Welcome to a practical Zapier tutorial! In this guide, we'll set up the first part of automated identity verification for your marketplace.
This Zap is useful if you want to set up identity verification on your marketplace. For example, you may be creating a car rental, nanny service, premium product, or any other marketplace and want to verify the identity of your users to create trust on the marketplace. This Zap is only half of the equation: there is a tutorial for a companion Zap that grants access based on the outcome of the identity verification.
About Zapier
Zapier is a powerful and versatile tool for integrating different tools into your marketplace. You can learn more about Zapier in our introductory article or through this brief video from Zapier.
If you haven’t read the introduction and the action/event Zapier articles, we encourage you to do so to better understand how Zapier works. But if you want to dive straight into action, feel free to read on!
What you need for this tutorial
External accounts
Zapier Account
Create a Zapier account if you don’t already have one. You can sign up at www.zapier.com.
During registration, Zapier may ask which apps you plan to use. You can enter Sharetribe at this point or add it later.
iDenfy account
This is for setting up identity verification. There is a 7 day free trial, after which you need to subscribe to one of the paid plans.
How to set up your marketplace
Your marketplace must be configured in a certain way to support this Zap. Here is how you should set things up:
Set up access control
This setting depends on what you want the identity verification to achieve. Joining the marketplace, creating listings, initiating transactions? You decide.
Marketplace pages for successful and failed identity verification
You need to create two pages for the identity verification: one for successful, and one for failed verification
These pages can be very simple: one section is enough. You'll need an ID, a title and a paragraph. For example:
Successful verification
Page ID: id-success
Title: Identity verification successful!
Paragraph: Your identity verification was successful. Please allow for a couple of minutes for our automatic process to process this, and you will soon gain access to the marketplace.
Failed verification
Page ID: id-failed
Title: Identity verification failed!
Paragraph: Your identity verification failed. Please contract the marketplace team at team@example.com for more information.
Recently created user account
You'll need one recently created user account on your marketplace to test the Zap
If you haven't created one yet, go ahead and create one!
If you want the Zap to set up approval to the marketplace based on successful ID verification, make sure not to approve the user account yourself
With these pieces in place, let's get started!
Note: The identity verification testing process will check the name on your ID and if it matches your first and last names on the marketplace, so make sure they are correct (and match your real life ID) for the test account.
Getting your Integration API key from Console
You'll need Integration API keys to connect your Sharetribe marketplace to Zapier.
Navigate to Build > Advanced > Applications.
Click on "+ Add a new application".
Give the application a descriptive name (like Zapier), and select "Integration API".
Click "Add application".
Important: Copy and paste the Client ID and Client secret to a safe place, like a password manager.
IMPORTANT: Think of the Client ID and Secret as a sort of a password to your marketplace that can be used to access your marketplace data through other services. Note that you won’t be able to ever see the Client secret to this application again in the Console under any circumstances. Make sure you copy it to a secure place. If you lose it, you will need to create a new application.
iDenfy and API keys
There is no need to get a separate set of API keys from iDenfy
When connecting Zapier to iDenfy, you will use the iDenfy username as the API key, and your iDenfy password as the API secret
Creating the Zap, step by step
(Optional) Importing the Zap template
Go to www.zapier.com and log in with your account (or create a free one if you don't already have one).
Click on "Try this Zap."
Step 1: User creation trigger
Create a trigger with the Sharetribe application. As the Event, choose 'User Events'
In the Configure section, select 'User created' as the event type
Test your trigger. Make sure it finds a recently created user event from your marketplace
If it didn't, go ahead and create a user account on your marketplace and re-test the Zap
Step 2: Start identity verification process with iDenfy
This is the main step of the process. Note that you have some freedom in how to configure the fields, but unless you know what you're doing, it's recommended to follow these settings exactly.
Set up the next action step to work with the iDenfy app. You can find it by searching the Zapier database when selecting the app.
Connect your account. The API key is your iDenfy username, and the API secret is your iDenfy password.
In the setup section, select 'KYC - Create Identity Verification' as the action event
In the configure section, fill in the required details. Make sure that for the entries that start with "1.", you choose them from the dropdown menu that you can open from the Plus (+) sign, don't write them in.
Verification type: Face with ID
Client ID: '1. User Id' (select Custom value by clicking the 3 dots)
User Interface Language: The language you want your users to have
First Name: '1. User Profile First Name:'
Last Name: '1. User Profile Last Name:'
Identification URL expiry time: You can leave this empty unless you want to modify it (standard is 24h)
Identification session time: You can leave this empty unless you want to modify it (standard is 30 minutes)
Generate code for verification through mobile application: No (default; you can edit this if needed)
Success URL: Add the full URL address of the "id-success" page you created earlier in this tutorial
Failed URL: Add the full URL address of the "id-failed" page you created earlier in this tutorial
Unverified URL: Add the full URL address of the "id-failed" page you created earlier in this tutorial
Country: Your marketplace's country in a two-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code - write this in. If your marketplace operates in multiple countries, you'll need to set a custom user field where the user fills in their country, using the same two-letter code, and then you can fetch it from Step 1.
Available ID types: Choose all that you want to accept
Additional step: Disabled
Utility bill: Default (empty)
Continue, and test this step. In the "Data out" section, you should see an identification link, and other details from iDenfy. Out of these, the link is the only relevant part for this tutorial - we will use it later.
Step 3: Send the identification link via e-mail
Now the identity verification process has been initiated on iDenfy. The next step is to send a link to the identification process via Gmail (or any email provider of your choice).
Create a new step and select Gmail as the application
As the action event, select "Send Email"
In the 'Configure' section, find the 'To:' field, click the Plus + sign, and select "6. Email:" as the value for this field
Fill in the other fields as needed. For example, in the subject line, you could write:
[Your marketplace name here]: Identity verification URL
In the Body field, you could write the following (make sure to choose the variables in brackets from steps [1..] and [2..] by clicking the Plus sign):
Hello [1. User profile first name: ] [1. User profile last name: ], and thank you for registering on our marketplace! In order to gain access to the marketplace, you need to go through identity verification. You can do so by clicking this URL: [2. Identification link: ]. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the [your marketplace name] team by replying to this email! - Your Marketplace Team
Final thoughts
Thanks for reading this tutorial about creating a Zap for sending an ID verification link to your users! Now it's time to go to Part 2 of this tutorial: how to approve users once the identity verification process is successful.
Learn more about the Sharetribe-Zapier integration or review all our Zapier templates for automating marketplace workflows.
Please get in touch with us from your Console or from the bottom right section of this page from the chat widget if you have any questions about this guide, or anything else. We'll be happy to help!