Developer Blog

5 Automations to Level-Up Your Blog with Directus

Published June 24th, 2024

Written By

Muhammed Ali

Guest Author

TagsGuest AuthorAutomate

Maintaining a blog requires more than just compelling content; there's a lot of other manual work or processes that may need to be set up.

This article shows five automation ideas that will level up your blog powered by Directus, allowing you to focus more on content creation and less on the intricacies of blog management.

Before You Start ​

You will need:

• A Directus project - follow our quickstart guide if you don't already have one.
• A DeepL API key for translation.
• An OpenAI key for generating search engine optimized summaries of your content.

In your Directus project, create a new collection called content and comment with the following fields:

For content:

• seo_summary: Textarea, string
• comment: one to many, comment
• approved: Radio Buttons, Choices: yes, no, Default Value: no

Do not add the fields to be translated like title or detail yet, because those will be stored in a separate collection. Follow this translation guide to set up your multilingual project.

For comment:

• content: many to one, content
• comment: Textarea, string

Automate the Translation of Your Content ​

Automated translations ensure that every new post is available in multiple languages simultaneously, helping you be more accessible to a global audience.

Before continuing, add a translation field in your content collection with a title and detail field, if you haven't already.

We will automate translation from English to French, then update the article that was just created or updated. While we will translate only the detail section of the blog, but you can also use this method to create a translations for more fields.

This automation relies on the AI Translator extension, which you can download from the Directus Marketplace and is published by the Directus team.

Create a new flow with an event trigger. The scope should be items.create and items.update on the content collection.

The trigger will only return the key of the content, but we require the detail field. Create a Read Data operation and give it full access permissions. On the "Content Translations" collection, access the following query:

{
    "filter": {
        "_or": [
            {
                "_and": [
                    {
                        "content_id": {
                            "_eq": "{{$trigger.keys[0]}}"
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "languages_code": {
                            "_eq": "en-US"
                        }
                    }
                ]
            },
            {
                "_and": [
                    {
                        "content_id": {
                            "_eq": "{{$trigger.key}}"
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "languages_code": {
                            "_eq": "en-US"
                        }
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

{
    "filter": {
        "_or": [
            {
                "_and": [
                    {
                        "content_id": {
                            "_eq": "{{$trigger.keys[0]}}"
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "languages_code": {
                            "_eq": "en-US"
                        }
                    }
                ]
            },
            {
                "_and": [
                    {
                        "content_id": {
                            "_eq": "{{$trigger.key}}"
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "languages_code": {
                            "_eq": "en-US"
                        }
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

The query filters for records in Content Translations where the content_id matches {{$trigger.keys[0]}} (when an updated item) or {{$trigger.key}} (when a newly-created item), and retrieves the en-US version. The Read Data returns the full article that was just created or updated.

Now add the AI Translation operation with full access permission. Enter your DeepL API key and select the appropriate plan. In the Text input, insert {{$last[0].detail}} and then choose the desired language.

Now we can save the French output by adding the Create Data operation on the Content Translations collection with full access permission. Use the payload:

{
    "content_id": "{{$trigger.keys[0]}}",
    "languages_code": "fr-FR",
    "detail": "{{$last}}"
}

{
    "content_id": "{{$trigger.keys[0]}}",
    "languages_code": "fr-FR",
    "detail": "{{$last}}"
}

You can test this out by creating new content. After a few seconds, the French version will be populated. You can do the same for the title.

Automate Content Publishing Once Approved ​

As a blog manager, you frequently juggle multiple tasks. By setting up an automated publishing workflow in Directus, once a post is reviewed and approved, it gets published immediately. This automation eliminates the back-and-forth of manual scheduling and reduces the risk of human error.

Create a flow to trigger upon updating a post and select the content collection.

Add a Read Data operation with the key of read_translation attached to the Content Translations collection with the ID {{$trigger.keys[0]}}. This will return the payload that includes the title and detail of the content that was just updated. If you examine the payload, you'll notice that the approved value is not included, as it is saved in the content collection.

