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Hourly

Text appointment reminders and follow-ups from a sheet

Clients in your appointments sheet get a text the day before and a follow-up afterwards, with each send marked in the sheet.

Runs
Hourly
Apps
Google Sheets, Twilio
AI
Not needed
Access
Sheets edit; Twilio send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every hour, check my Appointments sheet; text clients 24 hours before their appointment and 2 hours after it with a thank-you, and mark each one sent.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Missed appointments cost independent practitioners real money: physios, tutors, mechanics and groomers all lose a slot when someone forgets. A reminder the day before cuts no-shows dramatically, and a follow-up afterwards brings people back.

Keeping appointments in a sheet and letting reminders and follow-ups send themselves gives you both without a booking system subscription.

What you get out of it

  • Fewer no-shows

    A text the day before reminds clients while there's time to rearrange.

  • Clients come back

    A thank-you after the visit invites the next booking.

  • No booking system needed

    Works from the sheet you already keep.

  • Nothing sent twice

    Sent columns record each reminder and follow-up.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every hour it reads your Appointments sheet.

  2. Clients with an appointment in the next 24 hours who haven't been reminded get a reminder text.

  3. Clients whose appointment ended a couple of hours ago get a thank-you text.

  4. Each send is marked in the sheet so nobody gets the same text twice.

Before it runs live

  • Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use
  • Connect Twilio

What you get

RunsHourly
Text appointment reminders and follow-ups from a sheettoday, 9:00Succeeded
SMS · ClientHi Blake, a reminder of your appointment on Tue 21 Oct at 10:30. Reply if you need to change it.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Google Sheets and Twilio steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
appointment_reminders_and_follow_ups_by_sms.pyexample
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from twilio.rest import Client
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http

SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"
FROM = "+15005550006"

def sms(to, body):
    return Client(credentials.secret("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID"), credentials.secret("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN")).messages.create(to=to, from_=FROM, body=body)
sheets = lambda: build("sheets", "v4", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets().values()

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    rows = sheets().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Appointments!A2:E").execute().get("values", [])
    now, sent = datetime.now(), 0
    for i, r in enumerate(rows, start=2):
        name, phone, when, reminded, followed = (r + [""] * 5)[:5]
        try:
            at = datetime.fromisoformat(when)
        except ValueError:
            continue
        if not reminded and now < at <= now + timedelta(hours=24):
            sms(phone, f"Hi {name}, a reminder of your appointment on {at:%a %d %b at %H:%M}. Reply if you need to change it.")
            col, sent = "D", sent + 1
        elif not followed and at + timedelta(hours=2) <= now < at + timedelta(hours=26):
            sms(phone, f"Thanks for coming in today, {name}. Book your next visit any time by replying to this text.")
            col, sent = "E", sent + 1
        else:
            continue
        sheets().update(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range=f"Appointments!{col}{i}", valueInputOption="RAW", body={"values": [["sent"]]}).execute()
    return {"sent": sent}

FAQ

Common questions

What columns are needed?
Client name, phone, appointment date and time, and two columns to record the reminder and follow-up.
Can I change the timing?
Yes. Choose how many hours before and after.
Can the follow-up ask for a review?
Yes. Include your review link in the follow-up text.
What permissions does it need?
Sheets edit; Twilio send. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (hourly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Text appointment reminders and follow-ups from a sheet” from your assistant

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