page of GET /sops, which holds the oldest changes. Once a workspace has more SOPs than one page, new SOPs never reach that page, so use the schedule and code approach above instead.

Make

1. Schedule: set the scenario to run every hour.
2. HTTP › Make a request: method GET, URL https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/sops, the Authorization header, Parse response on, and query string items:
   • updated_since = {{formatDate(addHours(now; -1); "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:00:00Z")}}
   • limit = 100
3. Iterator over data.
4. Filter between the iterator and the next module: created_at is later than or equal to the same start time.
5. Slack › Create a Message with the title, library_title and app_url.

If more than 100 SOPs can change in an hour, add a Repeater that passes next_cursor back as cursor until has_more is false.

n8n

1. Schedule Trigger: every hour.

2. HTTP Request: method GET, URL https://app.sopcompass.com/api/v1/sops, your Header Auth credential, and query parameters:

   • updated_since = {{ $now.minus({ hours: 1 }).startOf('hour').toUTC().toISO() }}
   • limit = 100

   Under Options › Pagination, choose to update a parameter in each request: query parameter cursor = {{ $response.body.next_cursor }}, and complete when {{ !$response.body.has_more }}.

3. Split Out on the field data.

4. Filter: keep items whose created_at is after or equal to {{ $now.minus({ hours: 1 }).startOf('hour').toUTC().toISO() }}.

5. Slack › Send Message with title and app_url.

About the link

app_url opens the SOP in SOPCompass and asks for sign-in, so it suits channels where everyone is a member. The API can’t create share links; for a channel with outside guests, create a share link in the app and post that instead.

Tips

• One key per automation, named after it. The key list shows when each was last used, which tells you which automations are still running.
• Respect rate limits. 60 requests per minute per key. If you get 429 rate_limited, wait the number of seconds in the Retry-After header.
• Branch on the error code, not the message. Codes are stable; messages may change.
• Sanitize HTML from GET /sops/{id} before showing it on your own pages.
• If the workspace’s subscription ends, keys can still read but can’t write (403 workspace_read_only).