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Every 15 minutes

Get an Outlook email when a new row is added in Excel

When new feedback or requests are added to your Excel table, you get an email listing them.

Runs
Every 15 minutes
Apps
Microsoft Excel, Outlook
AI
Optional
Access
Files.Read, Mail.Send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 15 minutes, check the Requests table in my Excel workbook. When new rows appear, email me from Outlook with the new entries, and add a one-line AI summary if there are several.

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 facilities team collects requests through Microsoft Forms, which saves each response as a row in an Excel workbook. Nobody watches the workbook, so a broken heater reported on Monday is noticed on Thursday.

An email as soon as new rows appear means requests are seen within minutes, without anyone keeping the workbook open.

What you get out of it

  • Requests seen quickly

    New rows reach your inbox within a quarter of an hour.

  • Works with Microsoft Forms

    Forms that save to Excel feed it directly, with nothing extra to set up.

  • One email per batch

    Several rows that arrive together come in one email, not a flood.

  • Summary for busy days

    When many rows arrive, AI adds a one-line summary at the top.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime reads the rows of your Excel table.

  2. It compares the row count with the count it saved last time.

  3. If there are new rows, it builds an email listing them, with a short AI summary when there are several.

  4. The email is sent from your Outlook, and the new count is saved for next time.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Microsoft Excel
  • Connect Outlook

What you get

RunsEvery 15 minutes
Get an Outlook email when a new row is added in Exceltoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · New rows in Requests2 new rows in Requests Name: Facilities, Northwind office · Request: Heater in meeting room 3 not working · Urgency: High

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

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • 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 Microsoft Excel and Outlook 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.
email_me_when_a_new_row_lands_in_excel.pyexample
from clickruntime import on_trigger, report_fetched, http, credentials, ai, state

def graph(method, path, **kw):
    r = http.request(method, "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0" + path, headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('microsoft', 'work')}"}, **kw)
    return r.raise_for_status() or (r.json() if r.content else None)

def send_mail(to, subject, text):
    graph("POST", "/me/sendMail", json={"message": {"subject": subject, "body": {"contentType": "Text", "content": text},
          "toRecipients": [{"emailAddress": {"address": a}} for a in to.split(",")]}})

BOOK = "/me/drive/items/your-workbook-id/workbook"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    table = graph("GET", f"{BOOK}/tables/Requests")
    header = graph("GET", f"{BOOK}/tables/Requests/headerRowRange")["values"][0]
    rows = [r["values"][0] for r in graph("GET", f"{BOOK}/tables/Requests/rows")["value"]]
    seen = state.get("count")
    new = rows[seen:] if seen is not None and seen <= len(rows) else []
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new:
        if seen != len(rows):
            state.set("count", len(rows))
        return {"summary": "No new rows"}
    body = "\n\n".join("\n".join(f"{h}: {v}" for h, v in zip(header, r)) for r in new)
    if len(new) > 2:
        try:
            body = ai.generate(body, system="Summarise these new requests in one line.", max_output_tokens=60).text + "\n\n" + body
        except ai.AIError:
            pass
    send_mail("you@example.com", f"{len(new)} new rows in {table['name']}", body)
    state.set("count", len(rows))
    return {"new": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

How does it know which rows are new?
It remembers how many rows the table had last time and emails the ones added since.
Can it email someone else?
Yes. Name any address and it sends from your Outlook.
What if rows are deleted?
It notices the table got shorter and starts counting from the new size, so no rows are reported twice.
What permissions does it need?
Files.Read, Mail.Send. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No, but you can ask for an AI step (for example a summary). It then uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new 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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