For regular issues and tasks that occur on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis, wouldn’t it be great if these issues are automatically added into Backlog every time?
And have the assignee be notified too?
Well, this can be done by using Zapier with Backlog.
What is Zapier?
Zapier is a convenient tool that can link various applications and services to automate tasks.
The advantage is that you can automate routine tasks that occur regularly.
Zapier’s free plan has some limitations, such as “the number of automatic processes that can be added is up to 5”, but the free plan can be sufficient for trying this process.
If you do not have a Zapier account, you can sign up on the Zapier website to get an account.
How to add monthly/regular issues using Zapier
Our example here will show you how to auto-add a monthly issue, but you can also tweak this to add daily or weekly issues into your Backlog project.
The two main actions are:
-
Generate an email address in Backlog project that is authorized to add issues.
-
Configure Zapier to send scheduled emails to that Backlog email address.
To generate an email address, you can refer to our post here on Adding Issues via Email
Once you have obtained the email address, you can continue to configure Zapier to send scheduled emails.
Overview of what we are doing in Zapier :
-
Every month at a certain date,
-
Send outbound email to our Backlog address (which will add an issue in the corresponding project)
Zapier Configuration
1. Make a Zap!
A zap is simply a set of instructions for a repeating task. At your Zapier dashboard, click on “Make a Zap!” to start creating your zap.
2. Choose a Trigger app.
This is the trigger action which will lead to sending an email. In our case, since we want it to be triggered on a monthly basis, we choose the Schedule trigger app.
3. Choose settings for Schedule trigger app.
For the trigger event, you can select “Every Day”, “Every Week” or “Every Month”.
Select “Every Month” and then continue.
You will be prompted to select the Day of the Month and the time for the trigger. “Day of the Month” refers to the date; note that some months have 31 days while some have less, so it would be better to choose a day which is present in every month.
For our example, we chose the 1st day of the month.
4. Next, we choose the app to be carried out - “Email by Zapier”.
Then, we customize the outbound email.
Copy and paste the generated Backlog email (authorized to add issues in the project) in to “To” field.
For the subject and body of the email, it’s up to you. This will be shown as the Backlog issue title and description when it’s created.
In this example, we also added the “Pretty Date” format (from our Zapier step 1) in our subject.
5. After filling in the required fields, you can test your connection.
After sending your test email, you should see that a new issue has been added to your Backlog project.
It works!
Now your Zap is ready, remember to turn it on, and you will see a new issue automatically added to your Backlog project every month. Feel free to tweak the setup for your preferred schedule.
That’s it!
If you have a Zapier integration with Backlog for your workflows, do share it with our community too. 
♂