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Every 30 minutes

Turn companies in a sheet into research briefs in Google Docs

Add a company to your sheet and a research brief appears in a Google Doc, with the link written back into the row.

Runs
Every 30 minutes
Apps
Google Docs, Google Sheets
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
Sheet edit; Docs create in shared folder

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: for each new company row in my Prospects sheet, research the company from its website, write a brief in a Google Doc, and put the doc link in the row.

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 founder doing outbound sales keeps a sheet of target companies. Before each call she spends twenty minutes on the company's website piecing together what they sell, who they serve and what might matter to them. With a dozen calls a week, preparation crowds out the selling.

This automation picks up each new company in the sheet, reads its website, and has AI write a short brief in a Google Doc: what the company does, who its customers are, and likely talking points. The link goes back into the row, so preparation for a call starts with a ready page.

What you get out of it

  • Call preparation done before you sit down

    Each brief is waiting by the time you look at the row. You spend your time reading and thinking about the conversation rather than gathering facts.

  • A consistent format for every prospect

    Every brief follows the same headings, which makes companies easy to compare. Colleagues know where to look for the same information each time.

  • Briefs stay linked to the pipeline

    The doc link sits in the prospect's row, so notes and research are one click away. Nothing gets lost in a downloads folder.

  • Easy to share with the team

    Briefs are ordinary Google Docs. Anyone joining a call can read them, add comments, and correct what the website did not make clear.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 30 minutes, ClickRuntime looks for rows in your Prospects sheet that have a website but no brief yet.

  2. It reads the text of each company's homepage.

  3. AI writes a short brief covering what the company does, who it serves and possible talking points.

  4. The brief is saved as a new Google Doc and its link is written into the company's row.

Before it runs live

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

What you get

RunsEvery 30 minutes
Turn companies in a sheet into research briefs in Google Docstoday, 9:00Succeeded
Google Docs · Prospect briefsBrief: Contoso Logistics. Overview: regional freight broker serving mid-size retailers. Talking point: they are hiring for route planning.

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 Google Docs and Google Sheets 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.
prospect_research_reports_from_a_sheet_into_docs.pyexample
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, ai, report_fetched

SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    creds = Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work"))
    sheets = build("sheets", "v4", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets()
    rows = sheets.values().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Prospects!A2:C").execute().get("values", [])
    todo = [(i + 2, r) for i, r in enumerate(rows) if len(r) >= 2 and (len(r) < 3 or not r[2])]
    report_fetched(len(todo))
    if not todo:
        return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
    docs = build("docs", "v1", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False).documents()
    for row, (name, site, *_) in todo[:5]:
        text = BeautifulSoup(http.get(site if site.startswith("https") else f"https://{site}", timeout=15).text, "html.parser").get_text(" ", strip=True)[:4000]
        brief = ai.generate(f"Company: {name}\nWebsite text:\n{text}", system="Write a sales research brief with sections: Overview, Customers, Products, Talking points.", max_output_tokens=900).text
        doc = docs.create(body={"title": f"Brief: {name}"}).execute()
        docs.batchUpdate(documentId=doc["documentId"], body={"requests": [{"insertText": {"location": {"index": 1}, "text": brief}}]}).execute()
        sheets.values().update(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range=f"Prospects!C{row}", valueInputOption="RAW",
                               body={"values": [[f"https://docs.google.com/document/d/{doc['documentId']}"]]}).execute()
    return {"briefs": min(len(todo), 5)}

FAQ

Common questions

What does it need in each row?
The company name and its website address. Rows that already have a doc link are skipped, so existing briefs are never overwritten.
Where are the docs saved?
In the Google Drive of the connected account. You can move them into a shared folder so the whole sales team can open them.
How accurate are the briefs?
They are based on the company's own website, so they reflect how the company describes itself. Check key facts such as size or funding before quoting them.
What permissions does it need?
Sheet edit; Docs create in shared folder. 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 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.

Set up “Turn companies in a sheet into research briefs in Google Docs” from your assistant

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