
Do you have trouble sending birthday wishes to your team members on time? Sometimes, we forget or put it off because it doesn't seem important compared to other work tasks. However, acknowledging birthdays within your team is vital. It helps build a sense of camaraderie, shows appreciation, and creates a positive work environment. In this blog post, we will solve this problem by creating automated and customized birthday wishes. Keep reading for the details!

## Why automate sending birthday cards

Automating the process of sending birthday wishes is a great solution for various reasons:

- You never forget to send wishes, even during busy times.
- Enables scalability, allowing you to send personalized wishes to many recipients simultaneously.
- Saves time and effort by eliminating manual intervention.
- Maintains consistency in your birthday greetings.
- Allows for scheduling and customization in advance, creating a seamless and heartfelt experience for recipients.

Automating birthday wishes makes the process easier and more enjoyable for you. By saving time and effort, automation allows you to spend more quality time with the birthday person. It simplifies the process and lets you focus on the personal aspects of celebrating their special day.

## Birthday wishes automation

The automation we are going to build works great especially for workspaces and teams. The automation combines the power of three platforms:

- [Google Calendar](https://calendar.google.com/): Utilizing Google Calendar, we will **create a dedicated calendar** to keep track of team members' birthdays.
- [RenderForm](http://renderform.io): With RenderForm, we can easily **generate personalized birthday cards**, ensuring a unique touch for each individual.
- [Zapier](http://zapier.com): By harnessing the capabilities of Zapier, we can seamlessly **connect these apps** and effortlessly send birthday messages and corresponding images to the designated Slack channel.

The end result is simple yet impactful. The birthday person will receive a personalized card filled with warm wishes directly on the selected Slack channel. With this automation in place, celebrating team members' birthdays becomes a breeze, fostering a positive and engaging work environment.

## Create and setup Google Calendar


To begin, let's create a new calendar in Google Calendar specifically dedicated to birthdays. Follow the steps outlined in [Google Support's help base here](https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37095) to create the calendar effectively.

After creating the calendar, we need to populate it with the actual birthdays of our team members. Here's how you can do it:
1. Add event to your calendar (set event time to hour that aligns with when you want the birthday message to be delivered.)
2. Add the birthday person's name as the **event title**.
3. Set the event to **repeat yearly** to ensure it recurs automatically.
4. In the **description**, include a short personalized birthday message that will be added to the birthday card.
5. Ensure that you select the **Birthdays calendar** you created.
6. Set the event as **Free** to avoid affecting your real work calendar availability.

![Creating birthdays calendar in Google](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-google-calendar.png)

This step may require some initial effort, but remember that it is a one-time task. You may already have some birthdays in your calendar, which can save you time. Once you have completed adding the necessary birthdays, you're ready to proceed to the next step!

> Once the calendar is ready and filled with birthday dates, you can choose to **hide the calendar** to prevent it from impacting your regular work calendar. This way, you can maintain a clean and organized view while still benefiting from the automation.

## Create birthday card template

Now, let's dive into the exciting part of creating a personalized birthday card using RenderForm. This card template will serve as the foundation for the automated birthday wishes, allowing you to customize selected image elements for each recipient.

![Creating birthdays calendar in Google](/blog/birthday-cards/happy-birthday-slack.png)

To begin, log in to your RenderForm account or [sign up for free](/register) if you don't have an account yet. Navigate to **My templates** and start creating your unique birthday card template. With the RenderForm Template Editor, you have the flexibility to incorporate various elements such as **backgrounds, images, emojis, custom shapes, and more**.

For my birthday card template, I've included specific elements that I want to personalize when the card is sent to different individuals:
- birthday person's name (`name`)
- custom text with wishes (`wishes`)

On the left side of the editor, you'll find all the **template elements (components)**. In addition to the mentioned elements, there's an image, background rectangles with colors, emojis, background circles, and other decorative elements.

![Components of the birthdays card template](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-template-components.png)


> **Tip 1:** Rename the [template components](/docs/general/template-properties/) to easily identify them later during image automation.\
> **Tip 2:** Lock elements that you don't want to change during image generation. You can do this by clicking on the lock button in the element properties panel.

