Automate your workflows by using the HttpStatus app in Make scenarios

What we will create

Make offers a very flexible approach to setting up your own workflows based on scenarios. This tutorial will guide you through setting up a Make scenario that combines a Google Sheets or Airtable base document with the HttpStatus app. The HttpStatus app provides an interface for using the HttpStatus API without writing a single line of code.

The scenario will automatically validate a list of URLs from the Google Sheets or Airtable base document using the HttpStatus API and returns the validation output (including status codes, number of redirects, complete redirect chains, and any possible errors) along with the requested URL to another tab in Google Sheets or Airtable base documents.

This integration consists of a Google Sheets document or Airtable base document. You need to copy one of the documents and use it for your Make scenario.

In order for Make to automate your tasks for you, you have to create a scenario. A scenario comprises of a series of modules that indicate how data should be transferred and transformed between apps/services.

Make offers endless possibilities. This tutorial provides an example of how to apply the HttpStatus app in a Make scenario. If you have no experience with Make, this tutorial will introduce you to its capabilities. If you are an existing Make user, you can benefit from the HttpStatus app to build scenarios faster.

Prerequisites

1. Make a copy of the Google Sheets document. Make sure you are logged in with your Google account so you can copy the sheet.
2. Or make a copy of the Airtable base document. Open the base document and click 'Copy base' link next to the document title. Make sure you are logged in with your Airtable account so you can copy the sheet to your own workspaces.
3. Create a free Make account so you can start exploring all the features and resources available on the platform.
4. Subscribe to the HttpStatus Free Plan: you will need to sign up for a Free Plan on httpstatus.io in order to obtain an API key (X-Billing-Token). This key will be used to authenticate your requests when accessing the HttpStatus web API from within the HttpStatus app in Make.
5. Install the HttpStatus app in Make.

By meeting these requirements, you can configure your Make scenarios to create workflows that integrate the HttpStatus app with Google Sheets, Airtable, and lots of other services and tools. This tutorial provides you with a start to setting up a scenario with Make; the possibilities are endless.

Build your scenario in Make

Build your scenario in Make by creating a new scenario. Click the plus button and search for the Google Sheets app. Click on Google Sheets and search for the module 'Get Range Values' and click on it. Create a connection and log in with your Google account. You can do the same with Airtable, search for the Airtable app, click on the app and search for the module 'Search Records' and click on it. Create a connection and log in with your Airtable account.

When the connection between Google Sheets and Make is established, select the copied Google Sheets document from your Google Drive and set the configuration like you see in the screenshot below.

Should you use the Airtable base document, configure the Airtable app as shown in the screenshot below.

Now test this first module by clicking the 'Run once' button and check the output. This output confirms Make can read all URLs in column A.

The next step is to add another module by hovering over the Google Sheets module. Search for 'Tools' app, click it and select the 'Sleep' module.

The HttpStatus Free Plan is restricted to one request per second. To meet this requirement you have to set a delay of 1 second between the requests which will be sent from the HttpStatus app (the next app in this scenario).

The next step is to add the HttpStatus app, make sure you have installed this app via this link. Hover over the Tools module and add another module. Search for HttpStatus in the 'Search applications' field and select the HttpStatus app and click the 'Get HTTP Status' action module.

If you have subscribed to the HttpStatus Free Plan, you can find your personal access key (API key / X-Billing-Token) within the Nadles platform.

This key must be entered here in order to make a connection.

After setting up the connection, you should fill in the Request URL field by clicking on it, and select the value 'example.com (A) provided by the Google Sheets app. The HttpStatus app offers more options than just entering a request URL. Click the 'Show advanced settings' toggle switch to see all the features of the 'Get HTTP Status' module. For this tutorial, we will use the default settings of this module. Check out the documentation to see what the API can offer you.

Should you use the Airtable base document, set the Request URL field from the Airtable app as shown in the screenshot below.

Now test this third module by clicking the 'Run once' button and check the output. You will see that the HttpStatus app performed 2 different requests with the 2 URLs listed in column A of the URLs tab of the Google Sheets document.

