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Daily

Catch double bookings before they happen

You're warned about overlapping meetings in the coming week while there's time to move one.

Runs
Daily
Apps
Google Calendar
AI
Not needed
Access
read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every morning at 7am, check my calendar for the next 7 days and email me any meetings that overlap, ignoring ones I've declined.

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

A busy operations director accepts invitations quickly from her phone, and on Thursday discovers a client call and a board prep session both on the calendar at 2 pm. Both organizers assumed she had confirmed. Google Calendar shows overlapping events side by side, but only if you happen to open that day. Without a check, conflicts are found when someone is already waiting on a video call. The cost is a rushed apology.

Each day, ClickRuntime lists your events for the coming week, skips any you declined, sorts them by start time and finds the pairs that overlap. It emails you the list of clashes with the titles and times, so you can resolve them ahead of time instead of on the day.

Executive assistants managing several calendars find it a useful safety net.

What you get out of it

  • Clashes are fixed days in advance

    With notice, you can reschedule one meeting politely. Doing it at the last minute looks careless, but a day or two of warning looks like good planning. A gentle early note rarely upsets anyone.

  • Both organizers get answers sooner

    Telling someone early that you cannot make it lets them find a replacement or move the meeting. Waiting silently and missing one is far more disruptive for everyone. Everyone planning around you benefits from earlier notice.

  • Less stress on busy weeks

    You know whether the week ahead is feasible before it starts. That clarity makes it easier to say no or ask for a different slot while there are still options.

  • A safety net for assistants

    Assistants managing executive calendars can scan one email for conflicts across the week. It catches the clashes created when several people book into the same executive's time independently. One email beats checking each calendar separately every morning.

  • Declined events do not create noise

    Meetings you have already turned down are skipped, so the list holds only real conflicts. A short accurate list is much more likely to be read and acted on. That keeps the daily email worth opening.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every day ClickRuntime reads your upcoming Google Calendar events, leaving out ones you have declined.

  2. It sorts them by start time and checks which ones overlap.

  3. If it finds any clashes, it emails you each pair of overlapping meetings with the time they collide.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google Calendar

What you get

RunsDaily
Catch double bookings before they happentoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · 2 overlapping meetings this week2026-10-21T14:00: Acme QBR overlaps Northwind design review

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 Calendar 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.
double_booking_alert.pyexample
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, notify

def declined(e):
    return any(a.get("self") and a.get("responseStatus") == "declined" for a in e.get("attendees", []))

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    cal = build("calendar", "v3", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False)
    now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
    items = cal.events().list(calendarId="primary", timeMin=now.isoformat(), timeMax=(now + timedelta(days=7)).isoformat(),
                              singleEvents=True, orderBy="startTime").execute()["items"]
    timed = [e for e in items if "dateTime" in e["start"] and not declined(e) and e.get("transparency") != "transparent"]
    clashes = []
    for i, a in enumerate(timed):
        for b in timed[i + 1:]:
            if b["start"]["dateTime"] >= a["end"]["dateTime"]:
                break
            clashes.append(f"{a['start']['dateTime'][:16]}: {a.get('summary')} overlaps {b.get('summary')}")
    if clashes:
        notify.email_me(f"{len(clashes)} overlapping meetings this week", "\n".join(clashes))
    return {"overlaps": len(clashes)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it treat back-to-back meetings as overlaps?
No. Only events whose times actually overlap are reported, so a meeting ending at 2:00 and another starting at 2:00 are fine. If you want a warning for meetings with no gap between them, a buffer setting can be added.
Are all-day events and tentative invitations included?
All-day events like holidays are usually left out, since they rarely conflict in a meaningful way. Tentative invitations can be included or excluded, depending on whether you want to see possible conflicts as well as confirmed ones.
Can it check more than one calendar at once?
Yes. You can compare your main calendar with a work or family calendar, which is where hidden conflicts often come from. Events from every calendar are merged before sorting and checking for overlaps. Pairs are listed with their titles and times, so you can see at once which calendar each clash came from.
What permissions does it need?
read. 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 (daily). 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.

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