You are creating a Zap. A lead comes through a form and has to go to your CRM. Email contains additional spaces. The name is in all caps. A phone number is buried in a text block.
Data needs to be cleaned before it hits your CRM. The question is where should this change be?
Until now, the answer was usually to add a formatter step. The formatter is powerful – perfect for complex transformations and advanced logic. But for quick, field adjustments, adding a whole step might be more than you need.
Today, we are introducing an additional option.
Inline formulas let you handle subtle changes within your existing Zap steps. Trim text, extract emails, combine fields, parse JSON, and more — wherever you’re mapping data. No extra steps. There is no context switching. Just smooth workflows.
How inline formulas work
When you’re setting up an action and mapping a field, you can now apply a formula directly to that field. The change runs within the step, and the result is carried over to your next step.
Here’s what it looks like in practice.
Example 1: Clear emails.
You are syncing contacts with your email platform, but the incoming email field contains extra spaces and capital letters. Before sending it to your CRM, you want to normalize the value.
Input data | Formula | The result |
|---|---|---|
JOHN@EXAMPLE.COM |
| john@example.com |
Result: The email is clipped and converted to lowercase directly within the Zap step.
Example 2: Extract email from dirty text.
Support tickets include contact information buried within a long description. You need to pull the email address and send it to another app.
Input data | Formula | The result |
|---|---|---|
Please reach out to sarah.smith@company.com or call 555-1234. |
| sarah.smith@company.com |
The result: The formula extracts the first email address it finds and passes it directly to your next step—no additional processing required.
Example 3: Set the fallback value.
The form field is optional. If it is empty, you may want to provide a default value so that your CRM field is never empty.
How it works:
The result: You ensure that required fields are always populated, which is especially helpful for CRM hygiene and standard reporting.
Example 4: Combine multiple fields.
Before sending data to another app you need to create a full name from separate fields.
Apply the formula:
Result:
The combined value goes directly into your action step—no extra formatter step is required.
Inline formulas save me a lot of time—little things that used to require an extra formatter step can now be done directly in one step. Convert text to lowercase, concatenate between two variables, or extract email from raw text. Huge time saver!
—Dennis Chiuten, founder at work.flowers
Why it matters
As your automations grow, your workflows become more sophisticated. Clean data is fundamental, and Formatter is the right tool for structured, multistep transformations.
Inline formulas add flexibility.
For small in-field adjustments like trimming text, extracting values, combining fields, or setting fallbacks, you no longer need to use the entire step.
This means you can:
Reserve the step capability for advanced logic
Keep the workflow simple
Decide where the change belongs.
This gives you more control over how you build, so you can use your initiatives where they create the most value.
wrap up
Inline formulas are now available on your plan.
The next time you’re mapping a field to an action, click the formula icon and apply the change directly to that field.
Ready to try it? Back to Zapier →