WP Builds

On the podcast today we have Ken Young. Ken joins us from Toronto, Canada, and has a background in e-learning, plugin development, and WordPress automation. As a founder of Uncanny Owl, Ken and his team first made waves in the WordPress world with their focus on e-learning and LearnDash integrations before expanding into broader automation solutions. Ken is here to talk about all things automation within WordPress, specifically, how Uncanny Automator empowers users to connect plugins, SaaS apps, and workflows directly inside their WordPress websites. Think of it as the 'Zapier for WordPress,' letting you streamline, combine, and chain tasks between popular tools like WooCommerce, LearnDash, CRMs, and more, without the need for custom code or hopping between a dozen different connectors. We start by exploring the origins of Uncanny Automator, how the team identified the need for customisable, visual automation in the ecosystem, and the plugin’s rapid growth, now boasting over 240 integrations and 50,000+ users. We then get on to the real-world use cases, from form automations and content workflows to self-enrollment for courses, complex multi-trigger recipes, and even unusual edge-cases dreamed up by power users. Ken talks about how having automation live entirely within WordPress offers benefits in privacy, simplicity, logging, and error reporting. Towards the end we explored Ken’s insights on building integrations, how community feedback and AI have accelerated development, and where automation and page-building intersect in the era of AI. We learn about the new Uncanny Agent and Page Builder features, and how they are changing the future of Ken's products, letting users build pages and automations by simply describing what they want, no coding or design degree required. If you’re curious about scaling your WordPress site’s efficiency, connecting your tools, or seeing the future of AI-powered site management, this episode is for you.

486 - Unlocking WordPress automations with Uncanny Automator 0:00 / 48:22

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So today is like no other podcast episode I've ever aired on WP Builds. There's no intro, and I'm not the host, although I am in it! Today marks the launch of show.fm, a podcast app that I've been building with my friend Dan Maby. It ready, the best app (truly) in the podcasting world, and ready for you to become a 'Founding' member! Rather than me talk with Dan we decided that it would be nice to have a 3rd party do that work, and the (ever willing) Marc Benzakein from MainWP stepped up admirably. Podcasting is bigger than ever. You might not be a podcaster, but I'll bet you've listened to a few - well the world listens to a FEW million! They're a great way to get your message out there, and work wonderfully with WordPress, heck you're reading this! Your clients might even want one for their business! It's easy to start a podcast, but whilst starting a show is easy, keeping one running is a different beast. I have produced, edited, and published somewhere around 1,200 episodes, and Dan brings two decades of technical product development to tackle the real work behind the scenes: scheduling, research, guest wrangling, publishing, analytics, and more. Marc leads us, and we talk about why show.fm was built, combining years of first-hand podcasting pain points and software know-how into a single “PodOps” platform designed to smooth out and automate all those manual, repetitive processes. We get into the challenge of managing guests, which led to the guest network baked into show.fm. It's a marketplace where podcasters and guests can find each other, connect, and exchange endorsements (no bribery button… yet or ever!). We also explore so of show.fm's practical features such as automated guest research, distribution across all the major podcast platforms (with special love for WordPress integration, white-label options, and a migration tool for legacy players), a customisable workflow automation builder, sponsor reporting, and deep analytics. We (Nathan and Dan) open up about why building in public and gathering community feedback is central to the platform's evolution, and invite early adopters to help shape what's next by becoming a founding member at a never to be repeated price! If you’re a WordPress professional, podcaster, or agency looking to launch or scale a podcast without the post-episode burnout, and you want a sneak peek at a tool that handles everything but the talking, this episode is for you. Oh, and there's some silliness right at the end too!

485 - WP Builds hijack - how show.fm simplifies podcasting for WordPress creators 0:00 / 1:03:44

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