Once you've crafted your template to perfection, remember to save it. Now, you're ready for the final step: creating the automation.

## Create the automation

In this final step, we'll create and configure the automation using Zapier, which will seamlessly connect all our apps and facilitate the automated birthday message delivery to the selected Slack channel.

To get started, log in to Zapier and create a **new Zap** by following the instructions below.

### Setting up the Trigger from Google Calendar

The trigger event will be an event from our birthday calendar, which will initiate the desired action when a birthday is detected.

#### App & event

Choose **Google Calendar** from available apps and select **Event Start** as the trigger event.

![Setting up Google Calendar as trigger in Zapier automation](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-zapier-trigger.png)

#### Account

Connect Zapier with your Google account to grant it secure access to your calendar. Rest assured, your calendars will not be shared anywhere.

![Connecting Google Calendar to Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-connecting-calendar.png)

#### Trigger

Now, it's time to specify the trigger event. Start by selecting the **Birthdays calendar** where you've added all the birthdays in your Google Calendar. Next, set up the **Time Before** and unit (I recommend setting it to 30 minutes, which means that Zapier will check for triggers 30 minutes before the birthday event and initiate the automation accordingly). Click **Continue** when you're done.

![Setting up calendar trigger in Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-zapier-trigger-setup.png)

#### Test

The final step in this part is to test the trigger connection. Simply click on **Test trigger** and wait for the results.

![Testing the trigger in Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-zapier-trigger-test.png)

Once the test is completed successfully, click on **Continue** to proceed to the second part of the automation: connecting with the RenderForm birthday card template.

### Action: Link RenderForm template

In the action phase, we'll connect the birthday card template created in RenderForm with the event details from Google Calendar. This will involve using the event title as the birthday person's name and the event description as the personalized wishes.

#### App & event

Search for RenderForm in the list of apps and select **Create Image** as the event.

![Setting up RenderForm as action in Zapier automation](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-renderform.png)

#### Account

Connect Zapier with your RenderForm account to gain access to your templates and enable image automation.

![Connecting RenderForm to Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-renderform-connect.png)

#### Action

In this step, we need to specify how we replace the components in our birthday card template. As a reminder, we'll be replacing the `name.text` and `wishes.text` components from our template. The birthday person's name can be found in the Google Calendar event as the **event title (Summary)**, and the wishes can be obtained from the **event Description**.

![Setting up RenderForm action in Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-renderform-action.png)

#### Test

Next, Zapier will conduct a test to ensure the connection is working correctly. Click on **Continue** and then select **Test action**.

![Testing RenderForm action in Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-renderform-test.png)

Once the test is completed, you can **check the test image in the test result**. Open the image link in a new tab in your browser and verify if everything appears as expected.

![Test result with generated test image](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-renderform-result.png)

Now, instead of publishing our Zap, we need to add one more action: connecting our Slack channel, where the birthday cards will be sent automatically.

### Connect Slack channel

The last step in creating the automation for sending birthday cards is to deliver the actual message and image on Slack. This step follows a similar process, as outlined below.

Begin by adding a new action to our Zap and proceed with the configuration.

#### App & event

Search for Slack in the list of apps and select **Send Channel Message** as the event.

![Setting up Slack as action in Zapier automation](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-slack.png)

#### Account

Connect Zapier with your Slack account to access Slack channels and enable automated messages.

![Connecting Slack to Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-slack-connect.png)

#### Action

In this step we create the message that is sent to Slack. For that we need to:

- select the Slack channel where you want to send the birthday card
- create a message with text and incorporate the RenderForm action result, which is the auto-generated birthday card image

In the message, you can add additional text (optional) and choose the RenderForm action result, which is the automatically generated birthday card image.

![Setting up Slack action in Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-renderform-action.png)

> You can also personalize the message content! Utilize the birthday person's name from the event title to give it a personal touch!

#### Test

To ensure everything is functioning properly, run one final test.

