How to Format Full State Name to 2-Letter Code in Zapier

Option 1: Look Up Table with Zapier Formatter, Zapier Tables or Google Sheet

If the formatting is strictly for a given country (eg: US). It makes sense to keep the values in a place like Google Sheet, Zapier Table and look up.

How to setup Formatter by Zapier to format US states to 2 code

1. Create a step and use “Formatter by Zapier”
2. For the Action event, select “Utilities”
3. In Configure tab, under Transform, pick Lookup Table
4. For the Lookup Key, pick the dynamic value from previous step, for the example below I’ve put New York.
5. Under look up table, add all the states and 2 code format.

Limitations with using Formatter for state code formatting

1. Works for a single country as it would be hard to maintain formatting for multiple countries.
2. Requires an initial setup, you can leverage a Zapier table if multiple automations are relying on this formatting.
3. If the input has any misspellings the look up will fail.

How to setup Zapier Table to format US states to 2 code

The approach is similar to lookup table in Formatter, instead of maintaining the data within the Formatter step we are creating a separate table leveraging Zapeir tables which then can we be used by any automation. It’s a database.

Steps:

1. Navigate to Tables from Zapier dashboard
2. Create a new table
3. Either import data from a spreadsheet (csv, google sheet etc) or start blank
4. If you are starting from blank, add the data manually

Setting up the table

Using the table in an automation

In Setup

1. For the action pick Zapier Tables
2. Make sure App is set to Zapier Tables
3. Select “Find Record” note that for the state look up we only need one record on look up, Find Record returns one record at a time

In Configure

1. Table ID – Select the table created earlier
2. Filter count – Set to 1
3. Look Up field – The field containing the full state name
4. Lookup value – This should be from the trigger or previous action step, for the demo I have hardcoded it to New York

Limitations with using Zapier Table for state code formatting

1. Works for a single country as it would be hard to maintain formatting for multiple countries.
2. Requires an initial setup.
3. If the input has any misspellings the look up will fail.

Option 2: Using AI (ChatGPT, OpenAI, Zapier AI)

Using any of the AI powered Actions, a prompt could take the input and format.

Limitations when using AI based actions

AI may sometimes not adhere to the prompt instructions. I expect the all major AI providers to have accurate information of US states, if the use case is to format US states, this method is fastest to implement.