MAKE Issues: See How to Use Make Custom Functions
Complexity is unacceptable.
Formatting data nicely and transforming it into the required form is a crucial part of automation work. When using Make, you frequently encounter data transformation tasks such as converting text to uppercase, cleaning up unnecessary spaces, or changing date formats.
Similar to using functions in Excel, Make has over 80 built-in functions to help you handle these tasks easily.
However, as the scale and complexity of automation grows, the pre-built functions alone may not be enough. There are times when you need to process data in specialized and complex ways, or solve multiple tasks within a single step.
This is where Make Enterprise plan users can leverage 'Custom Functions' — using JavaScript to accomplish more diverse tasks than the default built-in functions.
By actively using custom functions, you can significantly reduce automation complexity while handling multiple tasks in a single module operation, reducing both operations and costs.
This naturally increases the efficiency and flexibility of automation workflows, enabling a progression toward 'low-code' approaches that require less separate coding.
If you're curious about how custom functions work, check out the video below.
Getting Started with Make Custom Functions
Custom functions are available in the 'Functions' menu of your account settings if you're using the Make Enterprise plan. Custom functions are managed at the 'Team' level — anyone with the Team Member role can view and use these functions, but you need the Team Admin role to create or modify them.
6 Steps to Using Make Custom Functions
- After logging into Make, navigate to the 'Functions' menu on the left side of the screen.
- Click the 'Add a function' button in the upper right corner.
- Enter the name and description of your custom function. Organize it well so it's easy to find later!
- Click the Save button.
- Now enter your JavaScript ES6 code in the provided input field. (Note: Code length is limited to 5,000 characters. Check official documentation for detailed restrictions.)
- Save the function so it becomes available in the scenario editor.
Can You Use Custom Functions Without Knowing How to Code?
While JavaScript knowledge certainly helps, you can absolutely leverage this feature without coding skills. Make offers various AI-powered easy features.
Many users describe their problem in plain everyday language, and AI generates the necessary JavaScript code, significantly lowering the technical barrier so anyone can create advanced automations easily.
Another amazing aspect is that every time you save a custom function, the system automatically manages version history.
This lets you compare versions or conveniently revert to a previous version when issues arise. It's especially useful when first creating custom functions.
How do you distinguish built-in from custom functions? In the scenario editor, custom functions have a small person icon next to them, making them easy to tell apart from pre-built functions.
Not sure where to start?
The Make official documentation has several custom function examples you can use. Reference them to see how they can be applied!
Want to see how custom functions help in real work?
Let's look at a marketing agency's real case to see how custom functions simplify data transformation processes and workflows.
Easily Processing Customer Addresses
A marketing agency was processing customer address data from a legacy vendor registration system.
These addresses were typically in long text format, and needed to be split into separate fields like street address, city, state/province, and zip code for operations, reports, and cloud database storage.
When the company adopted custom functions, the address-splitting work that previously required 10-12 steps using routers and iterators was reduced to just 1-2 modules. This made workflow management far more efficient.
Curious about how easily you can automate with Make custom functions? Contact the sales team right now.
They'll guide you on how custom functions can help your business!
IMPAKERS Blog | Here's another Make issue! Read more
Source: Make, "Custom Functions in Make: Best practices to help reduce complexity in automation", https://www.make.com/en/blog/custom-functions-in-make-best-practices, (2025.05.27)