Bearings can bring new grants, investment, support and contracts straight into the tools your team already uses. It can give each one to the person who should act on it. Choose what you want once, below. Every guide then has your own links in it, ready to copy. All of it is free: no key and no sign-up, and most guides need no code.
1. Choose what to send
Feed link (RSS, used by most guides)
Data link (JSON, for developers and Salesforce Flow)
Spreadsheet (every live opportunity, CSV)
2. Pick your tool
Each item has a title, a link to its page on Bearings (who it's for, the deadline, then one click to the provider), and a summary with the award, area and provider. New matches arrive each weekday morning.
Salesforce
Each new opportunity becomes a Salesforce task (or lead, or opportunity) owned by the person who should act on it.
No code, with Zapier
- In Zapier, click Create Zap.
- Trigger: RSS by Zapier → New Item in Feed. Paste your feed link:
- Action: Salesforce → Create Record, and sign in to Salesforce.
- Object: Task to give it to someone (or Lead, Opportunity, or your own custom object such as “Funding opportunity”).
- Map the fields: Subject ← item Title; Description ← item Description and Link; Assigned To ← the person this feed is for.
- Test it, then turn the Zap on. New matches arrive each weekday morning.
For Salesforce admins, inside Salesforce (Flow)
- Setup → Named Credentials: create an External Credential with no authentication, then a Named Credential for
https://getbearings.co.uk. - Flow Builder → Schedule-Triggered Flow, daily (for example 9:00, after the morning update).
- Add an Action → Create HTTP Callout, method GET, path:
. For the sample response, open this link and paste what you see: - Loop over
data. Keep each item'sidin a custom text field marked External ID, and skip ids you already have (Get Records). - Create Records: a Task with Subject =
title, Description =urland deadlinecloses, and OwnerId = the person it's for.
HubSpot
Track the opportunities you chase as deals in their own pipeline, each with an owner, or send a regular round-up to your contacts.
A pipeline of opportunities, each with an owner
- In HubSpot, make a deal pipeline such as “Opportunities to pursue”, with stages like Found → Checking → Applying → Submitted → Won / Not this time.
- In Zapier, Create Zap. Trigger: RSS by Zapier → New Item in Feed, with your feed link:
- Action: HubSpot → Create Deal. Pipeline: the one you just made; stage: Found.
- Map: Deal name ← item Title; Deal description ← item Description and Link; Deal owner ← the person this feed is for.
- Test and turn on. The owner sees each new match in their deals, ready to move along the pipeline.
A round-up email to your contacts (Marketing Hub: good for support teams, members and networks)
- Marketing → Email → Create email → Blog/RSS.
- Choose an external RSS feed and paste your feed link:
- Pick how often it sends (daily, weekly or monthly) and who receives it, then turn it on. HubSpot sends only when there is something new.
Slack
New opportunities post straight into a channel as they appear.
Into a channel
- In Slack, open Apps, search for RSS and add it.
- Go to the channel you want, for example
#funding, and send: - That's it.
/feed listshows your feeds and/feed removefollowed by the feed's number stops one.
Give each one to someone
- One channel per team, each with its own feed:
#funding-digitalgets the digital feed,#tendersthe contracts feed. - Agree a reaction to claim one (✋ = “I'm on it”), so nothing is chased twice.
- To message the owner directly: in Zapier, trigger RSS by Zapier → New Item in Feed (
), action Slack → Send Direct Message to that person.
Microsoft Teams
Post new opportunities in a Teams channel, and make a Planner task for the person who should act. (Teams' old channel connectors are being retired; Workflows is Microsoft's replacement.)
Post in a channel
- Quickest: open Microsoft's template Post message on Teams when a RSS feed is published and paste your feed link:
- Or build it: Power Automate → Create → Automated cloud flow. Trigger: RSS → When a feed item is published, with your feed link.
- Action: Microsoft Teams → Post message in a chat or channel. Post as: Flow bot; Post in: Channel; choose the team and channel. Message: the feed title and the primary feed link.
- Save. Each new match posts in that channel.
Give each one to someone (Planner)
- In the same flow, before the Teams step, add Planner → Create a task.
- Choose the group and plan; Title ← feed title; Assigned User Ids ← the email of the person this feed is for; due date if you want one.
- Add the feed link to the task's notes (Update task details → Description), so the owner can go straight to it.
Google Sheets
A live list in a spreadsheet that keeps itself up to date.
A live list
- In an empty sheet, click cell A1 and paste:
- Sheets fills in the title, link, date and summary of each match, and refreshes it on its own (about every hour).
- Every live opportunity at once:
(a big file, so it can be slow).
A tracker with an owner for each row
- Imported rows move as the list changes, so don't type owners next to them.
- Instead, in Zapier: RSS by Zapier → New Item in Feed (
), then Google Sheets → Create Spreadsheet Row. Each new match is added once. - Add Owner, Status and Notes columns beside them; they stay put.
Excel
Pull the list into a workbook and refresh it with one click.
Import and refresh
- Data → Get Data → From Web (Excel for Mac: From Web under Get Data).
- Paste the spreadsheet link:
and click Load. - Data → Refresh All brings it up to date. To refresh automatically: Queries & Connections → right-click the query → Properties → refresh every N minutes or when the file opens.
- Only your area, sector and type: use the API link instead (
). In Power Query, clickdata's List → To Table → expand the columns.
Give each one to someone
- As with Sheets, keep owners in a separate tracker. Or use Power Automate: RSS → When a feed item is published (
), then Excel Online (Business) → Add a row into a table, or a Planner task (see Teams).
Asana, Trello, Monday.com, Notion, Airtable and more
The same two steps for any task board or database.
- Trigger: RSS by Zapier → New Item in Feed (in Make: RSS → Watch RSS feed items;
in Power Automate: RSS → When a feed item is published), with your feed link:
- Action: create the task, card or record (below). Map the title to its name, and the link and description to its notes.
- Give it to someone: set the field in the last column to the person this feed is for.
| Tool | Action | Give it to someone with |
|---|---|---|
| Asana | Asana → Create Task | Assignee |
| Trello | Trello → Create Card | Members, or a list per person |
| Monday.com | monday.com → Create Item | the People column |
| Notion | Notion → Create Database Item | a Person property |
| Airtable | Airtable → Create Record | a User (collaborator) field |
| ClickUp | ClickUp → Create Task | Assignees |
| Jira | Jira Software → Create Issue | Assignee |
| Microsoft Planner | Power Automate: Planner → Create a task | Assigned User Ids |
Developers
The open API takes every filter above, returns JSON
and works from any website. For a daily job, add new=1 (first seen
in the last 7 days) and keep each item's id so nothing is added
twice:
The data changes once each weekday morning, so polling once a day is
enough. Please send people to each item's url (the provider's own
page) and credit Bearings. The whole feed is also in
digest.json, and there are RSS feeds
for every area, sector and type.
Built something with it, or want a guide for another tool? Tell us.