8 Discord automation ideas

While Discord started as a chat app for gamers, it's grown far beyond that initial use case. (That right there is the sign of a successful app.) 

Although gaming remains a strong part of its DNA, it's now popular with people organizing volunteer efforts, talking about hobbies, and collaborating for work.

Thanks to Discord's voice chat features, permission-based roles, and customization options, it's also a great fit for building and managing an online community. And it works even better when you pair it with automation. 

But while Discord moderators and admins often rely on third-party bots to automate tasks and run commands for them, there's a learning curve to setting them up. If you'd rather find streamlined ways to manage your Discord server with automation and integrate it with other apps, Zapier can help. 

From engaging with your followers to collaborating with teammates, here are a few ways Zaps—what we call automated workflows—can supercharge the way you manage Discord.

Table of contents

• Automatically assign roles

• Create images in Discord with DALL·E

• Automatically greet new server members

• Keep members informed about new content

• Auto-respond to frequently asked questions

• Automate Discord messages on a schedule

• Set up an automatic suggestion box

• Let teammates know about new projects or files

Automatically assign roles

One way Discord differs from other team chat apps is how it uses roles. Rather than a traditional community role structure—admins manage the server, moderators manage the conversations, and members can only post—Discord's roles are infinitely customizable. And many admins and moderators use bots to allow members to self-select these roles.

You can create standardized roles in Discord, such as administrators, moderators, or verified users. You can also create roles that serve cosmetic or informational purposes.

For example, I co-moderate a crafting Discord community. (Welcome to my secret life.) Other than our two standard roles distinguishing mods and verified users, we also allow members to self-assign other roleslike "knitter," "sewist," or "macrame." If you're using Discord for work, you might set roles for different teams, and see things like "marketing," "sales," "human resources," and "product."

Other roles in my crafting server allow people to opt in to receiving automatic invites to join events like a group voice chat hangout or a craftalong. Going back to the work example, this could be used to get automatic alerts to all-company meetings or for important deadlines.

While most folks will use a bot to handle role-setting, you can also use Zapier to automatically assign member roles. 

If your server has a separate verification process for new members, you can also use Zapier to connect a form or spreadsheet app to Discord. 

Create images in Discord with DALL·E

Want to create an image generation playground for you and your friends or coworkers inside Discord? With this workflow, you can use OpenAI's DALL·E directly within your Discord conversations and channels. 

Whether you want to drop your prompts in a Discord channel to generate a specific image, or you want to see what other folks want to create with AI, you can bring the power of visual AI to your workspace. 

Automatically greet new server members

By default, you can set your server to automatically announce when a new member joins your Discord server. But if you run a pretty large community, you'll likely want to direct new members to important places such as announcement channels or places where they can review community rules. 

First, make sure you have a welcome channel set up specifically for new members. Then, use a Zap to automatically greet new members with a custom message. 

Keep members informed about new content

Discord is popular with Twitch streamers and other content creators who want to build a deeper relationship with their followers. If you want to keep your community updated on what you're producing, you can use these Zaps to notify a Discord channel. 

Not publishing content?  You can also use Zapier to send information into Discord about transactions, new bugs, or even updates to your Spotify playlists.

Auto-respond to frequently asked questions

Tired of answering the same question in chat constantly? You can create your own auto-responder bot in Discord using Zapier.

You can use a filter—available on our paid plans—to trigger an automated response when someone uses a specific phrase. 

Automate Discord messages on a schedule

Perhaps you run a weekly thread on a specific topic in your Discord, or you're the responsible moderator who reminds the team to prune the members list once a month. Instead of sending those messages manually, you can use a Zap to automatically send those messages on a specific schedule. 

Don't want to send the same message each time? You can use a search step on a spreadsheet or Formatter's Pick from list function so you can randomize the language.

You can also set up reminder messages with a Zap that connects to your calendar app. With this, you can push out reminders for upcoming events. 

Set up an automatic suggestion box

The best online communities are the ones where members are invested and take an active role in making it great. While moderators help keep things running smoothly, they can't be everywhere. 

In the crafting Discord I run, the members have a lot of great suggestions for the server. But since we have members from all over the world (and we like to sleep), it was hard to keep track. 

Eventually, I set up a Typeform for members to make suggestions. At the end of each month, the mods receive a digest of the submissions for us to review. This helped streamline the process and made it more manageable for our team to make decisions. 

You can recreate this Discord automation yourself with one of the Zaps below: 

If you'd like to receive a digest of form submissions, you can add a digest step—available on our paid plans—and choose when and how you'd like your digest delivered.

Let teammates know about new projects or files

If you use Discord primarily for work, it's highly probable you're collaborating with teammates in different channels. 

Whether you're working together on specific projects or in charge of assigning work-related tasks to people, you'll need to spend some time coordinating within your project management and workspace tools—which can be a drain when you have to keep hopping between them. 

Instead, you can set up Zaps that will automatically send messages in Discord about new projects that get added to tools like Notion, or when new files get added to your Google Drive. That way, you can keep your team up-to-date on everybody's to-dos. 

Manage your Discord community with automation

Moderating your Discord server doesn't have to be a full-time job. With automation, you can streamline moderation tasks so you can spend more time participating in the fun.  

These workflows are just the start of all that you can do with Discord and Zapier. Zapier supports thousands of apps, so you automate almost any task. Start building your Zap now and see what you can create.

This article was originally published in July 2021. It was most recently updated in December 2023 by Elena Alston.