On a schedule
Text people on their birthday from a sheet
Everyone in your sheet gets a friendly text on their birthday or anniversary, and the sheet records when it was sent.
- Runs
- On a schedule
- Apps
- Google Sheets, Twilio
- AI
- Optional
- Access
- Sheets edit; Twilio send
Send this to your assistant
Create a ClickRuntime automation: every day at 9am, check my Customers sheet for birthdays and anniversaries today, text each person a short congratulations, and note the date sent in the sheet.
First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.
Why use it
Why teams use this automation
Salons, dentists, gyms and estate agents know a birthday or anniversary message keeps them front of mind, but remembering to send them is the hard part. Lists go out of date and days slip by.
Sending a short text from your sheet on the right day keeps the gesture personal and consistent, and the sent column stops anyone getting two messages.
What you get out of it
Never miss a date
Messages go out every day the moment the sheet says so.
Customers remember you
A personal text on their day is noticed and appreciated.
No double messages
The date sent is recorded, so nobody is texted twice.
Optional personal touch
AI can vary the wording so messages don't feel copied.
How it works
What happens, step by step
Every morning it reads your sheet.
It finds people whose birthday or anniversary is today and who haven't been texted this year.
Each person gets a short, friendly text, optionally worded by AI.
The date sent is written back to their row.
Before it runs live
- Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use
- Connect Twilio
What you get
Build your own
Need it to work differently?
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
- Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
- 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
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from twilio.rest import Client
from datetime import date
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, ai
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="Customers!A2:E").execute().get("values", [])
today, sent = date.today(), 0
for i, r in enumerate(rows, start=2):
name, phone, when, kind, last = (r + [""] * 5)[:5]
if when[5:] != today.strftime("%m-%d") or last.startswith(str(today.year)):
continue
try:
text = ai.generate(f"{kind or 'birthday'} for {name}", system="Write a warm one-sentence text from a local salon. No emojis.",
max_output_tokens=50).text.strip()
except ai.AIError:
text = f"Happy {kind or 'birthday'}, {name}! Wishing you a lovely day from all of us."
sms(phone, text)
sheets().update(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range=f"Customers!E{i}", valueInputOption="RAW", body={"values": [[today.isoformat()]]}).execute()
sent += 1
return {"sent": sent}FAQ
Common questions
What columns does the sheet need?
Does the year matter?
Can I include an offer?
What permissions does it need?
Does it need AI?
How many runs does it use?
Can I change how it works?
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