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Weekly

Track a web page for new items and get a task to review each

New items on a page you follow are summarised into your sheet, and each one gets a Google Task so you review it.

Runs
Weekly
Apps
Google Sheets, Google Tasks
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
Sheets write; tasks

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every Monday, check this page for new items, add a short summary of each to my Updates sheet and create a Google Task to review it.

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

Some pages matter for work but change without warning: a regulator's publications list, a council's planning notices, a supplier's announcements. Checking them by hand is easy to forget, and a missed update can mean a missed deadline or a compliance problem.

Compliance leads, consultants and small business owners use it to keep a dated record of what changed and to make sure someone actually reads each new item, not only that it was noticed.

What you get out of it

  • A record you can point to

    Every new item is logged with its date and a short summary. When someone asks when a rule changed, the answer is in the sheet.

  • Each item gets an owner

    A Google Task to review each new item turns noticing into doing. It sits in your task list until you tick it off.

  • Summaries save reading time

    A two-line summary tells you whether an item needs a careful read now or can wait until later in the week.

  • Only new items, every time

    Items already logged are skipped, so the sheet and your task list do not fill up with repeats.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Once a week, ClickRuntime opens the page you chose and collects the links to its items.

  2. It compares them with the items it logged before and keeps only the new ones.

  3. AI writes a two-line summary of each new item.

  4. Each item is added as a row in your sheet, and a Google Task to review it is created in your list.

Before it runs live

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

What you get

RunsWeekly
Track a web page for new items and get a task to review eachtoday, 9:00Succeeded
Google Tasks · My TasksReview: Updated guidance on packaging waste reporting New deadline for annual returns moves to 30 June; small producers now included.

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
  • 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 Google Tasks 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.
monitor_a_source_log_to_sheets_create_follow_up_tasks.pyexample
from urllib.parse import urljoin
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, http, state, ai, credentials

PAGE = "https://example.gov/publications"
SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    links = {urljoin(PAGE, a["href"]): a.get_text(" ", strip=True)
             for a in BeautifulSoup(http.get(PAGE).text, "html.parser").select("main a[href]") if a.get_text(strip=True)}
    seen = set(state.get("seen") or [])
    new = [(url, title) for url, title in links.items() if url not in seen][:20]
    if not new:
        return {"new": 0}
    creds = Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work"))
    sheets = build("sheets", "v4", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets()
    tasks = build("tasks", "v1", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False).tasks()
    rows = []
    for url, title in new:
        summary = ai.generate(f"Summarise in two plain sentences:\n{title}\n" + BeautifulSoup(http.get(url).text, "html.parser")
                              .get_text(" ", strip=True)[:3000], max_output_tokens=120).text.strip()
        rows.append([(event.scheduled_time or "")[:10], title, url, summary])
        tasks.insert(tasklist="@default", body={"title": f"Review: {title}", "notes": f"{summary}\n{url}"}).execute()
    sheets.values().append(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Updates!A:D", valueInputOption="USER_ENTERED",
                           body={"values": rows}).execute()
    state.set("seen", sorted(seen | {u for u, _ in new})[-2000:])
    return {"new": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

What kind of pages work best?
Pages that list items with links, such as a news page, a publications list or a notices board. Pages that need a login, or that load their list with scripts after the page opens, may not show their items.
Can I track several pages?
Yes. List the pages you want to follow and each run checks all of them, logging which page each item came from.
Can tasks have a due date?
Yes. Each review task can be due a few days after it is created, so it shows up in Google Tasks and Calendar on that day.
What permissions does it need?
Sheets write; tasks. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (weekly). 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 “Track a web page for new items and get a task to review each” from your assistant

Copy the prompt above, or connect your assistant first. Free plan, no credit card.