Every 15 min, sends pending rows
Send personalised texts to a list in a sheet
Fill a sheet with numbers and messages and each pending row is texted, with the delivery ID and status written back.
- Runs
- Every 15 min, sends pending rows
- Apps
- Google Sheets, Twilio
- AI
- Optional
- Access
- Sheets edit; Twilio send
Send this to your assistant
Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 15 minutes, text every row in my Outbox sheet marked pending, using the message in that row with the person's name filled in, and write the message ID and status back.
First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.
Why use it
Why teams use this automation
Small businesses regularly need to text a list: a reminder to past customers, a change of opening hours, a win-back offer. Bulk texting tools charge monthly fees and want you to upload your list somewhere new.
Preparing the list and messages in a sheet you already use, and letting the pending rows send themselves, keeps control with you and gives you a clear record of who was texted.
What you get out of it
Your list stays in your sheet
No uploading contacts into another tool.
Personal messages
Each row can have its own text, with names filled in.
A clear record
Every row gets a message ID or the reason it failed.
Safe to re-run
Only pending rows are sent.
How it works
What happens, step by step
Every 15 minutes it reads the rows in your sheet marked pending.
Each message has the person's name filled in, or is written by AI from your notes if you choose.
The text is sent to that row's number.
The message ID and status, or the error, are written back, so the row isn't sent again.
Before it runs live
- Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use
- Connect Twilio
What you get
Build your own
Need it to work differently?
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 Twilio steps into one automation
Under the hood
The code that runs this automation
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from twilio.rest import Client
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, report_fetched
SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"
FROM = "+15005550006"
def sms(to, body):
return Client(credentials.secret("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID"), credentials.secret("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN")).messages.create(to=to, from_=FROM, body=body)
sheets = lambda: build("sheets", "v4", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets().values()
@on_trigger
def run(event):
rows = sheets().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Outbox!A2:E").execute().get("values", [])
pending = [(i, (r + [""] * 5)[:5]) for i, r in enumerate(rows, start=2) if len(r) > 3 and r[3] == "pending"]
report_fetched(len(pending))
if not pending:
return {"summary": "Nothing pending"}
for i, (name, phone, message, _, _) in pending:
try:
result = ["sent", sms(phone, message.replace("{name}", name)).sid]
except Exception as e:
result = ["failed", str(e)[:200]]
sheets().update(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range=f"Outbox!D{i}:E{i}", valueInputOption="RAW", body={"values": [result]}).execute()
return {"processed": len(pending)}FAQ
Common questions
Can AI write the messages?
How fast are texts sent?
What about people who opt out?
What permissions does it need?
Does it need AI?
How many runs does it use?
Can I change how it works?
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