![Testing RenderForm action in Zapier](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-automation-renderform-test.png)

#### Publish Zap

Finally, after conducting the test, click the **Publish** button. With that, our birthday card automation is ready to go!

## Birthday card automation test

Before the automated sending of real birthday cards, it's important to perform a test to ensure that everything is set up correctly. Here's how you can do that:

**1. Create a birthday event in your "Birthdays" calendar**, scheduled for now plus 40 minutes. For example, if it's currently 9:00 AM, set the event to start at 9:40 AM. This allows Zapier enough time to run the trigger.

**2. Wait for the trigger to activate** in Zapier. The trigger will check the calendar for any upcoming birthdays.

**3. Check the result** on your designated Slack channel. You should see the automated birthday card message with the personalized wishes and image.

By performing this test, you can ensure that the automation is functioning correctly and that the birthday cards are being sent as intended.

![Test result for birthday card automation in Slack](/blog/birthday-cards/birthday-card-automation-test.png)

Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the seamless automation of sending personalized birthday wishes to your team members on Slack. Celebrate their special days with a touch of automation and make them feel valued and appreciated!

Automate sending birthday cards to your team members on Slack


[Zapier](https://zapier.com/) is a popular platform for no-code automations for different type of workflows. It gives you an ability to orchestrate and automate many tedious tasks like sending out e-mails on some event. Zapier offers many options that can help you work more efficiently and effectively with simple workflows' automation.

Zapier offers [multiple apps and integrations](https://zapier.com/apps) that you can use to automate your workflow. It's a perfect solution for marketing automations and other repetitive task that can simply be done automatically and save your time. One of such tasks can be automatic image generation.


<ZapierPlugin/>



## Quick Start: Create custom image with Zapier

Search for 'RenderForm' in Zapier app directory and choose 'Create Image' action.
Choose your template and in 'Changes' section put properties which would you like to change.

![Render image with Zapier](/blog/zapier/render-image-with-zapier.png)

List of template properties you can check in **Form Editor** tab in a template **Preview** window.
To open **Form Editor** tab, click **Preview** button on your template and switch tab to **Form Editor** on the top.

![Get template properties for image rendering](/blog/zapier/get-image-properties-for-image-rendering.png)

See [the list of all template properties](/docs/general/template-properties/).

## How can I use image automation?

If you are creating multiple similar images manually, then image automation will be your lifesaver. Instead of creating and changing the image every time you need to save it or send it in an email, you can simply create a template and generate images with different content automatically. 

How does it work? You will see an example below with RenderForm image template and Zapier automation. The general idea is to **automatically replace selected elements from your image with new content**. Imagine that instead of re-creating the same image, you can personalize it automatically by, for example, filling up a short form or adding data to Excel. We will work on that example below.


## Image automation with Zapier

Zapier is a great choice for image automation. The setup is intuitive, and it requires no codding nor specific knowledge. There are only 3 steps here: add trigger event in Zapier, create image template, and setting up the automation. Are you ready to try it now?

### Event trigger

We will start with creating a trigger event in Zapier. This event will trigger an action of generating an image. It can be anything, a new lead, new email received, scheduled meeting, new ticket, request. Anything you can think of.

![Create event with Tally](/blog/zapier-trigger-event.jpeg)

Let's create a new Zap. Our trigger event will be a **new form submission from [Tally](http://tally.so)**. To connect your Tally account with Zapier, simply search in on the list in trigger block, log in and select the form you want to use. Confirm and allow Zapier to test the trigger to make sure it can retreive all data correctly. The whole trigger setup will take max 1 minute.

**How will it work?** I created a simple Tally form, where I fill all data I need to create a hotel offer for my client. In the form, I enter hotel details, trip dates, price, etc.; so everything I want to send in the offer.

![Tally form](/blog/make-tally-form.jpeg)

### Create image template

Now it's time to create our image template in RenderForm. One element in your image template, for example text, is one component that can be editable via Zapier automation.

I created different components like `price`, `title` or `availability`, and I will be replacing those elements automatically when there is a new form submitted on Tally.