To retrieve this information, you'll need to use the Read Data operation again, this time attached to the content collection with the ID {{$trigger.keys[0]}}.

Now use the Condiion operation with the following Condition rule:

{
    "$trigger": {
        "payload": {
            "approved": {
                "_eq": "yes"
            }
        }
    }
}

{
    "$trigger": {
        "payload": {
            "approved": {
                "_eq": "yes"
            }
        }
    }
}

This is saying that the flow should go to the next operation if "approved" is equal to "yes". If the condition is met, you can follow this existing docs post on using Netlify/Vercel build triggers.

Configuring Alerts for New Comments ​

As your blog grows, monitoring comments manually becomes impractical. Automated alerts ensure that you and your team are notified of new comments instantly, enabling prompt responses and community engagement.

In this section, you will learn how to set up an automation to send comments email to a specified email.

This automation assumed that comments are either collected directly in your Directus project, or that they are synced/pushed via an integration.

Create a flow to trigger email upon creating a comment and select the comment collection.

Now add a Read Data operation attached to the Content Translations collection with the ID {{$trigger.payload.content}}`. This will return the comment that was just created. Now attach the Send Email operation. In the To section input the email addresses you want the notification to go to.

**Subject**:  Comment for on article "{{get_article_comment.title}}"
**Type**: Markdown
**Body**: 
    Hello, there is a comment for the article "{{get_article_comment.title}}"
    > {{$trigger.payload.comment}}

**Subject**:  Comment for on article "{{get_article_comment.title}}"
**Type**: Markdown
**Body**: 
    Hello, there is a comment for the article "{{get_article_comment.title}}"
    > {{$trigger.payload.comment}}

Automatically Write SEO-Optimized Summaries ​

Writing SEO summaries can be time-consuming and repetitive. By using the AI Writer extension, available in the Directus Marketplace, you can automatically generate keyword-rich summaries, improving your blog's SEO performance and freeing up time for more creative tasks.

Once you've installed the AI Writer extension, create a flow to trigger upon creating a post and select the content collection.

The trigger will only return the key of the content, but the whole post is needed to send to OpenAI. Create a Read Data operation and give it full access permissions. On the “Content Translations” collection, access the following query:

{
    "filter": {
        "_and": [
            {
                "content_id": {
                    "_eq": "{{$trigger.key}}"
                }
            },
            {
                "languages_code": {
                    "_eq": "en-US"
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

{
    "filter": {
        "_and": [
            {
                "content_id": {
                    "_eq": "{{$trigger.key}}"
                }
            },
            {
                "languages_code": {
                    "_eq": "en-US"
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

Pass the content to OpenAI by creating an AI writer operation. Input your OpenAI key, select the GPT model you want to use and Prompt as Create SEO Description. The Text will be gotten at {{$last[0].detail}}.

Update the content collection with the newly created SEO description using Update Data operation - the ID tag will be {{$trigger.key}}. You can now save the summary back to the item.

Connect to the World of Zapier Integrations ​

Zapier is a wonderful automation tool with thousands of pre-built integrations. While Directus Automate is powerful, it's useful to recognize when integrating with other tools ends up being more efficient.

Create a Zap with a Webhook Trigger URL. Once you have this, data can be sent to Zapier from Directus.

Create a flow to manually trigger on the Item page in the content collection. Now, create a Read Data operation, on the “Content” collection, use the ID at {{$trigger.body.keys[0]}}.

Create a Webhook/Request URL operation with the POST method and paste in your Zapier hook URL. You can add any data required by your Zap in the body.

Examples of what you can do with Zapier for social media automation includes posting to Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Conclusion ​

By leveraging the capabilities of Directus, from automated translations to content posting, you have the ability to operate your blog effectively. These five automation strategies not only streamline your workflow but also ensure that you cut down on the actions you need to take between the writing and promotion process.