Every 15 minutes

Get told about new Docs in a shared folder

When someone creates a Doc in your shared folder, you get its title, author and link.

Runs: Every 15 minutes
Apps: Google Docs
AI: Not needed
Access: read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 15 minutes, tell me in Slack when a new Google Doc appears in our Specs folder, with title, author and link.

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

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

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

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A marketing director shares a Drive folder with five agencies and freelancers, and any of them can drop in a new Google Doc: a draft, a contract, a brief. Nobody tells her. A legal review document sits unopened for a week because the author assumed the share notification was enough, and Drive's own emails get buried among two hundred other messages. The cost is delay, and sometimes a missed deadline.

Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime lists the Docs in the folder you choose, compares them with what it saw last time, and posts any new ones in Slack with the title, the creator and a link. Documents already announced are remembered, so each appears in the channel only once.

It also works for team wikis and client folders, where new documents mean new work.

What you get out of it

New work is noticed within minutes
A Doc created in a shared folder appears in the channel the same quarter hour. Reviewers start sooner, so approvals stop waiting on someone happening to open the folder. Nobody has to guess whether something is waiting.
No dependence on Drive emails
Google's notifications are easy to miss or filter away. A message in a channel people actually watch is far more dependable, and it can be seen by the whole team at once.
Authors are visible
The creator's name appears with each post. That shows who is adding what to a client folder, which helps agencies and managers keep track of contributors. Fixing it the same day avoids awkward exposure of private material to people who should not see it.
Accidental or unwanted files are caught
If someone creates a Doc in the wrong folder, or a personal file lands in a client folder, it shows up quickly. Fixing it the same day avoids awkward exposure of private material.
Folders can double as a simple intake
Teams can treat a folder as a request box. Anyone drops a brief in, and the channel announces it, so work arrives without a form or a ticket system. Work arrives without a form or a ticket system, which suits small teams that do not want extra tools.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every 15 minutes ClickRuntime checks your shared Google Drive folder for Google Docs created since its last check.
Each new Doc is posted to your Slack channel with its title, who created it and a link to open it.
It remembers the time of its last check, so each Doc is only announced once.

Before it runs live

Connect Google Docs

What you get

RunsEvery 15 minutes

Get told about new Docs in a shared foldertoday, 9:00Succeeded

Slack · #specsNew spec: Acme SSO integration by Riya Patel https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SpEc/edit

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
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 Docs 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.

new_doc_in_folder_alert.pyexample

from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, report_fetched, credentials, state, notify

SPECS = "specs-folder-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    drive = build("drive", "v3", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False)
    since = state.get("since") or "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z"
    files = drive.files().list(q=f"mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.document' and '{SPECS}' in parents "
                                 f"and createdTime > '{since}' and trashed = false", orderBy="createdTime",
                               fields="files(name,createdTime,owners(displayName),webViewLink)").execute()["files"]
    report_fetched(len(files))
    if not files:
        return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
    for f in files:
        notify.slack(f"New spec: {f['name']} by {f['owners'][0]['displayName']}\n{f['webViewLink']}", channel="#specs")
    state.set("since", files[-1]["createdTime"])
    return {"new": len(files)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it include documents in subfolders?

By default it watches the folder you name. Subfolders can be included, but each adds to what is checked, so many teams list the main folder and a few key subfolders. Tell it which levels matter when you set it up.

Will it also announce Sheets, Slides and PDFs?

The alert is set for Google Docs, but the file type is a filter. You can include Sheets and Slides, or every file type, if the folder holds more than documents. Decide based on how noisy the channel would become.

What if someone creates many Docs at once?

Each new Doc gets its own line in one message or in separate posts, depending on your preference. A bulk upload of fifty files can be summarized as a count with a short list, which keeps the channel from being flooded.

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 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.

Collects as they arrive, acts daily