![Create image template in RenderForm](/blog/make-renderform-template-l.jpeg)

Using Zapier automation, I will be generating a new image replacing details like price, hotel name or hotel image with details from the Tally form submission.

### Action - Create image

The last step is to **add RenderForm image generation to Zapier**. We will use *Create image* action, meaning that we want to generate a new image when trigger event is called.

Search for RenderForm in action block in Zapier and select the action type. Log in to your account and add your API Key (you can find it in [your account](https://renderform.io/console/api-keys/) section in RenderForm).

![Add RenderForm event in Zapier](/blog/zapier-renderform-apikey.jpeg)

When it is done, we need to configure the process of image generation, **define what and how elements should be replaced** when there is a new form submission on Tally. Those are called *Changes* in Zapier.

There are two things we are setting up:

- **RenderForm component** - on the left side, we need to type the component name (we set it in RenderForm template) and the component type after a dot. For example, `price.text` which means that we will be replacing *price* component which is of type `text`.
- **Tally form element** - on the right side, we select from which Tally form element we will take data to replace the image component.

![Set up RenderForm image generation](/blog/zapier-renderform-setup.jpeg)

### Run automation to generate image

And the automation is ready! Save the Zap and let Zapier test it for you. As a result, you will see an **image generated from a recently submitted form**. Try submitting another form with different data and check how RenderForm generates a new image for you automatically.

![Image generated automatically](/blog/make-renderform-image.jpg)

And voilà! We are done! Remember to **turn on your Zap to make it work and listen for new submissions from Tally**.
Preparing the whole Zap took **less than 5 minutes**. This is really a great strength of no-code automations and tools like Zapier!

You can try to create other Zaps and enhance them with batch image generation with RenderForm. Sky is the limit, use your imagination to attract more customers or increase satisfaction level with image personalization.


## Resources

- [List of template properties](/docs/general/template-properties/)
- [Documentation: Dynamic og:images](/docs/general/dynamic-og-images/)
- [Zapier](https://www.zapier.com)


Image Generation with Zapier



Image generation is a technique of automated or semi-automated images creation. Creating a complete and eye-catching image with API from scratch could be a challenging task.
Great graphic designers usually don't know how to code, so they use visual editors like Photoshop, Sketch or RenderForm to create their drafts and mockup.
Image generation software uses templates created by graphic designers and API just replaces properties like texts, colors or images to
meet the final requirements.

## Step 1: Create a template

Add components and design your template in our [Template Editor](/docs/general/template-editor/).

![Online Editor for Image Generation](/blog/simple-online-design-editor.png)

Check every added component on canvas.

### Set image fit
Click on image and on the right side adjust image fit option. Set image fit to `cover` if it can be cropped on sides in order to fill whole space, or use `contain` option if the image must be showed without cropping.
The contain option is useful when you add logos or brand visuals.

### Adjust text box
By default, RenderForm will scale down your text if it will be bigger than blue rectangle.
You can set width and height of a text box to make sure your text can freely grow.

![Text alignment](/blog/text-component-alignment.jpg)

### Adjust text alignment
Click on text and on the right side scroll down to 'Alignment' section.
You can decide how the text will grow if it will be bigger than used placeholder on draft.

## Step 2: Automate and scale

Now, you are ready replicate your template with different texts, images and more!
No matter which integration you will choose, the general rule of thumb is that you need to know which component you want to update and what property.
![Layout plus Data equals your image](/blog/image-generation-api.jpg)


General format of change looks as follows:

`YOUR_COMPONENT_ID.PROPERTY=YOUR_VALUE`

Example:

`myNameComponent.text=This is my name`


Check [list of properties](/docs/general/template-properties/) which you can edit with any integration.


![Example of generated image from Image Generation API](/blog/example-of-generated-image-from-image-generation-api.jpg)



Zapier

Make.com

Integrately

WordPress Plugin

Mailchimp

Airtable Extension

Google Sheets

Excel/CSV file

REST API

RenderForm CLI

Webhooks

HTML to Image

Zapier

Automate sending birthday cards to your team members on Slack

Image Generation with Zapier

What is Image Generation?