Now that this is working, the next and final step is to store some of the output of the requests in the 'Status' tab of the Google Sheets document.

What we want to see returned here is the URL, the number of redirects, any errors, the status code and a redirect chain of up to 10 redirect hops if there are any redirects.

Add another application, search for Google Sheets and click on the app name to get a list of all available modules. Click on the 'Add a row' module to add it to your scenario. Select the same Google Sheets document from your Google Drive. The next thing to do is to enter parts of the API response into the fields corresponding to the different columns in the Google Sheets document. When you click on a field, the HttpStatus application provides the full response and makes it easy to add the appropriate values.

Should you use the Airtable base document, configure the Airtable app as shown in the screenshot below.

Fill the fields as in the screenshot below, from column E to W we are dealing with the chain array of up to 10 redirects. Therefore, in these fields we should also fill in the number of each possible redirect hop.

Should you use the Airtable base document, configure the rest of the Airtable app fields as shown in the screenshot below.

When you have filled out everything, click the OK button and your scenario is ready to use. Click the 'Run once' button and view the number of times (operations) each module has been run.

Verify that the results of the check appear on the Status tab of the Google Sheets document or Airtable base document.

Bonus: turn the workflow into a 404 checker

In Make, you can set a schedule how often a scenario should run. This makes it easy to check a list of URLs at regular intervals (for example, every 15 minutes or hour), every day, specific days of a week or month, and you can even set to run these checks only during specific time periods.

A useful addition to the scenario we created is to add an option where in the case of client (4xx) or server error (5xx) responses we also send an email with the status code and the corresponding URL directly to one or more stakeholders so that immediate action can be taken where necessary. To accomplish this in a scenario, we need to add a router to the scenario.

A router allows you to branch the scenario flow into several chains of modules. Each route processes the data differently according to the condition you set.

Filters help you to determine conditions via different operators such as less than, greater than, and so on. We add a router that still forwards the response from the HttpStatus app to the Google Sheets or Airtable base document. And we create a second chain where the router forwards the response from the HttpStatus app to an instance of the Gmail app. However, the HttpStatus response is forwarded only if the status code is one in the 4xx or 5xx categories. We can accomplish this by applying a filter that checks for a status code equal to or greater than the value 400.

Before you can add the filter you first need to add the Gmail app and select the 'Send an Email' module. The configuration of this app will follow later. Next step is to add the filter by clicking the wrench icon of the chain between the router and instance of the Gmail app.

Next, you need to configure the Gmail app. You will need to set up a connection with Google first in order to use Gmail with Make. You need to create a project on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The Gmail app uses Google Cloud Platform to manage authorizations. Google Workspace accounts currently do not require you to connect your Make Gmail app to a Google Cloud Platform project. However, this will change later this year.

Don't forget to add the Gmail API to the Google Cloud Project, and use the 'Authorized redirect URIs' below to set up a full custom OAuth client.

You need to enter the Client ID and Client Secret within the advanced settings before clicking the 'Sign in with Google' button.

Once the connection is established, you can configure the Gmail as shown in the screenshot below.

Add a 404 error URL (example.com/x) to the URLs tab in the Google Sheets or Airtable base document. Click the 'Run once' button and you will see that this new added URL responds with a 404 Not Found status.

The Gmail app will email the status code and URL immediately to one or more recipients.

This brings us to the end of this tutorial. I hope this will enable you to create your own workflows in Make, combining the HttpStatus app with modules from other apps.

Things to keep in mind

• The HttpStatus Free Plan is restricted to 500 API calls. Choose one of the other HttpStatus API plans to perform a higher number of API calls.
• The HttpStatus Free Plan is restricted to one request per second. If you do not set a 1-second delay between each API call the API will respond with the status '429 Too Many Requests'. These requests consume the available API calls, so please be careful.
• Google Workspace accounts currently do not require you to connect your Make Gmail app to a Google Cloud Platform project. However, this will change later this year.
• A free Make.com account is limited to 1,000 operations per month, which means that users can only perform a certain number of actions on the platform within that time frame.